Oh? Ah.

I still haven't gotten around to doing the exercises for my back that I put together a few weeks back (probably more than that now tbh), but I have been making more of an effort to be on my feet more, doing stuff. And do you know what? That alone is starting to pay dividends.

Don't get me wrong - more, quicker, better recovery will require doing the exercises - but this feels like a good starting point and the slight easing of pain during the day does indicate that my own intuition about the root cause of the pain is actually correct.

Looking good.

I may have implied, or even stated outright, that I've lost quite a bit of weight over the past 18 months (actually about 20). While a few people have noticed, I've only gotten compliments off of two people that I can remember: a work colleague a few weeks back, and my cousin, today.

My sister and brother-in-law asked quite early into the weight loss journey about it. Nerdy Girl asked me if I was ill after asking if I'd lost weight. KfW2 didn't notice at all, then promptly forgot and then the next time she saw me a few weeks later, asked me if I'd lost weight.

Arguably, I'm still slightly overweight, maybe by as much as 8 lbs or 3.5 kg, but I've been hovering around my current weight for three or four months now. And I'm OK with that. I might be able to shift the last bit if I were more active, and I have been a little more active over the past few weeks, to start sorting out my back issues rather than from a weight perspective.

I'm at the stage where I feel comfortable buying new clothes. I've lost a lot of weight, but at 20 months into the journey, I'm kinda hoping that I'm settled and am not going to put it all back on again over the next few months. 

Good and bad.

I went out for a walk with Nerdy Girl last evening. It was a slightly extended walk - about 4.5 miles, instead of the usual 3-ish, partly due to the weather, partly due to me wanting to push the limits a little with building up the strength in my back and leg muscles (which is a contributing factor in my ongoing back pain). 

She was great company as usual, we adjourned to a juice bar afterward and talked for an hour or so. But I am feeling it this morning, and not in that good "exercise pain" way, but in a "my back is killing me" way.

Back at it.

While I've yet to do any of the exercises that I extracted from Chat GPT a few days ago, I have been putting other aspects of its advice into play: being more active, getting up out of my chair more, going for short, leisurely walks.

Walking to the post office yesterday to post a letter helps. Doing the favour for CC last night helped. They're not big things, but they help. I'd love to be out, doing some gardening this week, but the weather's rubbish. But that'd help, too. 

It advised taking things easy. My weight loss has also had an impact that I didn't get from Chat GPT but it was something that came up when I was cross-referencing its findings: I've lost muscle mass, too. And that could also be contributing to my back pain.

So I need to build up the muscle mass, which the exercises would help with, but general movement would also help.

It'll be weeks or months before I see some actual proper improvement, so this isn't something that'll be fixed within a few days, but it'll be a habit I have to re-form.

Back to fitness.

I know that a lot of people look unfavourably at AI (or what's currently being described as AI: large language models, or LLMs). I admit that there are issues that I have with it, too. My job is increasingly at risk due to AI and I think it's entirely likely that I will be made redundant within the next five years as a direct result.

And don't get me started on AI-produced "art".

But it can have its uses if you know how to utilise it. That's half the battle. Creating a good prompt can yield incredible results, but writing a good prompt is a skill in itself.

For example, I could ask Google about chronic back pain.  Which would give me thousands of results.

Or I could write a comprehensive prompt, which is what I did. I described my pain, how long I've had it, the fact that I've not yet had a GP diagnosis, my own suspicions about my sedentary lifestyle being a factor and it give me a result.

To be fair, it did advise going to see a GP as one of its first comments, but it also suggested that my theory about my inactivity could be a factor. I then asked if there were exercises that I could do to help ease or remove the pain and it updated its response with a 6 - 8 week plan. I then added that I had some basic exercise equipment and listed it to see if that would change things, and the LLM made slight adjustments to add the equipment after a few weeks.

And finally, I asked it to create a collated collection of its responses with detail descriptions of the exercises in a printable format for offline reference. And it did that, too.

I still have to contact my GP, and it's still hugely advisable to double-check what an LLM tells you (as should be the case for any internet search, especially medical) but a lot of the basic exercises are the same as those in my Yoga programme. A cursory search looks like there's nothing massively incorrect in what the LLM has given me, so that's something to get on with, I think.

