It’s been a while since I felt like writing anything for my blog. I assume that’s because it takes energy to think about things and then to share them, and I ran out of that sometime around my last post lol! So I figured I would talk about what’s been going on with me and the effects of overdoing things, amongst other stuff.
Going back to mid-July, I was building a chicken run, decorating the front room, and frantically tidying before our guests from Texas arrived. Now having guests (for 3 weeks) was an interesting scenario because we hadn’t met them before. If you’re thinking, gee, that sounds a bit stressful, then you might be on to something! Hey ho, I’m sure if you’ve been following my blog for a while you’ll have realised I’m not a half measures kind of gal, so I thought it sounded like a fun thing to do!
Back to before they arrived though, and I had a million things to sort out. I was only just starting to feel really good and the sensible thing would have been to take it easy and not overdo it. Ho hum! Delighted at the fact I felt better I threw myself into everything with gusto. Many items in the house were bagged up, door handles were fixed, shelves were added, tip runs commenced, along with the work I was trying to do on my tree project. Although I was still eating a good amount regularly, it just wasn’t enough to support me (plus there was other stuff going on that I’ll get to in a bit!), and about 5 days before our guests were due to arrive (with the house still a mess) it culminated in a break down that went something like this:
Me doing dishes: start to cry (I never cry!), finish dishes in sink so I can wash paint roller, accidently splash paint everywhere (all over clean dishes!) as I wash roller, redo dishes, cry harder!
Go up to daughter’s room: Cry in doorway, daughter looks alarmed and askes what’s wrong, I state that I can’t do this anymore, the house is a mess and I’m not getting chance to get my work done.
Daughter tries to calm me down: Sit down mum, let me get you some pineapple juice…
Me: cries harder whilst proclaiming that Tesco didn’t have any pineapple juice!!
Whilst this is now funny to me, it’s a stark reminder of how easy it is to run out of energy when we overdo things. The world is not perfect and it wasn’t necessary to get the house looking perfect before the guests arrived. It was clean and (fairly!) tidy, with quite a bit of stuff shoved in to the built in wardrobe, shhhhh!
Me doing dishes: start to cry (I never cry!), finish dishes in sink so I can wash paint roller, accidently splash paint everywhere (all over clean dishes!) as I wash roller, redo dishes, cry harder!
Go up to daughter’s room: Cry in doorway, daughter looks alarmed and askes what’s wrong, I state that I can’t do this anymore, the house is a mess and I’m not getting chance to get my work done.
Daughter tries to calm me down: Sit down mum, let me get you some pineapple juice…
Me: cries harder whilst proclaiming that Tesco didn’t have any pineapple juice!!
Whilst this is now funny to me, it’s a stark reminder of how easy it is to run out of energy when we overdo things. The world is not perfect and it wasn’t necessary to get the house looking perfect before the guests arrived. It was clean and (fairly!) tidy, with quite a bit of stuff shoved in to the built in wardrobe, shhhhh!
So I dialled it back and accepted that was how it was. I also had work to do and tried to get this message across to our visitors, that if I sometimes had to work then so be it, surely I could not be expected to entertain for 3 weeks! I was still tired but no longer feeling on the edge of a breakdown!
I didn’t sleep well the night before we went to the airport (early morning!) to collect our visitors but I wasn’t sure why. By the time we got back from the airport I was exhausted from not sleeping well, and they were certainly exhausted from not sleeping well on the plane (or at all!), so we all went to bed haha!
I didn’t sleep well the night before we went to the airport (early morning!) to collect our visitors but I wasn’t sure why. By the time we got back from the airport I was exhausted from not sleeping well, and they were certainly exhausted from not sleeping well on the plane (or at all!), so we all went to bed haha!
I’m not really going to comment much on the period that the visitors were here for, I guess it’s my blog to talk about me but not fair to talk about others per se. I’m only going to say that no matter how nice people are (and they were nice), having others share your house for 3 weeks is stressful, especially as I’m used to it being just me and my daughter, and we’re both pretty independent, doing our own thing! I’m happy in my own company and am not always in the mood to constantly chat!! Lol! I find that chatting, and engaging in conversation, actually takes quite a bit of energy and if someone chats a lot to me that I can be left feeling a bit like I’ve been swept up in a hurricane or something after about an hour!! I’ve actually observed that a lot of hypothyroid people talk a lot, which is strange because of the energy needed, but maybe because of stress hormones? Hmmm!
