I may have blown it pushing for more pushups too soon

I have to say that I was pretty stoked with my recent increase in the number of pushups I can do. I went from basically nothing, to 25 within a few days. And then I had to try to do even more that last day and did another 25 on top of that. It may have been too much, and too fast. Friday, I tried again, and I could only do 10. Today, I tried and could only do 7. What is up with this?

I guess I overdid it. Maybe I should have been content with doing them every other day, or stayed at the same counts for a couple of days before increasing the numbers. It felt OK when I was doing it though. Now it feels like I am crashing again.

25 more 3 hours later. . .

I have to say I was just curious if I could do more today, and I did manage 25 more just three hours after the original 25 this morning. I am beginning to think this may not just be a fluke.

Now what? One more pushup update: 25?

Today, I really did not know if I would even try to do any pushups. I was almost afraid that I would fail to do more than a few. And, my muscles in upper arms and chest area and around my lower back were sore. I figured that part was probably a good thing. It meant I was actually forcing muscle back into use that in some cases may not have been used in three or four years at least.

Imagine my surprise when I got up to 25. I do not even remember the last time I could do 25 pushups. It may have been back in High School when we had to do exercise as a part of our PE classes.

What is there to learn in this? Never give up!

If I had just sat around thinking I was weak, and my muscles were not going to recover a bit of strength, then that would become my reality. It would have been easy to just let myself waste away into nothing. But, it feels a lot better to know at least some of my strength is back. How long this will last is still a mystery. Since my doctors at this point have little if any input to my long term health related to NA/HNA- I have to take care of it myself.

DO NOT GIVE IN TO IT!

And today, 20 pushups

I was almost afraid to try today to do any. What if I had returned to being able to only do 3-4? I have to say I never thought I would see the day I would be able to do 20 pushups again. It may seem a little thing to some. But you who have had the muscle loss from NA or HNA and have had to fight back for every little gain on what you had lost should understand this. I have to make the most of it while the response is there. I have to regain every bit of strength that I can at this point. Because my NA/HNA has shown itself to be able to repeat at intervals that I have no control over, I have to get stronger while I can. I know from the past that my return to normal strength will no doubt not be complete anyway. And who knows what will happen tomorrow? Where will it hit next?

Pushups again- Not a fluke this time anyway-

I truly expected that the next time I tried to do pushups; I would be reporting fewer than 10- the number I did yesterday. It just seemed to me that was the normal pattern of the past. So, imagine my surprise just now when I did 15!!! Unheard of. Well, it was 15 just now, and my arms feel much better. In the past right after attempts to do this, they have really been shaking uncontrolled for a time after. This time, it is only a few minutes ago that I did them, and I have no shakes from the effort. And, my back felt a bit better this time too. We shall see if this continues.

Pushup Update

Long term readers (if there are any) may remember the saga of my pushup history. A brief recap is that just after my right scapula started to wing in late 2006, I could still do around 20 or so pushups. A month or so later, that started to decline to the point where I could not do even a single pushup. Since then, the number I can do has varied from around one, to a high of four or barely five. Usually, I could only coax 2-3 out of my body before I would collapse.

There may be hope. Today, I was able to do ten.

Now, this still was not easy. I barely got to the tenth one. But, it was a full ten as low to the floor as I could ever go when I was stronger. One thing I noticed- other than my wrists feeling like they may break before I was done- was that my lower back and upper legs shook like crazy when I was doing them. Shaking may not be the right word. They just felt as if the muscles were firing inconsistently, and pulsing instead of holding steady as they should do. I used to wonder about that happening. Now I know it is due to the NA or HNA impacting nerves in my lower body and legs.

I said there may be reason to hope that this may be improving, but I am not really confident that will happen for me at this point. I am better today: maybe not so much tomorrow. This seems to go in cycles.

One thing it points out to me though is something I have said before. Never give in to this. Just because it seems that a muscle is no longer working, keep trying. If it is not working today, try again in a few more days. You may see a change. You may find a glimmer of hope.

