Year of Yes – 3
I’m learning that sometimes saying yes is about saying no. I’ve had sciatica pain for the last 58 days or so. I kept living life and exercising on the bike. I kept hoping it would just disappear on its own.
But it did not.
Finally, I had a videoconference with my doctor and she recommended that I take a continuous dosage of aleve and stay away from the bike for ten days. When she saw me balk, she said ok start with 5 days. Try it for five days.
She also said that if aleve doesn’t work she’d have to move to more serious medication and this particular medicine has caused huge issues with me in the past so I reluctantly agreed to give it an honest try.
Despite my fears that if I stopped riding, I’d stop permanently, I stopped riding. Instead I’ve been doing pilates, strength, arms, meditation and yoga. But no bike.
Today was day five and I feel about 20% better. Not much to write home about but also considering how acute the pain usually is and how much the next medication scares me, I plan to email her tomorrow and see if she’d recommend I continue this Aleve plan another five days. I might even do the stretches she sent me.
I’m still scared I won’t ever go back on the bike and I’m scared to say no to it but I also know that if I want to say yes to being healthy, I need to give myself space to occasionally rest and heal.
So here we are. No in the short term so I can hopefully say yes in the long term.
Here’s hoping.
#yearofyes
Chiropractic care will fix the problem causing the sciatic pain. It does take some time, our bodies like their out of sync position. Taking Aleve or other Nsaids will just cause additional problems without healing the source. Feel Better
Thank you so much Gwynne. If it weren’t for the pandemic, I would most certainly be doing PT and chiropractic care but alas I haven’t been leaving the house so it was either medication or pain 🙁 I resisted it for 65 days and finally gave in. I am pretty sure the source is still there and I will eventually have to get real care when all this is behind us.