For years, I have been dealing with back pain. It is not some simple little "twinge" a person kind-of feels... It is a searing ring of fire that starts at my spine and wraps around me like a barbed wire belt worn at the height of a waistband on a senior citizen. Besides the pain, I also get the feeling like I have some serious acid reflux that borders on being very nauseous. Now, I am not one to judge the fashion sense of my elders, but it has been known that the older a person gets... the higher the waistband is on their pants.
I see that my back issues are something that really does not need to be discussed every time it happens, but I never mentioned it here.... well, until now. I realized that I have a pretty strong determination to keep pain under control. Especially in my back. I do daily stretches, I watch what I eat, I see a chiropractor when it gets really bad, but I remain "in tune" to when it is about to start with my own little arsenal of things to do to fight the agony... The ice pack is my usual first go-to item. Freezing it to numb seems to be quite efficient for this battle. Well, that and taking an anti-inflammatory like Advil or Aleve (the days of Tylenol are way over when it comes to this kind of pain). Sometimes I even down a Tums or two for the sour stomach feeling. It is my own little cocktail for managing something that refuses to be managed. I have been to countless doctors and have spent a few times in the emergency room to be sent home because they cannot find anything wrong with me. Well, pumping me up with muscle relaxers and antacids does help make the pain go away before the overworked ER doctor can actually see me. I guess that is how I figured my pain relief cocktail at home.
I truly believe I have a second sense when it comes to a back spasm. Well, it does happen to have a pattern of making its appearance.... Waking me up from a dead sleep between 2 and 4am. Being the nice person that I am, I do not disturb DH in his slumber and I crawl down stairs to grab my go-to items and spend the rest of the morning hours on the couch with a pillow, blanket, and ice pack squared on my spine. The pain needs to be frozen in order to feel some comfort to finally go back to sleep, but leaving a warm bed for an ice pack can keep a person awake for hours, so I fill in the time watching late, late, late TV. From personal experience, there is really nothing on except infomercials. I have watched numerous late night ads that range from the newest diet craze to "miracle" items to make cleaning your house easier, cooking meals faster/healthier, reverse the signs of aging, beauty "must haves", and such. I just find it so interesting at how something is the newest, most effective and best kept secret has already been used for purposes to show that it works. Where do they find these people? I'm sorry if I sound a little cynical, but there is no way that a person that loses 100 pounds in roughly 6 months has tight skin that you can bounce a quarter off of it, and zero signs of ever having a stretch mark. My goodness! I still do not have the tight, stretch mark-free skin after giving birth a little over 11 years ago and that 50 pound "fast" weight loss from being pregnant to not pregnant took time... lots of time and I still am not thin enough.
Realizing that I am lacking rest for my brain cells to think really clearly, I can see the interest in wanting to buy these items that are to never be sold in stores. Nobody actually can focus their sight well enough to read the fine print on the bottom of the screen to see that the results are not typical and will vary from person to person. Who cares that they basically convinced you that you are guaranteed to lose large amounts of weight in a short period of time with what I can see is lies-a-plenty. Of course, on a side note, if you wait long enough, you will find these things in your local Target and Walgreens stores. Why pay shipping and handling when you can pick it up locally. I just seem to find it comical how the act of excitement and the feeling that you will get a great deal of savings of you call in the next 5 minutes. Okay, not really comical, but darn scary that I can almost... and I mean almost be swayed to pick up the phone and order. Fortunately, I am awake enough to know better. That and DH would never let me hear the end of it if I did break down and fall victim to the infomercial sales pitch.
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