exercise

[mishb]

I personally will be telling all of my friends not to go mountain bike riding
I have seen many people on here who "used" to go mountain bike riding but now can't because of Wegs.
It's becoming more apparent to me - that wegs is caused by getting on a bike

In regards to the exercise thing, I agree with Sangye and just do what you can. Move your arms, move your legs, lift your legs etc - which can all be done from your bed or chair if need be.
Walk ten steps, walk twenty steps........you know what, at least you are moving and hopefully, it will get better.


In regards to the flu shot - my rheumy put it this way "why would you want to put more chemicals into your body, than you are already putting in there - you have enough going on at the moment"
I agree.

[Sangye]

WOW-- I love your rheumy.

[me2]

While we are talking about exercise... I want to second the caution against over doing it if you on long term prednisone. I have been on prednisone for 14 years. Sometimes very high doses. Recently I had a calf muscle in excruciating pain. Something snapped inside. I got an ultrasound and they could find anything. Which is good, because that means it wasn't a real big injury. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt. I wasn't even over doing it. I was just walking along and was instantly in terrific pain. I was on crutches for a while. I HAVE healed up and can walk around without pain now but I'm going to increase my bodily stress very gradually.
My Rhuemy said my injury was likely due to prednisone.
I have not had a flu shot maybe ... ever.

[mishb]

While we are talking about exercise... I want to second the caution against over doing it if you on long term prednisone. I have been on prednisone for 14 years. Sometimes very high doses. Recently I had a calf muscle in excruciating pain. Something snapped inside. I got an ultrasound and they could find anything. Which is good, because that means it wasn't a real big injury. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt. I wasn't even over doing it. I was just walking along and was instantly in terrific pain. I was on crutches for a while. I HAVE healed up and can walk around without pain now but I'm going to increase my bodily stress very gradually.
My Rhuemy said my injury was likely due to prednisone.
I have not had a flu shot maybe ... ever.

Those calf muscles are a killer - mine actually torn and the bruise came out so black and stayed for 4 weeks.
That was at the end of May this year and it still hurts.
Definitely be careful



Sangye, I loved her as a Rheumy - unfortunately she got rotated out of rheumatology and is now in what she thinks will be her calling of Immunology.

[Carmen11]

What is your diet plan ?

[Wegetarian]

I think someone mentioned to me that Pred makes the calf muscles shorter. Haven't read that anywhere though, so dunno about the accuracy of that. Streching would probably be a good thing for all of us.

To get myself motivated to excercise I got myself a laziness tracker, a Fitbit Flex. i guess the correct term is activity tracker, but dunno... Wanted something to motivate me to move more, as I wasn't allowed to do anything else except some light walks when I got out of the hospital.. I probably mentioned this before though. Anyway, it tracks my steps and if you remember to put it into sleep mode at night it will also track how long you slept. You can use the app on your phone to mark other excercise, and for instance what you have eaten (if you set a goal for yourself if will subtract the amount of calories you have burned from the ones you have eaten).

I can see this info then on their webpage, like this is my Monday and how many steps I took:



So I woke up at midnight and 4 am, and looks like I took a nap around 16:00.. As I said its my laziness tracker

[aewaustin]

For fatigue make sure to check your ALP and b12 levels, if they are low then one factor could be that you are not absorbing nutrients. I have found that my body does not absorb food and that is adding to my fatigue. Many folks with autoimmune have these issues. Mine are because i am eating foods that cause my gut to act up. Just had the Alcat test done so finally know what foods are affecting me.

[brew22]

Which one do you recommend? I looked on line and there are several to choose from at different price points? Thanks!!

[aewaustin]

Alcat is very pricey unfortunately, but I did the 150 foods and am glad that I did, which was about $500. There are random things that I react to that I am glad that they came up, and they were part of the 150. I have spent a small fortune trying to heal my neuropathy, and would have probably saved myself $1000 or more if I had done this first. Learning that foods are the first thing, if you don't have that right then you can't work on the rest. Even if I get accupunture/massage or whatever, if I still am eating something that makes me react the issues will never end.

[sunnykmr123]

To the top and back home in one day. Med-boy wouldn't have lasted 15 minutes trying to keep up with me on the trail and he treats me like I'm some fat lazy slob that doesn't know enough to exercise.