Wednesday, February 11, 2015

A New Year…A New Resolution (Life After The Army)

I’ve been struggling since I’ve been back over balancing working out and pain. When I’m in pain, I have no desire to work out at all. If I’m not in pain, usually a workout ends up putting me in pain. It seems like a freakin’ no win situation. My wife really wanted to start using our YMCA membership and I agreed that we definitely need to hit the gym more. So like many others we started going regularly to the local YMCA after work multiple times a week. I’ve just decided to bite the bullet and start taking more of my pain medication to offset everything. A month has gone by and we’ve done a good job of hitting the gym regularly. I don’t go when I have massage therapy or chiropractic appointments after work. When I workout I pretty much stick to walking around the track, while my wife hits various cardio machines. I’ve just started using the mechanical (universal) weight machines as well. I’ve been sticking to a lighter weight with multiple repetitions. So far it’s been working out as expected, but it seems like any physical exertion ends up causing me pain. I’ve had to increase the amount of pain medication I’m taking quite a bit, but I do feel better physically now. I guess we’ll see in the long run how my liver feels after all the pain medication I’ve been taking. I’m popping Vicodin like candy and taking muscle relaxers every night.