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Posted 4/11/2009 2:41 PM (GMT 0)
Hello all of my Dear Friend,

As I sit here eating my bran cerial and bannana's and reading over everyone's new posts I started wondering??? How many of you are like me and are overweight? How many times have you heard, "If you would only loose some weight, maybe your pain wouldn't be so bad?" Even my Doctors are constantly bugging me! How many diets have I tried? How many times have I lost 50lbs. only to gain it right back?? How hard is it to try to exersise when doing so just exasterbates the causes of my pain??? Why am I overweight???? I have so many excuses! I don't have a thyroid anymore>> My body doesn't produce testosterone any more>> Both my Grandfathers had belly's just like mine>> When I was young growing up in an Itallian Family w/ my Grandparrents right across the street, I was always fed way too much and told to Monga! Monga! Clean your plate, there are little kids in China starving!!! What the hell happened to me?? What happened to the All American swimmer with the body of a Greek God?? Geeze, I wish I could put a before and after picture on here to let Y'all see for your selves! So is it just me or have all the comfort foods and depression of CP gone to any of your waiselines also???

Your rotund Friend,

Pete 

Posted 4/11/2009 3:18 PM (GMT 0)

Yes Pete, I too am fat.  Like you said, everytime  I lose weight, I find it again along with a couple of extra friendly pounds.

I have heard all the advice in the world til I just can't stand it anymore.  I think my meds are contributing to my extra poundage though.  The lyrica is famous for that and I take three antidepressants, more weight causers.  Plus, like you,my mom was overweight too.  My one daughter has trouble with her weight too which really makes me sad.  She just had another baby and is finding it so difficult to lose any weight.

It doesn't help when you are always hungry and always in chronic pain. Eating is comforting plus I have that nagging feeling of being truly hungry a lot.  So whats to do??  I keep trying to watch what I eat.  I limit myself to those 100 calorie packages of cookies for dessert, but that's apparantly not enough.  I don't eat well too,which I have to get more fruit in the house and then eat it. 

Oh well,  enough of my saga,  I am depressed now. confused   I think I will put the coffee on.  No calories in coffee.  Yay!

Gentle hugs all,

Lindaloo redface

Posted 4/11/2009 7:29 PM (GMT 0)
Pete,
I really feel for you. You have so much going on right now, so try to give yourself a little bit of a break. Your doc would still tell you to "exercise, exercise, exercise" even if you were thin as a rail. And it's pretty darn painful at the opposite end. I can't keep my food down when I'm in pain, so I'm underweight. Which may seem like a good place to be until you start passing out from undernourishment & then your doc cuts your meds practically down to nothing. Which is a vicious circle itself b/c the reason I don't eat is b/c of the pain & then my meds are cut which only makes the pain worse, so then I eat less ... well, you get the idea. Staying within the ideal weight range is just so hard. It seems like everyone at my doc's pain clinic is either visibly underweight or substantially overweight. Pain just really messes with one's emotions.

I know you're trying to quit smoking right now, so maybe take that on first & then try to tackle the weight issue. Have you ever tried aquatic exercise? I would think down in Florida it wouldn't be too hard to find a pool. :) Maybe that's the way to start. You can see if maybe that whiz-kid doc of yours can write you for aqua therapy to get you started. It is really easy to overdo in the pool & not realize it until you try to get out, so I think it's best to start with an expert. Just a thought since you said you used to like to swim. When I started all they would have me do was march in place for 5 minutes & then stop for the day. It does take a while to build up, but my doc has finally backed off a *little* bit on hounding me about the exercise.

I totally get what you're saying about being out of shape, though. I used to be able to run 6-7 miles a day, 6 days a week. Now it is a major accomplishment for me to walk the 2 blocks to the library. Usually I drive. I know it's bad for the environment, but after the time when I arrived doubled over in pain & the whole 3-member security team was surrounding me insisting they had to call an ambulance, I just get nervous that the pain will spike & it could happen all over again. so sad.

okay, enough of the sadness. I'm going to try to brave a walk to the library (I have a video waiting for me) & you just stay focused on making some progress -- it doesn't have to be in every area at once.

take care,
frances
Posted 4/11/2009 9:37 PM (GMT 0)

Hi Pete:

I have struggled with doctors, other healthcare providers, as well as "friends" who felt it was their place to tell me that if I just lost a few pounds, I would be cured of my pain.  No one wants to take into consideration that I was the same weight before my accident as I was after my accident, or acknowledge that it was getting hit by 2 cars, one of which hit me right in my door doing 45 mph that caused my injuries & resulting pain.

I was telling one doctor during his initial exam that my pain was in my low back, and his reply was "where is your low back", insinuating that he couldn't find it because I was so big.  I was told to go to him by my lawyer, so I kept my mouth shut, and when booking a future appt. w/him, he told the receptionist from accross the room (so everyone in the waiting room could hear), to book any further visits in his other office because it was bigger and he thought I would "fit" better at that office.  I wanted to turn and say that I hadn't had any trouble "fitting" through any doorways or anything, but again I kept my mouth shut.  I also had a physical therapist asst. tell me that I was too fat for massage to be of any benifit, so even though it was part of the treatment plan ordered by the doctor, she wasn't going to do it. 

In between my 1st & 2nd surgeries to reconstruct my low back, I worked very hard to loose 75 lbs, and although it made me feel better in other ways, it did absolutely nothing for my pain.  I kept it off for 2 years, and then had 5 surgeries in 6 months, spent a year in bed, and put it all back on.  Then I was put on Lyrica which made me gain another 75 lbs in 3 months.  I had no idea what was causing the weight gain, I was down to eating 2 bowls of cereal a day and was still gaining rapidly.  I went through the process required to have gastric bypass surgery and when I went to see the surgeon, my husband was explaining how I barely eating anything & still gaining, and he told my husband that I had to be "sneaking" food when noone was around! and then turned me down for the surgery because he said I was too fat for weight loss surgery!

