Friday 24 June 2016

The weight of it all....

In order to get better you need to take your medicine – right???? Well this is an inner battle I fight on most days.

It all started back with the Vertigo.  My neurologist and I have tried quite a few medications before we found the one that worked best for me.  Side effects is also something that is factored into the whole process.   A few of the side effects for a lot of the medication is – Nausea, headaches, dizziness and weight gain!!!! Great, so on top of my Vertigo which for anyone that is not aware of what it actually is – imagine looking at something and it just spins and moves but you not actually moving, a lot of people think vertigo is about having a fear of heights, for some people being up high and looking down can bring on a bout of Vertigo.  At my worse I would have a shower and after drying my hair I would need to lie down as the room was spinning uncontrollably, I would get off a train and the platforms were moving – no joke, and with the spinning comes the nausea and blinding headaches, so to have medication that WAS supposed to make me better to only make me feel worse at times was a gamble I wasn’t sure I was ready to take.  Finally we found one that worked and once I got use to the medications the side effects subsided and yippee no weight gain!!!!

For my Fibro I am on two types of medication – now the medication I’m on doesn’t actually cure what I have it’s all about the management of the illness.  I like to call one of my meds – “The Devil Drug” it is horrendous and of course this one has caused my weight gain.  To start with, the weight gain was minor and I needed to factor in that I was now doing a sedentary job and not physical work so weight gain was to be expected, but every time I increase my dosage with “The Devil Drug” it is another couple of kilos that creep on and when taking this drug twice a day I get double the gain.

Now, for a while I was ok with that because I finally felt that I had a handle on my condition and thought well a 5kg gain is probably not the worst thing to happen.  Now a few months later and some elastic waisted pants – (very unflattering) and baggy tops, I find myself tipping the scales at a not so flattering number and in all a total gain of close to 15kg and I haven’t even hit the maximum dosage required twice a day so not looking forward to inevitable which is more weight gain.

I’ve been able to cover the weight gain well with scarves, baggy pants, big tops, jumpers and jackets HALLELUJAH for winter.  So when a fellow colleague who, admittedly I haven’t seen for a few weeks saw me yesterday and said “oh wow look at you, you have put weight on, my god you can see it in your face and in you midsection”!!!!  Any confidence that I had just hit the deck :(  Anyway I managed to deflect the conversation to the old “what have you been up to blah blah blah” and yes internally I was crying.  I don’t think my colleague was being nasty I think she was just stating the obvious and some people just have no filter on what they say, but it did get me thinking, is it really that noticeable? And am I looking at myself one way and people are seeing something completely different?  Or have I subconsciously accepted the gain so therefore I’m not seeing a big difference?  I’m still trying to figure out which one it is.

I have drilled it into my daughters head from a very young age “it’s not what you look like on the outside, it’s what on the inside that matters” I have to remember that I am the same person I was before this all started, and on the days that I feel no amount of medication works I will just pop into a nail bar and get me some pretty done. 

While I don’t like the weight gain or the medication, and quite frankly some days I really wonder if the medication is  doing anything at all, but when I have days of clarity, free movement and feeling good  I have to accept it’s just a necessary evil.  I’m just grateful that it is winter and I can cover up the weight gain, but I’m not looking forward to the summer months, may have to invest in some kaftans or Moo Moo’s…. 

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