Back to back.

I did another few hours at my Dad's house today. It's good to see the work having a real impact and the back garden looks presentable again after years of neglect. However, the fact of the matter is that my back is in worse shape than I realised.

While I woke this morning in better shape than I had anticipated, it didn't take too long for the discomfort to kick in. Specifically, the walk to my Dad's house. It's not that far: just under a mile and a half and it's pretty level. So, not that taxing a walk. But my back was already starting to give me grief.

So three hours later with some mild physical labour and the return journey and I can barely move. I definitely need to call my GP and see about getting this fixed.

FFS?

OK, so I take it back. No sooner had I posted my last blog entry than my sister texted. She was already on her way to my house to pick me to head to Dad's.

We got a couple of hours work done, but there's much more to do. A lot more than I had realised. My back's also taken a beating. So while I can feel a slight burn of sunburn (it was a really nice day here), I can also feel my back start to stiffen and become sore. That's not going to be great tomorrow. 

One step at a time.

One of the guys in the office has suggested we do a "1 million steps" challenge. Essentially it's a challenge where a team of three attempts to do 1 million steps in a month. That's 333,333 steps per person, or 11,111 steps a day, at least. 

Bear in mind that my current average for last year is 3837 steps, then that means I need to do 3 times the number of steps that I'm currently doing.

I've said that I'll take part if we can get a full team. The goal is tough enough with having to increase it by 50% if there's only two of us.

Wince.

The back's in a bit of a state today. I think it was the gig with D. I was standing mostly still for nearly three hours. Despite the common advice for back stuff being to be active and move, I don't think that standing still counts. It was the same when I played pool with Nerdy Girl on Monday.

Nope.

No, dear reader, playing pool (as mentioned in my last post) did not help my back in any way. If anything, I think it's worse.

Pool party.

Sleeping on KfW2's sofa has really done a number on my back, which wasn't in great shape to begin with. I had hoped that the favour I had done for her a few weeks back, which ended up in my walking probably about 12 miles more than I normally would, would have helped my back. I am still operating under the assumption that being sedentary for the past 18 months is the cause of the issue, but being out and about more seemingly hasn't helped.

I was contemplating cancelling again on Nerdy Girl as she was suggesting a walk, but the weather has turned, so I think we're going to meet and play pool instead. I don't think that's going to do my back any favours, but who knows? Maybe the bending over the table/stretching might be a good thing?

Back to basics.

I had thought that the favour I was doing for KfW2 this week would get me on my feet more, and it has! I had hoped that being on my feet more (I'm walking about two miles a day more than average) would do something positive for the ongoing back issue that I've been having for months now.

I had assumed that the back issues were due to my sedentary lifestyle and some actual movement and exercise would help it.

But it's been a week now and I don't think my back has shown any kind of improvement. 

Not bad.

Yesterday was a long, but fun, day. It started at lunchtime, with a meal and a few drinks with co-workers. Sadly, and unlike other teams I've worked with, people drifted off quite quickly once the meal was done. However, with lots of budget remaining, we spent it on expensive (and delicious) cocktails.

Then, at 7 PM, D and his wife arrived. I said goodbye to the two work colleagues and went to the gig, which was excellent. However, my back was really sore, just from the standing. I really need to get someone to look at it. I think I need to see my GP first and then use that as a basis to get any further treatment through my private health insurance.

I've spent the day chilling and watching the two Knives Out films. They were quite fun. 

Bad Internet

It's been one of those days. My office chair broke late last night, so I've been hunched over my desk, my back killing me. One of my tasks for today was to look at my private health cover and see if I can get my back seen to. I used it for my foot earlier this year, so I'm not sure how much credit is left.

I emailed the chair people and they were quick to reply, but my chair is well out of warranty, so I can't see them helping too much. And I spend so much time in it that I kinda need a new chair as a matter of urgency. My choice was to order a new one from the same people, that might get here at the weekend, or go to Ikea at the weekend for a Markus. I don't find the Markus to be that great, but it would at least be more back support than I currently have.

