my reconditioning journey
Last Sunday, I completed a 7 mile Eucharistic procession (google it 😉 ) by foot, took a power nap, and apparently feeling jacked, proceeded to play soccer alongside my team that same night.
I won’t say this was my greatest game or that the day didn’t call for any Tylenol (popped 500mg when I felt severe head pain approaching). But I survived, and even more than that, I actually enjoyed it? Like, ALL of it.
My entire body, and I mean whole body, hurt the next day and I didn’t want to move for years. I braced myself for my week to be completely shot. But now, a few days later, I’m ok. I truly haven’t had any major setbacks or an overall rougher week because of this activity. In fact, I can tangibly feel I’m less inflamed and my brain is actually more focused because of it. What?!
It’s been four years since I really made the decision I wanted to start incorporating regular exercise into my life again, and I still, most definitely, do not have engaging-in-exercise-without-pain figured out. But, staying upright on a day like Sunday confirmed I have indeed made some progress, and have maybe even learned a few things.
Here’s what’s helped.
1) prioritizing it
when I began the intentional journey of regaining strength 4 years ago, I had just ended a job that called for daily abortive medications and had landed me in a constant severe pain funk. While feeling like I’d hit a dead end with treatment options, and was truly actually unable to actually find an ab muscle in my body, I chose to make gaining back physical strength my full-time job for the first time, ever. While being in the privileged place of little expenses and soon finding a flexible nannying opportunity a few hrs/week (& a couple stimulus checks –thanks, Covid), I managed to continue this for over a year. With the amount of risks and setbacks this journey entails, I can’t imagine having made any progress in this area without this room for it to be my absolute priority.
2) starting with strength training
After realizing even an incredibly slow jogging interval (that my former self would have def considered a warm up) made me want to collapse and increased my pain in 2 minutes, I chose to begin with a very gentle strength training routine my mom was doing (at a much more advanced level than me) in her exercise class, most definitely primarily designed for women a decade or two older than me. I also began walking daily and actually striving to get 10,000 steps/day. I totally failed to this perfectly when my energy went elsewhere or my symptoms flared, but most days, I did it. I soon began regular PT to specifically work on strengthening back and neck muscles playing into my pain, which became a total gamechanger.
2) taking it slow
And I mean ridiculously slow. After about 4 months, when I noticed PT getting easier, I started swapping walks for bike rides and dance workouts a few days a week. A few months after that, I terrifyingly joined a soccer team. Since then, it’s taken over two years for me to get to the place of actually looking forward to these games, without mentally preparing for them to kill me.
As a natural athlete at heart, lowering expectations for attaining marathon (or even 5k) runner status anytime soon (still) has been incredibly hard for me. But I also know it’s now the only way.
3) watching the weather
I used to love running in the heat of the day- reaching max perspiration and experiencing that beautiful feeling of jumping in a cold shower as soon as I got home. And now….NOPE. If not for mild and cloudy weather on Sunday, I would have been in much worse shape, and most definitely wouldn’t have chosen to play soccer. Exercising in mild temps, either after the sun goes down or inside air conditioning during summer months, is most definitely imperative for me when it comes to my recovery time and how much activity sends my symptoms flaring.
4) food + water
it’s the obvious one, but truly, straight protein immediately after (ideally covered in salt), and a lot of cold water before and after anything active is a total gamechanger for me. I have yet to find an electrolyte packet that doesn’t include a migraine trigger or make me nauseous (though many people have!!) so I try to primarily include even more salt than usual on my food during high exertion days.
*if it is even the slightest bit humid, I often eat straight up ice cubes post-exertion (or during) to get my body to cool down and decrease nausea enough for me to be able to stomach anything
5) using medications/supplements wisely
I’ll admit, if I take an NSAID before I exert myself, all things go a lot more smoothly. I believe that taking Tylenol before (and often a little after) my workouts a few days a week really helped me get through those beginning days of my body feeling very strongly triggered by everything.
And also, MAGNESIUM. I just love it so much. Magnesium before, after, and in the days to follow cardio (if/when my stomach allows it) is incredibly helpful for mellowing my body’s response to activity- by curbing my migraine pain and keeping my HR from spiking so significantly.
5) rest
This is my least favorite to admit, but I am far, far, far, from being that girl that can get up early, workout, and THEN proceed to actually live a FULL day after doing so?! Though I wish this were different, but unless done within a few hours before I go to bed or before a long nap (in other words, is followed by solid rest), any form of cardio or something that gives me a consistently raised heart rate will land me in severe pain in the hours to follow.
6) listening to my body
There are a zillion different exercise programs out there for POTS and Migraine with promising research and results to back them up. After much trial and error, I threw out trying to follow any of them.
Case in point: I won’t like and say that there are some days doing cardio is still a really bad idea for me. If I’m in a pain flare or my blood pressure is significantly low, I’ll choose some incredibly gentle movement for the day. As with almost everything in my case, constant assessment of the threshold and what I have capacity for has to be prioritized if I’m going to minimize major setbacks.
Sometimes I can run for 20 minutes straight, and sometimes I’m so nauseous and fatigued and in pain that I have to actually stop after 5 minutes and switch to a power walk. The keen awareness this requires is why I never say yes to friends who ask me to join them for a run. Someday I hope this is not the case. #goals
7)I just kept moving.
There have been many days over the past 4 years when I’ve felt so sick after exertion that I wonder why I even try in this area of my life. And yet, there are days like I had this week when I’m so struck by the progress I have made.
The absolute, most important words of advice I can give you in order to have moments of discovering progress on this journey, is don’t give up. keep challenging yourself. be willing to fail. and even if only walking around the block, doing 5 sit-ups or holding downward dog for 10 seconds, just keep moving every single day. If you’re like me, you’ll find it is completely and totally worth it.
my fave article with research on this topic, & the balance of it being beneficial, AND triggering to Migraine (a balance that also applies to POTS and autoimmune stuff)
Exercise
