Present tense

[beetiger]

I woke up abruptly last night with a muscle spasm in my left leg, bending my knee all the way and causing excruciating pain for some number of seconds. About two minutes later I stretched, and got the same reaction out of my other leg, intensely. I woke Bard up by mistake by my screaming. This morning, they were still sore, and although a bath of Epsom salts helped some, there's still a distinct ache. This experience isn't entirely new. Occassionally I get a similar thing happenning in just my left foot; my toes curl tightly, and it's quite painful. I also sporadically get leg pain at night that I call "growing pains", though the latest visit to the doctor tells me I still haven't hit 5"1' yet.

I'm not generally someone who feels betrayed by her body, especially in comparision to some people I know. My body's gender fits me pretty well psychologically. Except for chronic sniffly allergies, I'm pretty darned healthy. The vision problems can be corrected with simple tools. I'm pretty happy with how I look, and have been that way both at a size 4 and a size 14. I'm kind of a klutz, but I don't let that bother me too much. My sexual response is pretty reliably good. I've got an interesting face. And I figure that as soon as the hair loss gets too bad, I'll go for the Sinead O'Connor look and leave it at that.

Still, I wonder whether the leg pain's an early warning, whether there's something in my body that's bound to get worse, something genetic, something related to the CP my little sister has. Then I think about her, with her intense leg pain every night for years, several surgeries under her belt before she was even ten years old, and I feel like a pathetic whiner, a dreadful wimp.

Next time, I'll try not to scream.

Comments

Cramps

[fenton.livejournal.com]

Make sure you're getting enough potassium in your diet. It's easy to fail to do so, and one of the fastest ways to get cramps in often-used muscles (like, oh, your legs, which most people use more than just about anything else).

As always, caveat eater.

Re: Cramps

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Good point! OK, back to bananas for breakfast for me...