Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Battle of the Pumpernickel (or the Crohns is back)

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I’ve been quiet for a while because my abdomen has been acting up yet again. Yep … things were going so well for most of the last year, but Crohn’s has reared it’s ugly ugly head again and I’m suffering as a result.

It all started about a month ago … I bought a bread machine in mid-February because I wanted to start making healthy breads for my husband and I (even though I really don’t eat much bread or grains) and it seemed like the first few loaves that I made didn’t bother my stomach/abdomen at all … but towards the end of March I decided to try making my very first (and maybe my last) loaf of Pumpernickel bread and well … it seems that that turned out to be too much for my system to handle.

The Pumpernickel must have been quite strong because my husband would get stomach cramps if he ate a couple of pieces of pumpernickel in one day … for me all it took was half of a piece of bread!

Oh and the pain is still hanging around. I wasn’t completely pain free, but for most of the last year, my Crohn’s symptoms and the abdominal pain that I get from it was very tolerable, but once I ate that pumpernickel bread I was back in pretty much the worst pain.

Now I’m doing everything I can to calm my symptoms down. I’m not eating any breads or grains and I”m pretty much just eating baked or boiled chicken, potato and very mild bland foods that have never really bothered my digestive system in the past. I’m also drinking Aloe Vera Gel and talking acidophilus tablets as that can help calm the symptoms down too.

I’d rather just be concentrating on my websites. I want to change the theme for this one … I also want to try to find the time to check out seo elite … maybe now that I’m not feeling well would be the perfect time to sit back and do some reading and learn more about site SEO. I have several websites and because of that I never have time to learn a lot of new things anymore because I’m so busy just maintaining them.

Anyway … wish me luck on getting this stomach/ abdominal pain settled down again. I didn’t realize how much better I’d been feeling in the last year until the last few weeks when I began to feel so bad again. It’s awful. I hope I can get this under control again quickly.





My knees are sore

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My knee has been acting up lately.

Well, I say lately, but it’s been acting up on and off since the fall. I don’t know if I did something to it or if the weather has something to do with it. I’m fairly sure that I have some form of arthritis in both of my knees so that doesn’t help either. I’m sure the extra cold winter we just went through affected my knees.

I saw my family doctor last week and after telling her again and again that my knees are aching she’s finally sending me for an xray and setting up MRI’s for both of my knees. My legs aren’t formed properly – the tibias and fibulas are more to the outside of each of my legs so that puts my whole lower leg structure off – it’s called Tibia Extortia. I know in the past xrays have shown that there’s some wear on the bone and the MRI’s will show it to an even greater extent.

My family doctor of course also believes that some physical therapy will help. She thinks that using a muscle stimulator might help tighten up my quads and that might help my knees too. I don’t know … it might.

Hopefully nothing too serious is found with my knees .. but it’s obvious that something is going on as they’ve really been acting up over the last several months.

I quit smoking over 5 months ago!

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It’s hard to believe, but just a little over five months ago I didn’t think I’d ever be able to say I’d be a non-smoker. I had just quit, but the cravings I was going through, even though they were dulled with the help of Zyban .. were difficult. It was hard to imagine that I’d quit for good – forever.

Now days go by and I surprise myself when I catch myself thinking about a cigarette. I still get the occasional craving, but it only happens a few times a week instead of several times a day now. That’s what I’d call progress. Considering that I quit on October 12th I guess it’s about time that cigarettes stopped ruling my life.

It’s funny how when I first quit, I wrote several posts about it and I’d get encouraging comments or congratulation comments, but I”d also get people telling me that I should switch to e-cigarettes. When I was really craving a smoke I checked out the e-cigarette safety information just to see how safe they are since I don’t know much about them. Anyway since I was being so successful with quitting smoking right from the beginning I wasn’t going to fool around with an e-cigarette. I didn’t want to start another habit.

I’m just happy I quit. I feel a lot better. My husband quit too. We’re both healthier, our house smells better and we have a little bit of extra money. Yeah!

Extreme wrist pain and a bad doctor

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I don’t know what I’ve done to myself over the last several months. I’m just a painful tired mess. Other than being extremely sleepy most of the time since November it’s my right wrist that probably ranks next on my list of complaints.

Oddly enough it was my left wrist that started hurting in October or November, but I got a mouse pad with a memory foam cushion (I’m left handed), and I applied heat to my wrist regularly and the pain went away within a week or two of regular care.

Then my right wrist started acting up and nothing I do seems to help. It just aches across the top of it. I take Advil, apply heat, give it a rest, stretch it when it hurts after too much rest (believe me my wrist wakes me up at night with the pain probably from not moving) and nothing works. I wish there was something like an aircast boot for my wrist. It wouldn’t work for me during the day – not with me working on the computer, but maybe at night.

My lousy family doctor won’t even do an X-ray or anything at all. She’s convinced it’s fibromyalgia even though when she’s tested me for it I don’t have any trigger points or any other symptoms … so no, I don’t think so. I see her again in a couple of weeks, if I talk to her about my wrist again and she refuses to do anything I think that will pretty much be the end of my relationship with my doctor. I can’t continue to see a doctor that’s not helping me can I? In the meantime I hope my wrist starts to feel better because it really hurts … I mean, I almost feel like screaming at night with the pain and I’m used to being in all kinds of pain what with my Crohn’s and all – so it’s bad.

My skin is tired of winters cold dry air

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My skin is so dry. I hate winter! It’s so hard on the skin. We have humidifiers running in our house and I know that helps, my skin would be even drier without them, but I can’t wait until spring arrives and the air begins to have a little more moisture in it. I know my skin will appreciate it.

I complain that my skin feels dry but I’m not always the best about putting moisturizer on. So every few days when my skin really feels dry I really slather my hands and arms with hand cream until it feels better. I’m sure if I did it regularly my skin wouldn’t suddenly feel like I just came out of the desert or something. Of course, ever since we got our dog I kind of stopped putting hand and body cream on my skin because my dog is a licker. I can’t get a good answer from most of the skin cream companies as to whether their products are safe if pets lick them off our skin … so I don’t use them as much as I would if I didn’t have a dog that loved to lick.

I just slathered my hands with hand cream … I almost feel like I should have put wrinkle cream on them though! Hopefully they feel better soon. Does your skin ever get so dry that you feel like one coat of skin cream just won’t fix the problem?

As I said earlier I’ll be happier when spring and summer arrive. My skin loves the humidity.

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