Another cycle of improving strength?

Well, maybe I am about to start a new phase of improving strength again. I am not even going to hope it will last. More than likely it will not. The last few times I tried to do any push ups I was only able to do 3-4. Just now I was able to do 12 before having to drop to my knees. And now the next day, I have done 15. We shall see. I do not want to push myself to fast.

Over all the weakness is still worse now than it was a few years ago. I have sagging skin around my right bicep at the elbow joint. It does not look like how I remember my arm. I doubt I will be able to strengthen it enough to fill it out again. When I look at my right arm in a mirror, I can fully see the tremor of the muscles even without applying any tension.

Weakness, and tremor, and shaking. . .

From what I can see out on-line, and what I see in reports for my blog site, shaking and tremor of various kinds does happen with those of us attempting physical exercise while recovering from PTS or NA attacks. This generally is not covered specifically in sites I have seen, but there are enough general searches by my blog readers to suggest it is somewhat of a concern, and I have decided that it makes sense it would be a problem.

With PTS, you have something attacking the major nerve plexus sites in the body. If it is a big enough attack, you get the most severe symptoms everyone knows about. But, PTS/NA is not specific in the nerves it impacts. How would it determine only to attack the nerves that would lead to a winging scapula? The other nerves of the plexus sites must also be impacted, but maybe just not at the same level. It stands to reason, in my thinking anyway, that there can be ongoing weakness of the areas impacted, just as there is to the most obvious impacted areas. This weakness is caused by damage to nerves that serve other muscles through the body. If the nerves can’t fire effectively as they normally would, you have incomplete contraction of the muscle and this causes fatiguing of that muscle, leading to shaking of the larger muscles and tremor of the more fine controlling muscles of the hands and fingers.

For me, I have a recurring pattern of weakness followed by improving strength for short periods. But, the regained strength does not last. That may be normal also, depending on the way PTS is triggered for the individual. During the strong periods, I have normal strength and no tremor or shaking. As the strength wanes, the tremor and shaking returns and increases again. During this time, effective exercise is severely limited. It is hard to exercise when the muscles stop working. I may have said parts of this before, but you have to attempt to exercise once in a while to keep up on the cycles. During a strong period, exercise works and I think it is good to do it then to try to regain all you can in what may be a very short burst of normal or at least close to normal strength.

A better way for Scapular Pushups

My Physical Therapist originally showed me how to do scapular pushups to help strengthen and stabilize my shoulders. I never felt that it did much the way I was shown. Here is a bit more advanced way to try if you want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALzFr2GT-Is

Updated Magnesium withdrawal update

First, I had noticed a bit of tension in my arms and shoulders, which seemed to add to my jittery nature a bit. Then I realized my temper had shorthand down a bit. I should warn those around me prior to experimentation with changing magnesium dosage or stopping it completely. Then it was shortness of breath.

Breathing is important after all, and if you already suffer from NA, you are sensitive (or I am anyway) to any breathing changes. Why? If you do not already know, NA can impact the cervical plexus in some instances. The cervical plexus is the place where the phrenic nerves originate and then travel down to the diaphragm. If your phrenic nerves are involved in a NA attack, you can have loss of some diaphragm function. Now, it could be that I already have some losses, and taking the magnesium away just made my function worse than normal. Or it could be a coincidence that for the few days I was off magnesium, I had shortness of breath to the point it disrupted my sleep. The more this goes on, the less I believe in coincidences.

So, I started the magnesium again, and my breathing was back to normal. Well, I still had to take a pronounced deep breath once in a while, but with the magnesium, I could do this. Without it, I was gasping at times.

Magnesium deprivation experiment

Since my strength has dropped off again to similar levels as a few years ago when I could only do a few pushups at a time, I decided to stop the magnesium supplements just to see what impact if any, it is really having on my overall condition.

This is the start of the second day without the supplements. I really do feel a difference at least as far as tremor goes. I notice it in both arms and both hands, although the left side seems to manifest this a bit more than in the right side. I feel as if the base level of static tension has increased in both arms. Movement in general is impacted. Although I am not sure anyone else can see this yet, I feel a bit more wobbly even walking. I have not noticed any increase in the random twitches I had earlier on. The muscle shaking of before has also returned, but that had started when my strength dropped off- I had noticed this when trying to do pushups recently.

Conclusions so far- My strength return of before must not really have had anything to do with magnesium since it dropped off prior to my stopping the magnesium. It must have just been a coincidence that my strength returned at a time I had started taking the supplement. Tremor definitely is related to magnesium intake for me since this has increased noticeably. It is too soon to say how the twitches will be impacted.

Parsonage Turner Syndrome Revealing Lyme disease

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread72131.html

Maybe my friend who suggested I should be tested for Lyme disease knows more than I thought she did about this topic.

The above link is one of many links to a paper (Wendling D, Sevrin P, Bouchaud-Chabot A, Chabroux A, Toussirot E, Bardin T, Michel F. -Service de Rhumatologie, CHU Jean Minjoz, et EA 3186 -Agents Pathogènes et Inflammation- Université de Franche-Comté, Boulevard Fleming, 25030 Besançon, France) suggesting that NA, AKA, Parsonage Turner Syndrome, has been linked to Lyme disease. The abstract suggests that four patients, who were reported to have NA, were later found to have contracted Lyme disease. One had said they knew they had been bitten by a tick, and all four showed positive for Lyme disease. It concludes that tests for Lyme disease should be performed in all patients who have Parsonage Turner Syndrome.

Back to five

Now, all of a sudden I am at around 5 push-ups again. I don’t get it. Evidently. . .

So, what is this now? I have to wonder if there is something else going on other than NA. This fluctuation of strength is just too odd to fit NA.

Anyone have any ideas? Do any of you with NA or HNA have similar fluctuation of overall strength in areas not impacted directly by NA? I mean, I would not expect my scapula or hand to be strong now. But other areas I think should stay about what they are considering I have been trying to keep up on other strength.