It took me an hour to order the new chair. Specifically, it took me an hour to pay for the chair. I tried to pay in instalments, denied. I tried another card. Denied. Then Klarna demanded that I scan a passport. I'm not a fan of that, but I need the chair. Nope, that refused to work as well. I went back to the basket and just paid it all upfront. Hurrah. That worked. let's hope they didn't lie about their delivery times and I'll have the chair by the weekend.

Then I went off to register with a gas supplier. The work I've been talking about getting done in the house is an upgrade of my heating system. So my new gas supplier sent a letter with my details and said if I registered an online account, I could do paperless billing, make payments online etc. I'm all for that. I do it for other household bills. But denied again. "We've got your details, but can't create the account. Contact your gas suppliers" FFS. What's going on with the internet this evening that everything is fucked?

So I've managed to be super pro-active this evening but not accomplish anything. 

I need to take a break from the PC because my back is killing me, but I'll be back later to check my private health. 

Urgh.

My back has been giving me grief for the past few months, sporadically. I really need to get back into my yoga. But last night was a particularly bad night. I feel asleep quite quickly, but I woken less than an hour later, then spent nearly two hours trying to get back to sleep.

Additionally, I had to start early this morning,  so that meant waking an hour earlier and boy am I feeling it this morning.

Lots of coffee, I think. 

Hurray!

I've just been for my follow-up appointment about the long-term foot injury I have been complaining about and it appears that it's fully healed.

I think the consultant was surprised. I think I was surprised, even though I knew that I am pretty much pain-free, but I was still expecting some residual pain... you know, like being 90% of the way there, but not completely.

So, I'm pretty chuffed. I also got some exercise in, too. A 3 mile walk, no less. With the weather being great, I should get in touch with Nerdy Girl and attempt our 6-mile route next week and really test out the foot.

Let's gooooo!

I spent this morning walking around a retail park trying to find a new mattress. I was successful, but good mattress are expensive! I'm looking forward to hopefully better quality sleep. The only downside is waiting four weeks for it to be delivered.

Another positive to take away from this morning is that I walked over four miles with no foot issues. This means that, if it continues like this, I can think about doing a walk at lunchtime. It's something I've wanted to do for a while, but the foot was an issue. A couple of weeks of that, and I'll move on to something else: more walking, return to my yoga or something else.

And I should also ponder returning to our original route the next time I'm out with Nerdy Girl. It's six miles. Maybe that's for a few weeks' time though.

Bend me, shape me...

One of the accessories advised by the consultant is an inflexible splint. I ordered one off Amazon and it arrived yesterday. I'm not gonna lie, going to bed with that thing strapped to my right foot  was extremely off-putting, to the point where, at 3 AM, I removed it because I wasn't getting any sleep.

I'm already knackered this morning, but I hope that when I strap it on again tonight, that I'll be too tired to let it keep me awake. The consultant suggested I use it nightly for like three weeks. Oooft.

As I said in my last post about the injury, there's a possibility of surgery. I think that might be a little more probable that the consultant realises because, despite the fact I've basically sat on my ass for the past year, I am actually quite flexible.

Stuff to look forward to.

The clinic have been in touch and my MRI scan is due in two weeks. two weeks yesterday, in fact. That also means that it's two weeks today until KfW2 and I go out. Never had an MRI before, so while I'm not saying that I'm looking forward to it, it is intriguing me.

Step one.

So, I guess the good thing is that the consultant told me what I expected to hear: Plantar Fasciitis. He's recommended an MRI to rule out any lasting or permanent damage and a follow-up consultation in a few months time.

He's also given me some stretching exercises that I've been kinda doing anyway  and effectively told me to bin off all of my shoes and buy new ones. The brand he recommends are, on first look, about three or four times more expensive than the shoes I tend to wear. Hmmm...

Oh, and also some aids - insoles for shoes, splints and stuff like that.

He hopes the splints, insoles and more importantly, the stretching should take care of the issue, but if not then we'll have to look at other treatments that might include surgery. But at least the healing journey begins.