Hmmm. Muscle stuff

Or that's what I assume.

Way back in April (April 16), I participated in the city-wide trash-off day. The next day, and the day after, my right hip was very sore. I figured it was a pulled muscle, and waited for it to get better.

Then it briefly got better, I thought "maybe it was just a muscle cramp," and went back to regular activity. Then it got worse again.

It's still not really "better."

I think I may keep re-stressing it. For one thing, I have a bad tendency, when I'm at home, to slouch and "sit the wrong way" in my big chair (it's wide enough that I can sit with my legs tucked up under me, or sit "sideways" - with my back against one arm of the chair and my legs hanging over the other one). It's also, I'm discovering, not the best-made chair ever, and it's showing its ten years of wear (the upholstery is wearing thin in spots, and also, it feels like the support in the back of the chair is not what it once was).

Then, for a while, I thought the hip stuff was maybe arthritis. It SEEMED to get better with exercise, at least for a while, and then got worse overnight.

(Is there anything worse than having pain when you're trying to sleep? Especially pain where you can find NO sleep position that remains comfortable and have to wake up and move every couple hours)

But, I kept dutifully exercising, because, as I said, I thought maybe it was arthritis. And this is a whole body-issue thing for me: "It's your fault, in part, if you have arthritis now" I thought "You have been too big since you were a teenager." And of course, the fact that my annual checkup is coming very soon doesn't help. (Though at this point, there's little I could do, short of fasting, to lose any weight).

I didn't exercise yesterday because it was super-humid first thing in the morning and I just couldn't face doing it. And then as the day wore on, I got too busy to pick it back up. (I was on my feet for a couple hours invigilating an exam)

And then, last night - my back hurt less. I was actually able to sleep comfortably for more than a couple hours at a time. And it's noticeably better when I got up this morning. (Earlier, the muscle almost felt - "Burnt" is the only adjective that comes to mind, it felt like when you get a bad cooking burn or steam burn on your knuckle, only in the muscle - tight, stiff, and, like I said, "burnt.")

So I decided to go another day without working out and see what happens. And again, body issues - part of my brain is screaming at me for not working out, but another part is screaming back that I'm hurt, that if I were sick and throwing up or if I had had to (say) have stitches on a cut on my leg, I'd not be exercising.

So I don't know. (And no, I haven't gone to a doctor. The last time I went to a GP down here for a totally weight-unrelated issue, they asked me if I wanted them to prescribe me a weight-loss drug. I was REALLY offended, and also kind of hurt - do I REALLY look that fat? Then I learned a lot of the general-practice docs here apparently have sidelines in "bariatrics," so they have a vested interest in getting patients in for that kind of maintenance. But still. Makes me not want to go back to a doctor. I go to an allergist here who is pretty sane about it, but most of my other doctors are actually the ones I saw back up in Illinois. Even though I have to pay for the check-ups myself instead of my insurance paying for them. Because I don't want to have to bolster my damn self-esteem after every checkup. And if I ever DO see another doctor down here? It will DEFINITELY NOT be one who lists "bariatrics" among their specialties. I have a hard enough time coming to terms with my body without someone I perceive as an "authority" telling me it's horribly, horribly flawed. I mean, (cussword), I work out an HOUR A FREAKING DAY four days a week. And I eat what I think I "should" eat rather than what I "want" to eat. And I can walk long distances without tiring and lift heavy things and do hard fieldwork and generally manage...and yet, I feel like I have people telling me there's something terribly wrong with my body, and sort of with the undercurrent of WHY AREN'T YOU DISABLED ALREADY BY ALL YOUR GROSS FAT)

(and THIS. This is why heavy people often won't go to the doctor. Dammit, we KNOW we're fat. We KNOW we weigh more than we "should." We don't need to be shamed. If it were easy to lose weight - if it really were 100% a matter of willpower, we'd have done it long ago. Willpower. Heh. If I'm working out an hour a day most days a week, and finding time to practice piano for 50 minutes to an hour, I don't really think there's anything wrong with my willpower.)

I did ask the campus nurse about it, her interpretation was that it was a pulled muscle. So I don't know. I thought pulled muscles got better faster than 3 1/2 weeks, but maybe, as I said, I keep on stressing it and it can't get better that way.

(Based on where the pain is, looking at a diagram of the hip muscles, it's possible that it's the piriformis. I know that dancers sometimes injure that muscle)

So I don't know. I hurt, it stinks, and it doubly stinks because I feel like I should be better already. And it makes me sad to think that the exercise I was doing to "stay healthy" may have been making the injury worse all along.