Posting once every five days, per my usual

[trinityvixen]

I don't even have anything to say, but I saw how infrequently I've been posting and panicked. Forgive me if this is all nonsense.

-I've been so busy at work, I have had weeks feel like days. Which is awesome, as work-weeks should, if possible feel short. The problem is that weekends feel even more brief, what with all the running around I've been doing. Even when that running around was to hurry up and wait, weekends vanish in an instant. I'm taking an extra day off around Labor Day just to spend one day doing as much nothing as humanly possible.

-My replacement bike arrived! I can't remember if I mentioned it, but the bike I ordered the first time around had a bent front fork, such that the two bars that are supposed to line up so you can slide the front wheel's axle in...didn't. They were crooked, irreparably so, so I had to send it back and get another sent to me. The new one came together just fine. I'm going to look to getting it tuned up this weekend, with an eye to taking it with on Labor Day and having a nice jaunt or two on it.

-My back has been killing me. I can't work out if this is still fallout from when I wrenched it hauling groceries up the stairs or what. The problem is that my upper and lower back are now hurting. I tried massaging my upper back last night with the magic wand I bought expressly for that purpose. Because it was hurting so badly, I dug in with the massager, and now I feel bruised...and my back still hurts. So it's sore and I can't really rub it. Joy. It may be time to actually see an orthopedist. I've had upper back pain most of my life, mostly do to being large-chested. My posture is generally really good, and there's not much else that could be causing this repeat stress. As for the lower back pain, I'm beginning to worry that the new mattress is at fault. Damned inconvenient that.

Ooh, whine whine whine. Sorry about that.

Comments

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I've found Icy Hot (or the Ben-Gay or Icy Hot pad-things) to be helpful when my back is particularly cranky. But if it doesn't improve in a couple of days, you should indeed see your doctor.

Silly thought: Have you checked your chair at work? Is it siginificantly different from your previous one?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The chair is an oddity, for certain. I can't adjust the height as well as I would like. I am probably going to switch in favor of one that does allow me to do that, even if it means losing the arm rests.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I'd blame the chair before the mattress, all things being equal. Also, it's easier to switch out.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my first thought is also what is your new desk set up? My current job requires me to spend a lot of time leaning over my desk and (shockingly, I know) I started having lower back pain when I started.

I always find rum helps upper back pain. Hey--it's a muscle relaxant!

You could also try strengthening your core muscles. That's supposed to help back pain. Back when they were threatening me with a back brace when I was growing up I had to do PT to strengthen my abs and back muscles.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

How does one strengthen one's "core muscles"? Do I have to buy that rodeo thing we made jethrien use that time?

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

We have a Pilates dvd you could try sometime.
I got halfway through it once before getting bored, but doing lots of proper situps and other exercises is supposed to help.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Magic wand. Heh.

Could be a combination of things... a change in mattress (if it's very different from your old one) compounded with a lot of moving and perhaps even additional stress from work. I find that when I don't excercise--and stretch--I am much more susceptible to neck and back pain of various sorts. I hope it gets better soon, but it's been a while already so you may want to think about getting it checked out. Hot showers and sometimes Tiger Balm type linaments sometimes help me out.

Has anything else changed? New bag? Sitting differently while using your laptop?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think because a variety of things have changed, I cannot figure out what I did that's changing things. Balls and fie. But I'm going to try changing things in succession, see what that gets me.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I read that too fast and thought you wrote "Balls of pie". And thought, "how would you bake that?"

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

Desk chair is key. My first year of work my scoliosis pain came back bigtime, and it was because of an unpleasant task chair.