Here’s what you missed this week:
The 3rd anniversary of my foot ordeal. Fun stuff.
A doctor’s appointment…from my home office.
My favorite fire-roasted tomato sauce.
And a 32 weeks pregnant update!
50 reasons I won’t share, stumble, like, or RT your content and 5 reasons I will. From Avitable. Read it.
A drinking flow chart for the holiday office party:
My head is far too scattered to post on just one cohesive topic. So you get a bunch of ramblings from the week:
1. Did you hear chronic pain is now officially classified as a disease? You probably don’t care. I do. Why does this matter? It means improvements in treatment.
Researchers have now shown that chronic pain really is in our heads- but not the way most doctors dismiss it. When you hurt yourself- say you slam your back in a car accident- signals are sent from your back to your brain saying ouch this hurts! Those signals continue for so long that they retrain your brain. Then even when the physical source of pain is gone or healed, the pain signals are still being sent to your brain. So for all intents and purpose, the injury is still there- there’s just nothing physical to fix.
Understanding the pain-signal process will make a huge difference in how chronic pain is managed and treated.
Did you know only 1% of doctors specialize in pain? They’re called physiatrists. Apparently doctors can get as little as 1 hour of training in pain when they’re in med school. Is that not the most frightening thing you’ve ever heard? These people prescribe narcotics! That’s less training than they get in nutrition, and that’s pretty low.
2. I think Jennifer Garner and I should be friends. And not just because she’s pregnant and married to Ben Affleck. I flipped on Ellen the other day while getting a snack, something I never do, and there she was, running the show. Anyone that can be funny next to Ellen is a-okay in my book. Plus she talked about accidently getting drunk while filming a segment with Martha Stewart. And stalking her kitchen- literally. I guess she has a Martha Stewart thing.
3. I’m buying paint for the nursery today. That means I have to actually make a decision on what colors we’re using…
4. Please adequately source your recipes if you’re posting a recipe that’s not yours on your blog. This includes saying “adapted from”, posting the recipe and then only subbing one thing, like whole wheat flour. Not cool.
5. I finally tried Love Grown Foods granola and chia pudding. Both fabulous.
6. 
a la the bestest’s pinterest.
7. 
from my friend Emily.
Happy Friday! 
Now on tiny sneakers:
How to Prepare for Pregnancy: the changes I made.
I’ve always been one of those people to scoff at taking a pill for an ache or a pain. I don’t mind going to the doctor to find out what’s wrong, but if a pill is their easy answer, I usually prefer to find another doctor, not take the pill.
Aside from stashing a bottle of Pepto in my purse from time to time when my stomach’s acting up, I prefer to figure out the cause of my complaint and make it stop, not just cover it up by swallowing a pill of who-knows-what.
Well that all changed a few years ago when I desperately said yes to taking a shot-in-the-dark medicine for my hand & foot pain. While I don’t pop Advil like candy, I know when enough’s enough, and I’d certainly reached the point of enough.
If you read back then, you know that little pill changed my life. Rather, it gave it back. But it wasn’t just that pill that did the trick. My hematologist suggest I try vitamin b12, even though no test results were saying I needed it for anything. Being a dietitian, I was much more excited by the idea of taking a vitamin than another medication. So I did.
And wouldn’t you know? The pain med-B12 combo is what did the trick. Sure, the pain meds were leading the pack, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I easily noticed when I forgot to take the B12. Even though I’ve always believed that food, vitamins, and minerals were the answer to everything, I was still shocked it could help with something like this.
To this day, that B12 is still helping me get through. I haven’t taken a pain pill in over a year, yet I’m still functioning. Don’t get me wrong- it’s not the same. But a day or two without the B12, and I’m significantly worse. I’m grateful there’s something to help get me by while I’m doing everything I can to have a healthy baby.
Through the years, vitamins and other supplements have gotten me through rough patches without the need to turn to convention medicine. Instead of chronic anti-inflammatories for my knee, I turned to glucosamine and chondroitin. When my hair was falling out, I turned to biotin instead of chemicals. When the husband’s triglycerides were high, I turned him towards omega-3 oils. On days without sunshine, I’m grateful for my chewable vitamin D.
