Since we got home from Colorado last week, I can’t seem to find my energy. I’m starting to wonder if the airlines lost it in some luggage.
I suspect it has something to do with the adjustment to altitude in combination with my fibromyalgia and weight. I had a difficult time adjusting to the higher altitudes this trip (I’d never spent so much time above 5,000 feet before) and it wasn’t until the end of the 10-day vacation that I didn’t feel short-winded with my heart racing when I walked more than across a room. I attributed that to my overall lack of physical fitness – overweight and under-exercised. The fibromyalgia seemed to be exacerbated by the rapid changes in altitude as we drove up and down mountains (5,000 to between 12,000 & 14,000 feet and back) in a matter of hours. I thought that being back at home, where my body is used to living, I would feel better.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. I have been dragging since we got back. That isn’t to say I’ve taken to my bed or anything. But it has been a real effort to do whatever I’ve done. Sometimes my brain is working fine but my body feels like someone opened a tap and drained all the energy from my muscles. Other times the brain doesn’t feel any more energetic than the body. Or I can think but not concentrate. I feel like I need an IV infusion of caffeine!! The problem is that more than one cup of coffee with caffeine makes me feel sick to my stomach and “twitchy.” I already take Ritalin to keep me energized. I’m not sure what more I can do.
Actually, I do have a hunch – I need to get my feet (and I guess the rest of me) on the treadmill and get some regular exercise. I suspect that would actually increase my energy level – at least that’s what my intuition is telling me. The problem is that I can’t find the self-discipline and initiative to do it when I feel this way. So I’m really in a bind! I need to work out to increase my energy but I don’t have enough energy to get started working out. It’s taking forever, it seems, just to write this short post.
I do have to get out of the house again today – it’s flu shot day at the doctor’s office. God knows, with the energy I have lately, I certainly don’t need the flu added to my litany of woes. I don’t have to worry about getting there, because my husband will be driving. I don’t think I could drive today.
Maybe I should make myself a cup of coffee . . . do I even have any coffee with caffeine? Maybe – I’d have to look. But that would take effort and energy I don’t have today.
Maybe I’ll just grab the cat to cuddle and head back to bed. Maybe I’ll feel better when I wake up next time.
Dear Aunt Bee,
You state you already take Ritalin. Caffeine would not top that.
Here is a nifty observation which seems to help me.
When run down, and fatigued, I dose up on B12, have my son haul me up to the mountains in Georgia then dump me out in a state park.
Good in the woods, I make a simple camp, crash and burn, then get up sore as hell and make a camp fire, cook camp fire coffee, and listen to the wind in the trees. This is woodsy and cheap therapy.
I romp slowly at first on trails short, then ever increasing jaunts (or shuffles), read vastly thought provoking history books, hydrate with water, and keep scalding campfire coffee which singes the coffee grounds going twenty four/seven.
My SOP for a camp bed is to toss a ground cloth, and 1/2 inch mat down under a plastic tarp hung lean-to fashion- which means I am totally prepared to sweep the camp up and place it in a ruck sack to make a bold assault on some trail in earnest, but I do not do so- it simply functions as a cocked pistol in my arsenal should I ever want to pull the trigger.
A few days of getting up sore as if someone had beat the fire out of me during the night, gradually becomes unnoticeable (note- eating Ibuprofen like popcorn may have some effect).
By the time I have pestered the lady at the park store with stories about my son- Clearly the finest Officer in the US Army- and have burned through two good history books, my food is getting redundant, I am on a first name basis with the squirrels within a thousand yards of the camp site, my clothing smells ripe- so I’m done.
I call my son to come get me: dutifully he appears and we discuss current events to a hot shower.
Soaking in hot water, I then crash on the cot and sleep a solid sleep.
Ritalin makes you feel bad if you take it very long.
So the “tossed out in the mountain park” is a good alternative.
You feel refreshed and appreciate hot water when it is over.