This weekend I conducted a mini self-study. It included taking about a hundred more pulse readings and just generally being more aware of what I noticed in my body. (I put all that mindfulness practice from my meditation sessions to use and it really helped me evaluate where I am now.)
I’m Not Lazy, I’m Practicing Self-Care
Who am I trying to convince? Why, myself, of course.
My heart rate lowers immediately when I’m lying down, and I feel so much better. Until I started tracking my heart rate, I didn’t fully understand the connection between the position of my body and how good or terrible I felt.
So with the exception of getting up to pee and grabbing the occasional Gatorade from the kitchen, I watched TNT’s Star Wars marathon from bed this weekend. I can’t live like that all the time, of course, but after two days of simply accepting my limitations, I felt better.
All of that’s gone now that it’s Monday and I have a paycheck to earn, but I feel like I’ve found a secret weapon for feeling better.
I Always Wake Up Feeling Dehydrated
This has been going on for a while and increasing in severity. Dry eyes, mouth, sinuses, skin. My lips are permanently chapped. Even my ears are dried out and itchy. Dehydration affects heart rate, so by the time I wake up in the morning, my heart rate is revved up (130-140 bpm), and I have a severe headache.
I had assumed all this dehydration was a side effect of the nortriptyline, so I stopped taking it for a few days to evaluate. The drug might be worsening things, but I feel dehydrated even when I don’t take it. What’s more, skipping it leads to my IBS creeping back. Not. Acceptable. I’m back to taking 10mg most nights.
On the In Sickness + In Health podcast, I heard that patients diagnosed with POTS drink Gatorade to ease their symptoms. My POTS suspicions coupled with my feeling dehydrated all the time got me to thinking that I should give the drink a try.
And, Yay! Gatorade makes me feel better too, sort of. Adding about 16 ounces a day lowers my heart rate by about 10-15 bpm across the board (though the 30 bpm difference between lying down and standing up remains). That means I’m not living my entire day in the target heart rate zone for aerobic exercise. Which makes me feel less exhausted, as long as I don’t try to do anything too bold (like live my life like I did before.)
All of the drinking comes with a price too: frequent urination. Every 30 minutes I’m up peeing, and I’m also up in the middle of the night. Which is bad since I have trouble sleeping even without nature calling at 3 am.
There are no solutions with chronic illness. Only tradeoffs.
One last thing about the dehydration; I am using Blink gel tears three or four times a day. That seems excessive, but maybe it’s not really for someone whose job is staring at a computer screen all day. My eye doctor first told me to use them in, I don’t know, 2011? She said that I had dry eyes and some scratches. But now I feel like I need them way more. Because the eyes and nose and sinuses are all connected, the tears actually sooth my nose and sinus irritation too.
I haven’t been to an eye doctor since we moved to Illinois three years ago. I should probably set that up. But getting dressed and leaving the house is so stinking hard.