Anyway, about half way through their visit I got that god awful pain in the side of my face/teeth again, the pain that makes you want to shoot yourself in the head!! It caught me totally unawares and given that the last time I fixed it by taking vitamin K, and this time I was already taking vitamin K, I was totally perplexed. No point in going to the dentist (they’re as useless as the Drs!) and the pain was all over my face, no specific tooth, so they weren’t going to be able to help. I pondered and pondered (as well as feeling sick and disorientated from the pain) and decided it must be to do with calcium again. I’m also taking Vitamin A and thyroid, both necessary for strong, healthy teeth, so calcium is the only other thing I could think of and I know my calcium intake has been low. I’ve played around with it, upping it but always felt it made my skin drier. Feeling like there was nothing else for it I immediately poured myself a mug of milk, warmed it up and added some sugar. I drank that down and took about an 1/8 teaspoon of egg shell calcium (boiled the egg shells, dried them off in the oven on a low setting, then put them in my coffee grinder). After about an hour the pain had eased a bit, so that seemed to confirm it was a calcium related problem. I was only having around 400 ml milk per day, which is definitely not enough to support a high metabolism. Plus my calcium:phosphate ratio would’ve been awful. So I set about making some of Billy Craig’s Milk Powder Bakes, and added them into the mix. (You might remember from one of my blog posts that the last time I added them in, probably about a year ago, I spent all night vomiting!!) Anyway, no vomiting this time, always a good thing! After a couple of days the most amazing thing happened. The skin on my arms, which has been dull and fairly dry for a long time, suddenly went really shiny. I wasn’t expecting that. Looking at some stuff now though I think calcium is involved in skin metabolism so it totally makes sense. All this time I’ve been avoiding more calcium thinking it made my skin drier, when it was actually the complete opposite. It just took a couple of days to have that effect! I’m always saying listen to your body as it’s always talking to you, lol, it’s just that I usually get to the point where it’s shouting at me before I take note!!
I’d like to say that was the end of my tooth/calcium problems but no, after a couple of weeks the tooth pain came back again. Now I was truly mystified! So I had a momentary panic and cut back on the calcium again. I felt ill, my sleep went crap, my skin went dry again and my teeth/face still hurt. So I gave myself a bit of a talking to! No point in going backwards. I knew that low calcium was causing me a problem so it was silly to drop it right down again. I was about to go down other rabbit holes about what might be causing the problems but I managed to stop myself in time! Haha! Starting to recognise the patterns to my own behaviour now. I think I just took it to the other extreme and upped my calcium too fast. I also think my body likes the warm whole milk with coffee more than it does the skimmed milk powder in the milk powder bakes, maybe, possibly, lol! So I’ve gone back to having plenty of milky coffees with sugar and the tooth pain has gone. My skin is semi-shiny but I’ll take that for now if it means upping my calcium slowly and avoiding tooth/face pain!! The other problem I had when I upped my calcium intake a lot was that my mind went very foggy and my memory got worse. Not a great trade off hey, shiny skin for the sake of my memory, no thanks! Note to self, balance is key, and slow, steady change is usually better than a large shock to the body!
Now I’m sitting here, typing away and looking around my house. It’s still not completely tidied from when the visitors were here. There are many things I need to tidy up/put away. There is wood to be cut to finish things on the chicken run. There is work to be done in my garden and flowers to be planted up. I have work to do for my project. For now though, it’s one thing at a time, with plenty of rest and food in between. Tomorrow is another day and there is no need to have everything done right now, at least that’s the mantra I have going on in my head right now lol! As I’ve said over and over, patience is key, and throughout this journey I’ve come to see that more and more.
Billy (billycraig.co.uk) always says that your energy status is like a bank account. Usually by the time people get to him they are well overdrawn on their energy status! You need to let your account build up again before you draw on it. I tried to draw on it too heavily once I felt a bit better and it all went to shit! Lol! Back in the overdraft. So for now I’m cautious. Happy to feel better once again and to have no pain in my face/teeth, and to have energy!
As always, hope you’ve enjoyed my ramblings. That’s all they are, my ramblings, trying to make sense of things to enjoy better health. It’s important that you listen to your own body and do your own research, take control of your own health if you want to feel better. In my next post I’ll share what I’m eating, how much, and what my calcium:phosphate ratio is at the moment, along with the supplements I’m taking. I’ll also do a post on my 23andme results and what they mean for my health (I just have to fully understand that myself first lol!)
Take care,
Karen x
Take care,
Karen x
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