I don’t serve vegetables for dinner because I think they’re pretty. {Ok, that’s a lie. Some vegetables are gorgeous.} I serve vegetables for dinner because they help make my family healthy. They give us the vitamins and minerals we need to help us be our best selves. I haven’t had a cold since college. I have to think my diet has something to do with that. {If I get a cold after pushing publish, this post is getting permanently deleted! Someone go knock on wood!}
Now that I’m pregnant, vitamins are helping both me and my baby be as healthy as we can be. I’ve never been so diligent about taking a multivitamin in my life. But, vitamins are literally helping me be a better me, and hopefully the same for our baby.
In what way to vitamins or minerals help make you a better you? What supplements do you take, if any?
I’m making this post in the Nature Made Blogger Team Contest, and I got some cool free stuff from Nature Made for participating. Vote for my entry at www.facebook.com/naturemade between 9/20/11 and noon (PT) 9/26/11.
My entry is official live! I made the top 20! Please pretty please go vote on Facebook, up to once a day!
As the weeks slowly passed, my worst fear started to come to life. Each day I noticed something that was a little harder to do; hurt a little bit more.
Images flashed through my head as I’d try to fall asleep- I’d remember my days of being confined to the corner seat on the couch, the nights of not going out with friends because it hurt to stand, and the worst, the mornings where I couldn’t get my shoes on for a run.
I was terrified that life was about to fly into reverse. Everything I’d worked for, fought through, and overcame was about to disintegrate into a distant memory.
And then one day I realized it’d been a few days since things had gotten worse. I tried not to let myself get hopeful, but then a few more days passed.
Slowly those days turned into weeks, months, and now almost a year. The pain that came back has stuck around, but after those first couple weeks the progression stopped. And stayed stopped.
So here I am almost a year later; there’s some pain, but I’m eternally grateful things never got as bad as they were in the beginning. It still bothers me every day, but not in a way that’s interfering with my life this time. It’s just something that’s a part of me, like being left handed or allergic to peanuts.
It’s made things like running, biking and lifting weights harder, but not impossible this time around. Thank goodness is not a big enough expression.
And if you’re wondering why I’ve voluntarily put myself through this, it’s because babies don’t like Class D pain meds. 
The beauty of blogging is you can put forth whatever it is you want to portray.
I try to be honest and put a lot of it out there, but there are some things I don’t.
Like this:
In September I stopped taking my pain medication.
Well, I didn’t just stop- I started the long process of stopping.
What I was taking is known for it’s terrific withdrawal effects- and they weren’t joking. {And by terrific I mean horrific.}
I went to the doctor and asked how to get off it- his explanation seemed reasonable. Cut back to every other day for 7-10 days, then stop taking it. Simple enough.
So in September I did. I skipped my first pill.
Several days later and I was in my own personal hell.
There were daggers in my head and I was an emotional wreck- I was unnecessarily angry & agitated, I was crying at the drop of a hat, and the pain in my head was compounding it all.
It took me awhile to figure out what was going on. When I did, I knew I needed a new plan. Honestly, I was relieved to find out I was in withdrawal- at least it explained what the hell was going on with me. I have new sympathy for drug addicts who just can’t kick the habit. It’s literally a living hell.
So I did hours & hours of research, slowed by the blinding pain in my head, and devised a new plan. I was frustrated to realize I should’ve started weaning off of it months ago- and it should take a year to get off. Well that wasn’t going to work for me, so I compromised. I came up with a plan to slowly decrease my dose every few days. By decreasing quickly, I still went through some withdrawal, but nothing like I had experienced in the first weeks, and nothing I couldn’t handle.
At first I was just excited to be ridding myself of the awful drug. I didn’t want to be on anything that would cause withdrawal at the level of a recreational drug abuser.
I was anxious to see what would happen with the pain..would it return? Would it be gone? Would I be sentencing myself to a life on the couch again?
The first week or so of my new plan was refreshing- sure, I felt like crap, but my pain wasn’t any worse than usual.
Then complete terror struck. xx days into it, I knew the answer. My pain was back. I’d noticed it coming, but I was in denial. I made excuses. I pushed it out of my mind.
Then I was sitting working at my computer and I realized how hard it was to type. I panicked. A quiet panic though. I kept typing, and I kept hoping…