By chance, I mentioned it to another doctor who I went to once because I was considering changing my PCP, and he is the one who told me it could be the Lyrica.  I have spent almost 2 years now trying to get that weight back off and I have lost 64lbs but it has been painfully slow and I have a long way to go.

I have a dear friend who also suffers from CP and we both feel very strongly that pain meds or Ambien makes us hungry, particularly for sweets.  Maybe it's just us trying to justify out hunger, but I really don't think so.

Sorry I'm rambling, but this is a subject that brings up so much "stuff" in my head, I could go on and on.

Lorie

Posted 4/11/2009 9:55 PM (GMT 0)
I too Suffer chronic pain and I USED to be over weight, but then something happened ~ I got gallstones, rare ones that got cought in my common bile duct. I had some very bad attacks~ one which made me go into shock from excruciating pain.

Then the ER doc said I would HAVE to eat low fat, were talking less than 3 grams of fat till I could get my gallbladder remouved, the surgery wait ended up being 7 months, I lost a TON of weight, I weighed 170 before and went down to 130 and I'm 5'8".

I found that u don't need to exercise to lose weight just eat very low fat and healthy, I had to figure it out, no more excuses I started to learn how to fuel my body right, so I ate alot of of kidney beans and other beans for protein, salads with spinach , they acctuley have alot of Low Fat foods out there, potatoes, pasta ( I did it home made when I was up to it too).
their not the most healthy but I had no choice, I was still able to have candy like sour keys and chocolate frozen yogurt for dessert which I really good, no eating out no matter what! That's an important one

After the long wait till the surgery was over and I had it, after ~ weirdly I wasn't craveing the oh so cheesy pizza I used to and the all dressed chips I've loved since childhood, I didn't want at all, I evan tryed to eat it, and... It didn't taste good! It tasted totally different than I remembered, I'd lost the taste for it, and now it's 2 years later and although I have enjoyed the occasional dinner of chianese and choclates, I now crave the fresh salads or veggies or fruit shake than the greasy, heavy, over salted food I used to love. I have successfully kept the weight off, and I do not feel like I have deprived myself, I simply lost the taste for it and from that no longer crave it.

It is possible to lose weight, and although I'm sure this is contravercial to say it can be done for us sickys without the physical exercise part.

If u want to know more about the food I ate and when etc... I'll check back here and I'll be more than happy to let u know, evan if it's just for curiositys sake that u ask , I know how hard it is, and if I can help or offer hope at all I'd be more than happy :)
Posted 4/11/2009 10:03 PM (GMT 0)
Pete,
I'm not obese but if I keep up what I've been doing I will be. I've always had an extra 10-20lbs on me, but it never mattered a lot when I was younger. But as I got older the weight started creeping on (plus I did put on some after I quite smoking and it was because I ate more, pure and simple), as it tends to do for those of us who don't exercise regularly, etc. So back in the mid 1990's when I was having all my neck problems, and then developed foot problems, I worked hard to stretch, do some walking (I bought a treadmill which hasn't been used since I was injured), and learned to eat better. I took off about 25 lbs. and kept it off - until the past couple of years. And especially since my surgery, and in recent months when I slowly have started eating comfort foods and not caring any more. And nightly chocolate doses that would choke a horse - and evidently have contributed to a new health problem along the lines of acid reflux that I've got to get checked out!

So that 25 lbs is back on. And I'm scared because I KNOW how tough it was to take off and keep off. I was also working and more active. Some days I just don't give a hoot because it seems food is all I have in my life right now (I bought an egg custard pie at the store and am now working on that!). But I know the weight makes pain worse. I do know this: when I kept the weight off I had to develop a different relationship to food. I grew up Italian, too, so I know what you speak of! And to this day at every family gathering there's tons of food, although now that the older generation is gone it's not quite so bad. Still, one has to begin to look at food as nourishment and not comfort. But that's hard for me right now. Plus as many of you have mentioned there's the meds issue.

Take it slow. I think we can't deny that weight makes pain worse. That's reality. And that taking it off quickly doesn't work. So I think the best I or any of us can do is decide whether we want to eat healthy, do our best, get whatever "exercise" we can - and in some cases that's very tough, or may just be a short walk - and take it slowly. Or throw in the towel on it completely. I don't have the answer. But I know I had to stop the nightly M&M's because of the horrible heartburn! Otherwise I wouldn't have stopped! But now I've switched to pies! Oye!

PaLady
Posted 4/12/2009 7:37 AM (GMT 0)
My situation is similar to Frances. My pain makes me constantly nauseous, especially after eating, so I now at the point of being under weight. Depression doesn't help either. I lost about 20 lbs in about a month this winter without trying (although I was working out every day). Prior to that I was just starting to get a little bit chubby, so that brought me to a pretty good level. I gained another 8 lbs back from taking prednisone for a month. But now that I am off of that, and it is finally out of my system, I am losing weight again. I've lost about 12 lbs in the last two weeks. This is with no exercise & not trying to lose weight, in fact quite the opposite. My weight loss is actually really concerning me. I'm not in the danger zone yet, but I am heading there fast. My pants literally fall off of me. I really need to get a new belt, because those are all too big too. I meant to bring it up to my doctor this week, but I forgot, so it will have to wait another two weeks. I have always been a healthy eater (except chocolate, and okay, sugar is my weakness). I am a self-proclaimed "fruit-a-holic."

Skeye
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