Chronic pain and movement and why I went to my physiotherapist for help

Okay, so I wanted to get back into doing more resistance training. Currently my resistance training involves my dogs pulling on the leash when we go for walks. While that certainly gives me a solid upper body workout, it is neither consistent nor conducive to gradually building strength and capacity.

I also do archery, which is also a great upper body workout. I usually shoot about 4 times a week with a recurve bow. It’s also a lot of fun. My bow weighs about 36 pounds, so I’m fairly strong. Possibly, more accurately, “fairly strong for someone living with multiple chronic illnesses.”

Although I get tired quickly. Part of the reason I want to do a good resistance training program is to get stronger for archery so I can shoot longer and have longer archery sessions. To build my endurance and increase my strength. If it’s easier to pull back a 36-pound bow, I can do it longer. Maybe I can even go every day.

So that was the idea.

I started two weeks ago and created a very simple program for myself.

This is what I did.

Upper body exercises

All exercises consist of 3 sets of 10 repetitions.

Bench press – 15kg

Curved dumbbell rows – 8 kg

Seated shoulder press – 3 kg

Biceps curls – 5 kg

Overhead Triceps Extension – 5kg Plate

Lateral raises – 3 kg

Lower body exercises

Goblet squats body weight to sitting level and stands up

Dumbbell lunges bodyweight

Romanian deadlifts 20kg

Calf increases body weight

Dumbbell increases body weight

My upper body was fine. I hardly had any pain anymore. But it’s a very easy, lightweight start. That’s what I was aiming for, and I got it right for my upper body.

Now my lower body was something completely different.

I woke up that night around 1am in terrible pain. And I mean *terrible*. It was an electric, diffuse, terrible pain through my legs. I’ve heard others call it an “electric storm in my muscles” and that’s a good description. A painful electrical storm.

I had no control over my legs, they wouldn’t do what I wanted. Or they would…eventually. The response was slow. Talk about ‘delay’. Standing was almost impossible and walking was almost impossible used to be impossible, until I discovered that my legs were responding, just very slowly.

I sat on the steps and lowered myself onto my butt. I didn’t feel safe walking down. I scooted on my butt, but it was the slowest scoot you’ve ever seen! It was more of a painful, slow lowering of my body, step by step, with most of my weight on my arms.

Thank the gods you still have good upper body strength!

This was all a big shock to me. I didn’t expect to react this way…I guess this is what happens when you do it too much when you have CIDP. I know how inflammatory arthritis responds to exercise, and too much exercise. But this neuropathic pain? This is new. A surprise. And not a nice one. But it’s all a learning experience, right?

I took my usual painkillers, opioids, and the pain subsided a bit. But it was still unbearable. I took another dose.

Long story short, I was in pain all day and couldn’t do anything. The next day things got better, but I still spent most of the day lying down. I couldn’t work or deliver my orders. It was the first time that I received NO orders within 24 hours. I pride myself on getting my orders FAST, so that was a big hit for me. I will NOT do that again!

Day 3 my legs started to feel more normal. I walked normally; my legs responded in the normal time. Previously I felt like my upper body was leaning forward and my legs were catching up, way back. Very strange sensation and very unpleasant. Now I felt like I was walking normally, albeit a little slower.

Please note, this is NOT muscle pain due to overdoing it, due to a heavy training. I’ve been a gym junkie my entire adult life. I know what sore muscles in the gym feel like. I’ve had DOMs and the cliche ‘can’t lower yourself onto the toilet because it hurts too much’. I know what it feels like when you’ve been working hard in the gym and overtraining your muscles.

This was NOT that.

This was something completely different. Something I’ve never felt before.

And it took three days for me to feel vaguely normal.

Those three statements were incredibly painful, and I was completely disabled for most of that time. It was a wake-up call.

I made a big mistake.

So.

Solution? Lighten the weight. Reduce the reps. And try again.

I’ve tried. I have failed. I felt terrible. I felt depressed.

So.

I went to my physio because I need support with this. The whole experience was very disappointing, disturbing even. Frustrating too. And even though I knew what to do, I knew how to do it, I didn’t do it right.

I realized I needed some advice, with a dose of support and encouragement. Quality advice. I knew my physio would give me all that.

He gave me two options: do it the easy way. Return it immediately to a small load. Try to do 5 reps, one set of everything. And only increased once every two weeks. And then increase the tax by 10%.

Or do it the hard way. Start with 5 reps, but do 2 sets. If that goes well, increase by 10-20% every week. Whatever makes sense with the weights I use. If things aren’t going well, reduce the weight. And look what happens.

Option one has the advantage that it causes absolutely NO pain. Because I can certainly do very light loads. I know it won’t leave me on the couch for two to three days, it won’t disable me and it won’t hurt. But the downside is that it will be very slow. Working slowly to find my baseline could take weeks from now. Many weeks.

As we know, I am a very impatient person.

Option 2 can cause pain. It might be too much. It may mean that you have to lie on the couch again for a day or two. While this would be very disappointing, my natural optimism (and perhaps my habit of overestimating my abilities) tells me I want to do it this way. If it’s too much, I wait until the pain goes away and reduce it by 20%. And try again.

So today I’m starting over.

I’m going to do the same upper body. It was fine. I might even increase it a bit.

However, the lower body will be much, much less. There will be 2 sets of each.

Squats – 5 reps

Lunges – 5 reps per leg

Romanian deadlifts – 10 kg

Calf raises – 5 reps

Step-ups – 5 per leg

And then I’ll see how I can handle it. This is about a quarter of what I was doing before, even less. So I hope this doesn’t cause me any severe pain. A little pain is fine. And to be expected. Maybe even appreciated as a sign of progress.

But we’ll see.

I keep notes on what’s happening and how I’m going. It should be interesting.

Above all, I will be honest. This is a challenge, and I’ve messed up before. And now I’m trying again, with the support of my physiotherapist.

I don’t want people to think this is a walk in the park, it’s not. It’s a serious undertaking and I hope it will help me maintain muscle strength in my arms and legs. It will take a lot of energy, it will reduce my upright hours, hours of which I currently have too little. And it may not help. But in the worst case even if it doesn’t help. At least I’ll feel like I did everything I could to avoid muscle wasting and further disability.

In four weeks I will go back to the physio to see how I am doing. I will also post progress reports here.

I don’t want people to think this is easy. It’s not. But it IS feasible. And it IS worth it.

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