How does my neck look? 8/31/11

Well, still haven't managed to make it to the Sprint store to complain about the issues I am having with the camera on my cell phone, so although I have been taking photos of my scar, I have not posted any of them because of the red coloring that shows up in all of my neck photos, regardless of how I hold my phone when I am taking the photos. But, it is time, since I think the last time I posted a photo of my scar was a month ago.

The weird tugging on the right side of my neck hasn't been bothering me much for the last two weeks now. And, I am happy to report that so far this week, I haven't needed an afternoon nap (at work), so I think that is a good sign. However, I still have problems remembering to take my afternoon T3 dose on the weekends. I just need to take them with me no matter where I go - the gym, shopping, wherever, I need to take them with me so I always have them.

I was looking at some of the unfinished prescriptions I have from the past year. I have bottles for 175, 137, and 125 mcg of Levoxyl. I think the only one I could use is the 175, if I split it (87.5 mcg v the 88mcg I am on). Doesn't matter anyway, I guess because all of these unused pills either expired today or a couple of months ago. What a waste. I was thinking of seeing if anyone in my support group needed any of my unused pills, we could do some sort of medication exchange. Not self medication, just giving away what I can't use. I may not be able to do it with my expired Levoxyl pills, but maybe someone else in the group has unused pills that could offer to someone else. Levoxyl isn't as expensive as Synthroid, but it still adds up over the year.

Anyway, how does my neck look?

Acupuncturist says...

"No climbing for two weeks; if you go to yoga, absolutely no chattarangas." I went climbing twice this week, and after both sessions, my right arm was not happy, at all. Last Sunday, my right arm got very agitated during the class, especially while doing chattarangas. So the recommendation, of course, was to rest it - lay off the climbing, or modify the yoga pose (do a downward dog instead of a chattaranga). All that while she was needling my back and right arm.

When she came back to remove the first set of needles, I asked if I could at least belay if I couldn't climb. She said, "As long as your right arm doesn't hurt while you are belaying." Fine, I can deal with that for two weeks. In went the second set of needles, on the front side, and e-stim on my right arm.

When she came back to remove the second set of needles, she had a compromise for me: "If I kinesio tape you, you can either climb or do yoga, but not both." Wow - unexpected, but I wasn't going to turn that down. Tape me up! So I now have this lovely black tape on my right arm and part of my back. Kinesio tape is waterproof, so should last for about a week. She explained what it does, which I don't remember word for word, but I think the basic idea is it creates a space between your skin and the muscles below it, which somehow allows the healing process to take place faster. If it works, why not?

Full week

It was a non-stop week. I got the bad news (cut down my runs to 1mi/wk) at PT on Monday. Hit the gym Tuesday night to do extra PT exercises. Wednesday night run club. Thursday in LA for my mid-year review, then climbing and another trip to the gym to do my extra PT exercises. This evening was my first acupuncture appt with a licensed acupuncturist (I used to go to students at PCOM). And that's not the end of it. Tomorrow, me and Angelo will be getting hair cuts. Sunday....not sure what I'm going to do yet - get up early enough to watch some run club buddies run in the AFC 1/2 marathon? go to the gym? I really should just sleep in.

It was so good to go climbing last night after about a month off. In that time I was hoping my right arm pain would go away, but it didn't. I ended up not even finishing my last route last night because my arm hurt and I was just wiped out. At least my arm would have fresh pain for my acupuncture appt this evening.

I think my acupuncture appt went well. My arm and left knee feel pretty good now, well neither one was bothering me today. The part of her evaluation I was looking forward to was the posture grid. The first thing she noticed was that my left shoulder was higher than my right. Check. To compensate, my right shoulder pulls forward and my neck tilts to the right so I can walk straight. In addition, my right hip is lower and tilts forward. Next, she did some mobility tests on my right arm. Only one of the rotator cuff tests she did on me hurt, and I was weak in another test. All other tests went well. On to the treatment. She says to dress down to my undies, lay face down. Wow - I never had to do that at any of my appts at PCOM. She needled areas on the right side of my back and shoulder, and a few points on my calves. 20 mins. Then she cupped my back. Two cups, but I didn't see any marks on my back after the treatment, so that was nice. Then she did a few more points, on my flip side, on my feet, legs, and arms. 10 mins. I decided to make an appt for next Friday - she said I need to come back at least a week later, so she can see how I responded to the treatment. The pain could be contained for up to 1.5 days. As my treatments progress, the area of the pain could be reduced, but become more painful. So I need to monitor how things feel between my treatments, and let her know what changes.

During the spinal injury test she did on me, I felt that odd tingling in the right side of my neck. I didn't say anything, since it doesn't really have anything to do with my right arm pain. Or does it? I should monitor that tingling thing as well, let her know if it gets worse.

Acupuncture appt was informative. Shoulders and RT hip are out of alignment. First time I ever stripped down for needles & cupping.

I wonder if it is Ok to take my T3 pills with wine.

Situation

So I finally decided to call the sports medicine acupuncturist that had spoken to my running group a few weeks back. She actually needled my right arm that night because it had been hurting on and off for a couple of weeks at the time. She was out yesterday when I called her office to make sure she took my health insurance, so she called me back this afternoon. I like the idea of looking for the bio-mechanical root of the pain, not just treating the pain locally. Something about putting me in front of a grid to see which areas of my body are imbalanced. She said she'd take a look at my hip issues as well. My appt is on Friday. The first appt is 90mins so she can do an assessment, then a treatment. This should be interesting.

I stopped getting acupuncture treatments last summer, after my RAI treatment. At first, it was because I didn't want to accidentally expose anyone to radiation. Then I just started to freak out about any remaining thyroid cells being stimulated enough to grow, allowing my cancer wake up, and spread. It probably wouldn't, but I think I got that idea from the fact that they had recommended one of the instructors to work on me after I told them I might have thyroid cancer. I was thinking of taking that treatment route, but ultimately, I decided it would be better for me to know, for sure, that I had thyroid cancer, and the only way for me to do that was to have it removed surgically.

Now the running thing. This evening was run club. Monday night after my PT session, I was thinking of continuing with my current running program (3mi road, 1mi treadmill intervals x2) because I had already cut down from 5 days (3 road, 2 treadmill intervals) . But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might be best to comply for a few weeks, and see if there is any improvement. So, I decided to do a mix of jog/walk over 2mi (walk .5mi, jog .5mi-1.5mi, walk 1.5-2mi). No pain during the run. No pain on the steps going to the start of the run. But boy did my left knee hurt last night when I was at the gym doing some of my PT exercises. So, although I won't be running as much over the next couple of weeks, I am hoping that I find some other workouts to keep me out of trouble, and improving my hip strength.

Physical Therapist says - part 3
I have to cut down on my runs. Optimal is a one mile run 1x/wk; elliptical and bike the other days. Crap.