Edging the lawn- revisited

In an earlier post, I described my efforts at running a weed whacker around our lawn’s perimeter. We have a third of an acre, so this is a bit of a job. Well, lawn grows and like any yard work, if you do it one time, you have to do it again, and again. That goes well with what my last doctor said. He thought I should be doing a bit more.

Last time this job about killed me. Although I am not sure I am improving much at this point overall, this time running the whacker around the yard was not nearly so bad. Of course, it still did me in. I just had a faster recovery, and my arms did not shake nearly as badly, or for as long as they did last time. Why was that?
Since I am not sure I have really improved, I figure that my improvement with this job was more due to the fact that I learned how to do it in a way that was less demanding. This is one thing I have learned about over the last few years with NA. When you stop improving in your recovery, any improvement noted in doing tasks after that seems to come from your coping with the injury in new ways. If it bothers your arms to reach out to hold the weed whacker, hold it more in towards your upper body being sure to hold the upper arms against your body. If pulling the trigger makes you position your arm in a way that ends up hurting, use another finger to trigger it, and hold the thing differently.

Don’t get me wrong, I was still shaking at the end, but instead of having to let it drop out of my close to lifeless feeling hands, I was able to set it down. Instead of requiring a couple of hours of rest before I could think about moving again, I only rested a relative few minutes and then I could put it all away again until next time. Of course even though the aftermath of this run was an improvement over the earlier time, it did finally catch up with me later that night. Most things I do in the early part of the day do catch up with me now. And that is just one more thing with which to cope.

Just what are the terms? PTS, NA, HNA, BPN

Parsonage Turner Syndrome would appear to be a more historic version of the disorder also known as Neuralgic Amyotrophy. Use of that older term honors the doctors who first described the disease that seemed to impact the right brachial plexus in most cases. They noted numerous probable causes including virus, parasites, bacteria, surgery and trauma (other than to the shoulder) that can cause an inflamation to the brachial plexus (aka "brachial plexus neuritis").

In addition to these causes, there is also a more rare type that is caused by a defect on chromosome 17, spoken of elsewhere here. This is a totally distinct disorder. While you can have recurrence of attacks in the acute form of PTS (NA), it is more common to have recurrence in the hereditary version of PTS, aka Hereditary Neuralgic Amyotrophy. It is also more common for the hereditary version to attack on both sides when it attacks. It is also more likely that if you have the hereditary version, your attacks could involve numerous different plexus sites, other than just the brachial plexus. It is interesting to see sites suggesting that HNA only involves the brachial plexus, and then have it go in to suggest that HNA can also impact your voice and breathing. The nerves for these functions are not in the brachial plexus. HNA can impact the following plexus sites: cervical, brachial, lumbar, and sacral. It also can impact the intercostals.

If your doctor seems to suggest that you have a right winging scapula for example, and you notice that your left arm is also weak, chances are that your left arm is also being impacted. My doctors tried to tell me my right arm was weak from lack of use instead of the weakness being due to NA- of course this was because as we all know, patients generally fully recover from PTS. When my left arm became weak with similar symptoms, they told me it was from overuse- making up for all of the times I tried to help my right arm by using the left. In truth, the left side weakness is also from NA, or possibly HNA. A later doctor confirmed I also have winging on the left side. If you have weakness in other areas, have it checked out. Your attack may be more involved than your doctors first thought.

All through my initial couple of years of doctor visits, I complained that I had lower back pain. Of course, they concluded it was not related. How could a right shoulder nerve disease also impact the left side of my lower back? Well, now you know. It is possible.

My legs shake in certain positions when trying to hold them against gravity. Is that a possible symptom? Of course it is. My arms and hands shake due to muscle fatigue of my impacted arms. This leg shaking is similar in nature. Since I know that my legs are innervated by a plexus site that can be impacted by NA/HNA, it is not a stretch to think that this is also an impact of the NA/HNA. And now my doctor has confirmed that I may have involvement with my legs

Whatever your doctor calls it, and whatever side your main impact is on, make note of similar symptoms on the other side, or in other regions. They could help in develop a more conclusive diagnosis.