Tuesday 13 January 2015

[DAY+63] For the last week or so, I have had a return of one of my MS symptoms - noisy / warm / pain-in-the-ass / nuisance leg 'action'.  My guess of exactly what this 'action' is, is this: it probably has something to do with damaged nerve cells, because it feels like they (nerves) are going nuts (which makes my legs warm).  It's hard to put into words exactly what this leg action feels like.  It's not painful, just a pain-in-the-ass, and can be a big nuisance if you can't direct your head elsewhere.  My initial reaction to this was "Son of a bitch!  I thought you were gone forever.".  Then I remembered a few things: (1) with HSCT treatment, the goal / ideal outcome is to stop disease progression, and any healing is a bonus and is gonna take time; (2) that I am only 2 months post-HSCT, and there are likely to be many ups and downs during the first year following treatment (which can include temporary worsening of pre-existing MS symptoms - I can say that this symptom is not any worse than it used to be); (3) I was diagnosed with Progressive MS, so every symptom I had showed up and stayed permanently - none of them left, even temporarily.  Who knows why the leg symptom I mentioned above went away for a short time following HSCT?
Hopefully this will eventually go away, but there is no guarantee, so regardless, I will keep exercising and eating.

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Today's morning exercise:

(1) Step back Lunge  - 4 x 20 (10 per leg per set)
(2) Walk one foot directly in front of the other (like a sobriety test) - 4 loops
(3) Sidestep, leading with one leg crossing over in front of the other leg, then next step cross over behind the other leg.  Each leg was the leading leg for 4 loops.
(4) Kneeling in crouched position with ball in front of me, raise up to kneeling position, then roll ball away from body, pause 5 seconds while extended, roll ball back towards body, slowly drop to crouched position, repeat - 3 x10
(5) Seated on ball, raise straight arms to the side, hold when fully extended- 2 x 20
(6) Seated on ball, upright row exercise with thera-band - 2 x 20
(7) Seated toe raises (shin muscle), pause when toes raised - 3 x 10
(8) Calf raises (on stairs) - 3 x 10

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Yesterday it was tough to get going.  I blame my choice to take three days off.  Lesson learned.  Here's what I did:

(1) Step back Lunge  - 2 x 20 (10 per leg per set)
(2) Marching - 2 x 10 per leg [2 pound ankle weight to each leg -held each rep for 5 sec: difficult]
(3) Walk one foot directly in front of the other (like a sobriety test) - 2 loops
(4) Sidestep, leading with one leg crossing over in front of the other leg, then next step cross over behind the other leg.  Each leg was the leading leg for 2 loops.
(5) Kneeling in crouched position with ball in front of me, raise up to kneeling position, then roll ball away from body, pause 5 seconds while extended, roll ball back towards body, slowly drop to crouched position, repeat - 2 x10
(6) Seated on ball, raise straight arms to the side, hold when fully extended- 2 x 20
(7) Seated on ball, upright row exercise with thera-band - 2 x 20
(8) Seated toe raises (shin muscle), pause when toes raised - 2 x 10
(9) Calf raises (on stairs) - 2 x 10

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I need to stretch my legs muscles more, they are asking for it.

2 comments:

  1. Temporary worsening of existing symptoms... the emphasis on TEMPORARY. If it "fixed" once then the potential to fix again is lying just under the surface of recovery. Maybe a dying gasp as the nerve starts to mend?

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    Replies
    1. You may be on to something, Mindy. It's not gone, but it has decreased some.

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