Posted by fallsfall on September 18, 2004, at 17:07:55
I know how to "be good to" myself. I earned the nickname "Ice Cream Queen". A friend made me a swing to hang from my tree for my birthday a couple of years ago. I have owned a copy of "The Woman's Comfort Book" for more than 10 years. I may not always *want* to take care of myself, and sometimes it takes a couple of attempts to find something that will make me feel better - but, in general, I think I know *how*.
"They were, until Yertle the king of them all, decided the kingdom he ruled was too small..."
You see, I've been having some pretty severe pain recently - in my upper back, arms and legs. I've talked to my therapist, my pdoc and my GP about it, and each had their own ideas about what I should do.
Yesterday it was particularly bad. I couldn't think of anything I could do, anywhere I could go, any position I could put my body in that would make it stop hurting. I had already taken as much NSAID as I could. So I decided to try my emergency plan for pain, and I called for a massage appointment. I had seen her 2 months ago (so this had been going on long enough at *that* point for me to be desperate...). She was able to see me 1 1/2 hours later (thank goodness!). I think she's pretty good (we'll ignore for the minute that she's only the second masseuse I've ever seen...), and we spent some time talking about things I could do on my own to control and/or live with the pain.
She told me to ice the areas. She gave me some samples of "Biofreeze" I guess it is like the opposite of Ben-Gay. She recommended a video "Shirley MacLaine's Inner Workout" for meditation. And she told me to take Epsom Salt baths.
So, I've been icing (it really does help), I have the Biofreeze in my pocketbook, I'll use my friend's library card tomorrow to borrow the video from the library in the next town (yes, I could get it through inter-library loan, but this will be faster) to decide if I want to buy it.
And I decided to take an Epsom Salt bath last night. I think she said that the Epsom Salts help take the lactic acid out of your body so it doesn't settle in your muscles (which causes the pain) - those of you who know more about this, please feel free to set me straight... She said 8 - 10 *pounds* of Epsom Salts for a bath (really!). The bathtub in my house is in my daughter's bathroom, which would have been condemed by the Board of Health if they ever saw it. Actually, recently she has been keeping it a bit cleaner, and I was able to ask her - as she dashed out the door - to make it so I could use the tub. I washed the tub (a necessity), drew some hot water (which was too hot, so I had to mix in some cold water...) and sprinkled 9 pounds of Epsom Salts in the water (it came in 3 pound boxes). There was a little underwater beach with the piles of Epsom Salts, but it did mix in and dissolve pretty easily. I put on some Bach, put my watch where I could see the time, and made sure I had a clean towel.
I'm not sure how one "slips into a bath", for me it was more like an ungraceful plop followed by a tidal wave. Obviously I had put too much water in because it was busily leaving the tub through the overflow thingy. It was still a little hot, so I drained a little water, added some cold in (too much, of course), and stirred it around with my hands. The worst pain is in my upper back/neck and arms. I had put my hair up so it wouldn't get all salty (?!), and I scootched down in the tub until my head was on the back of the tub and the water was up to my hairline in the back. And then I waited... 2 minutes had passed already. I had opened my eyes to look at my watch, but that also meant that I had to look at *me*. Ugh. Definately "beached whale". I could get my neck, back, and arms in the water, but the belly was just too tall to fit under the water - somehow this was not a relaxing scene for me. I had to bend my knees to get down far enough in the tub to get my neck under water, so 3/4 of my thighs were in the air - and they hurt, too. I decided to be patient and do the upper part of my body and then the lower part, this was after I tried everything I could think of to get them in the water at the same time (Is there some magic position that I missed?). My GP had told me that I should make sure that my computer screens were high enough so that my head isn't bent over all the time, but what was I doing with my neck in that bath?? If that wasn't bent over, I don't know what is. Finally (10 minutes?) I decided it was my leg's turn, so I sat up (but the tops of my thighs were STILL out of the water!?) for a little while. I think I forced myself to stay in there for 20 minutes. She had told me to do this just before I was going to bed, because she can never stay awake more than 30 minutes after an Epsom Salt bath. So I took my evening meds (including Sonata), brought an ice pack into bed with me, and stared at the ceiling for 1 1/2 hours.
Somehow, this was not peaceful, relaxing, comfortable, pleasant. What did I do wrong? Are there secrets to bath-taking? (I do have bathtub experience, in our first house we had no shower- just a tub and I survived 9 months of pregnancy with waist length hair, so I'm really not a tub novice) Don't tell me to remodel my bathroom and put in a bigger tub - that's not going to happen.
I need advice from the experts, please?
poster:fallsfall
thread:392387
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040914/msgs/392387.html