The Exercising Journey is not just about physical activity!

 Overall Health and Exercising

I have mentioned some health things on my blog before most in as they relate to not sleeping properly and it having some bad effects on me. All the things I am going to say are about my health story and I am in no way saying what you should or should not do. 

When I was younger I had a few bad doctors. The kind of Dr that would hear what you said such as, my nose is always stuffy and no allergy has helped me at all, and answer with something so condescending like, well maybe if you blew your nose right it would not be stuffy all the time. So since I was a kid I had a bad relationship with medical "professionals". This all came to a boiling point about 15 years ago when I went to the Dr for a very soar throat. I figured it had to be strep or something else like that it hurt so bad and nothing I was doing was helping so I went to the Dr. When talking to the Dr he asked if I had an sexual partners... I was in my 20s and I was in a commited relationship but I answered yes I have had partners. That was the question asked so that was the response I gave. I tried to clarify and say only one partner but the Dr did not care at that point I was told that he will have to treat me for every STD but I for sure have gonorrhea of the throat all from having too many partners and he would not test me for strep. Well I wrote off medial "professionsals" that moment and said some fine words to him as I walked out the door and told him I would make sure my insurance does not pay him a dime. I also did call my insurance and told what happened and that he gave no treatment and no service rendered and to not pay him as he did nothing. I then went to a quick clinic to get tested and would you know it strep throat!!! After that day I made the choice to not go to the Dr for the next 12 years. I maybe had things I should have gone to them for but I was not about to deal with someone being such a jerk to me about my life choices again. 

About 5 years ago my daughter was born and this made me have to change my thoughts on going to a Dr. I did not want to be the parent that died because of something preventable and easy to fix becuase someone was a jerk to me. It took some time but I found a primary care Dr again and kept it all very simple and easy. This Dr was awesome and made me feel like I was a real person and no someone that he placed judgement against. It was never your health is this way because you need to lose weight end of story it was more well weightloss will help but lets look into other things to make sure they are not problems as well. It made me comfortable enough to tell him something that has bothered me for years and I just assumed it was normal and or not something I should care about. My Samsung watch was giving me very odd numbers for blood oxygen while sleeping and my wake cycles were plenty. I was also tired all day and started to have a brain fog or more like feelings of I never fully feel like I have woken up. Its a bit hard to explain but its like I slept but never really went to sleep is how I ended up wording it to him. He told me that normally this kind of problem you are describing would be for more overweight people than myself, or older people, but younger thinner people can have it too it just not as common. Why do we rule out anything with a sleep study and in the meantime don't lose sleep worrying about it. So I got a sleep study done. 

Sleep study results came back with obstructive sleep apnea. I now, as of today, have to go to bed wearing the sleep mask in the photo below. I have been stressed out and I am also relieved I have an answer for something medical related. I thought I was going to end up with Drs like I had in the past where nothing gets solved figure life out on your own you dirty sex before marriage person. Sure I have to wear the APAP every night and it will be uncomfortable for a while but my first problem I brought up to my childhood Dr was answered by the new Dr. I could have a stuffy nose all the time because of something to do with CO2 levels being off and my nose expanding the blood vessel causing it to feel stuffy. This would not only happen at night but occur in the day too...

All these years I have been suffering from something that itself will not kill you but will cause so many problems over a life time that it will shorten it all becuase of a crummy childhood Dr. I am so happy to have a Dr that listens to me now and takes what I say for real and follows up on it.

How does this tie in to exercising? 

Exercising for me is about health and overall making my life a little better. The whole journey started to fit back into pants which was also me noticing that I let myself eat too much over the covid years and not think about my overall health. I was not exercising and I was not taking care of my medial health. If I were to just exercise but not fix the sleep apnea then I would still be tired all the time and not want to exercise and I would also be pushing my heart harder than it needs to at night which could end up leading to very bad things for me. Overall health is something I have to focus on to keep the exercising journey going. Its all related and the relation is my health. What would be the point of doing one half with out the other? 

I am also hopping that wearing the APAP will end up helping me recover faster from my exercise. I did not ask the Dr that as even though I really like my Dr and all the medical professionals I have seen in the recent years I still have a hard time asking questions about things. There is always going to be a part of me that will not ask quesitons. 

Anyway, I am off to continue the journey by going to sleep! Have a wonderful sleep as well and thank you very much for reading!