14th June, 2020.
As I have said previously, I struggled last year getting
the help I needed for the pain I was in. I finally got to see the
specialist in February this year. The referral had actually gone from
my GP the year before, around about February 2019, but because of the
system it had to go to be assessed by the musculaskeletal department
before I could see a specialist.
I had already been told a couple of years before by
another specialist that I needed a knee joint replacement but he
wouldn't do it at the time because of my weight. I was left to do
something about it myself, but as I was in a lot of pain, and my
spirits were very down, I found it hard to motivate myself.
Especially as I had lost the weight and it had started to go back on
by the time I saw him.
At that time I weighed around fourteen and a half stone,
but he wouldn't operate on me for his reasons. He wanted me to have a
BMI of 25, which works out at a weight of ten stone seven pounds.
That's two stone lower than my lowest weight of twelve and a half
stone. As we already know, my weight carried on going back up until
reached twenty stone plus again.
The musculaskeletal department assessed me over the
phone and decided that I needed to see a physiotherapist, so off I
went with hope.
It was decided, for whatever reason I'm not sure, that I
needed exercise and there followed ten months of getting me in a pain
group, and when that failed, seeing a physio and an assistant to be
given various exercises to do, but I couldn't do them.
When I tried to explain the problem I had, they did not
want to listen. In my mind it seemed as if they were saying to me
that if I did the exercises that the pain would go away, but I wasn't
able to do the exercises. I could hardly walk.
They told me that I was non-compliant and making
excuses. Not only did my physical health deteriorate, but so did my
mental health.
Finally a new GP gave me the results of of a knee X-Ray
taken before those physio visits started. Once the physio saw those
results, everything suddenly changed. All of a sudden I needed to see
a specialist! Then, as I have said before, this new specialist told
me I not only needed one knee replaced, but both, along with a hip
replacement.
I cried when he told me, because at long last someone
was telling me what I felt was REAL!
I knew that I had to lose weight and had started in 2019
to do something about it, but the fact that the health professional
had admited I did have problems and was prepared to help me, helped
my mental health improve and slowly my motivation returned.
Good job really as the lockdown changed everything.
I couldn't go to get weighed at the dietician clinic
becaused they were now closed. This meant I had to make the decision
to buy scales for the house. Now, that may not seem such a big deal
to you, but in the past I had got obsessed with weighing myself and
so didn't want any in the house. But now I had to get some to try and
track my weight. I was trying to rethink the way I lived, to stop the
yoyo dieting and the obsessions that had arisen in the past, and now
I had to have scales in the house! :-)
Before when I was dieting, I was obsessionly rigid. I
gave myself a daily calorie allowance, often as low as 1,000
calories, and stuck to it to try to lose weight quickly, because that
it what I thought you did. What happened then was that if I went over
my calorie allowance, maybe by as little as 100 calories, I had
failed and decided to eat more and try again the next day. I would
deprive myself so much of the things I loved that once I had had my
weekly weigh-in I would “treat” myself to what I had missed and
eat far too much, making myself feel too full and ill.
Then I would weigh myself at home so many times a day
and feel great if I had lost weight and miserable if I'd put weight
on. Looking back on it all now, it was a silly way to do things, but
that is the way I thought it was done.
As my mind started to clear, and I decided I needed to
lose weight, I knew I had to do it differently this time. I had to
look at what I had done in the past and make conscious decisions on
how I needed to move forward.
Up to March I still didn't feel I could do it on my own.
I had found a support system to help me, but I did do a lot of
reading and research to help me re-educate my mind which was helping.
I was beginning to see that I could hopefully do it, but then it all
went slightly pear-shaped. I had to do it myself and I had to buy
scales. I have family support but when it comes down to what I eat,
only I can decide. Only I can choose how it's going to be to achieve
my goal.
Now, what am I going to do about those weighing scales?
:-)
Jackie
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment