I am always reluctant to visit the doctor.  In the U.K. I was encouraged not to go to the doctor if I had a cold or a flu. It can be hard to know what exactly is wrong when I’ve had a bad cough and back in 2006 I got very sick when I didn’t have a chest infection treated quickly enough.  In Japan you are supposed to go to see the doctor as soon as you suspect you might be ill.  I have been trying to do this but I still worry that I’ll be wasting the doctors time with something silly.

Yesterday I went to see the doctor about my cough and he encouraged me to behave like the Japanese whilst I live in Japan.  He told me that it was better to be sure and pointed out that my cough was indeed bronchitis and treating it sooner was better.  He gave me four different types of medication, which is three more than I’ve ever gotten before.  I have antibiotics, something for the cough, some sort of expectorant, and a patch to help me breath at night.  I don’t really like the patch, as I was warned that it could make me shake, but I did manage to sleep last night.

I can’t imagine going to see the doctor for every cold or headache but I should probably stop worrying that the doctor will think I’m wasting their time when I do finally go.

I have a cold.  One of those irritating illnesses that doesn’t seem much of a problem until I try to do something.  Then I start to sneeze, my eyes water, my nose runs, and my temperature rises.  It’s boring and it’s making me grouchy.

For the past week I have been exercising more than usual.  This appears to be making me hungry.  I’m not really sure what to do about that.  When I’m in Japan I am very careful with my diet and I don’t know how much extra I can eat to compensate for the additional exercise.

The other problem I am having with exercise is the amount of time it takes.  I spent an hour and a half exercising and about another 40 minutes getting ready to exercise and getting cleaned up afterwards. I imagine that I won’t do this much exercise every day, but then I didn’t plan to do the aerobic exercise today.  It seems that exercise may also be addictive.

I haven’t had any problems following my weights program for the past 5 days but day 6 was terrible.  Instead of doing one set of exercises followed by a rest period I got to combine exercises and to work with no rest period.  Marty actually came out of his study to find out what I was doing as he could hear my laboured breathing through the door.  He told me that it’s called supersetting.  I don’t feel at all super and  I am really glad that day 7 involves resting my muscles and stretching.

I should have looked at the structure of this program before starting as Monday would have made a better rest day because the gym is closed. I may not have to lift weights tomorrow but it won’t be that much of a rest day as I still plan to do an hour of aerobic exercise at the gym.

I’m going to be spending September at home so it’s time to get serious about exercising again.  I have a book called “Smart Girls Do Dumbbells” that contains a 30 day plan to improve my muscle tone.  I have learnt how to do most of the exercises but I have never managed to do this work-out for 30 consecutive days.  I’m going to try to do that this month.  This means getting over my shyness at using free weights at the gym.  I have a small set of dumbbells at home but I need a wide range of weights if I want to exercise all my muscle groups and buying them would be silly when the gym has many more than I could afford.

I managed to complete day 1 but I wonder what my motivation will be like a week from now?

(Actually since I’ve had problems with both the network and my blog this week I wasn’t able to post this on Wednesday.  So far I have managed to do this for 5 days in a row.)

Marty convinced me to join the local gym.  We signed up on Sunday and now I need to work up the nerve to actually go.  This is not because I think people will laugh at my dreadful fitness level but because there are 75 rules of conduct for using it.  It took my Japanese teacher an hour to translate these and then another hour to go through the additional instructions I had been given.

Marty broke a rule while entering the gym on Sunday as he didn’t remove his shoes at the entrance.  I was dawdling along behind him and saw a couple of other people remove their shoes, so didn’t make the same mistake.  (My enthusiasm for signing up was evident in my reluctance to enter.)

I know that there are rules for using gyms in the U.K. but I can’t remember being explicitly told that it was forbidden to drink alcohol inside the gym.  Here there are lots of rules about shoes, but then wearing appropriate foot wear is an important part of the culture.  I find it odd that tattoos are forbidden but this also seems to be a cultural issue.

There are some rules that amused me:

• Don’t dye your hair in the shower room
• Don’t do your laundry in the shower room
• Don’t read newspapers or magazines in the sauna or steam room
• Don’t scrub or exfoliate your skin in the sauna
• No gargling is allowed at the water fountain
• Don’t wear jeans or skirts during aerobic classes

I find it odd to provide such explicit rules.  Why say that you can’t do your laundry in the shower room?  Is it O.K. to do this in the swimming pool or in the spa?  I imagine not, but when I see rules like this I start to wonder if I can do anything I want as long as there is no rule against it.

There was a a whole separate page on how to use the swimming pools.  I’m not sure I want to actually try swimming.  Before you enter the pool you have to sign some sort of health-check sheet and have your blood pressure taken (and it seems you do this every time you go).  You also must wear a swimming cap – something about hair clogging up filters.  I don’t own a swimming cap and my Japanese teacher thinks I’m going to need to buy one for a child as my head is small.  She said I would look cute.

Then there are the instructions on how to use the lanes.  There are one-way lanes, u-turn lanes, beginner lanes, and  lanes that you can only front-crawl in.  There are directions on the proper way to overtake a slow swimmer.  Seriously it tells me that I can only overtake on the right.  There are also the expected rules about noise, splashing, diving, walking…  I wasn’t actually expecting there to be rules about how to stop and walk in the swimming pool but it seems that the madness is endless.  And then there is the mysterious rule that states it’s O.K. to wear gloves in the pool.  Neither my teacher or I could come up with any explanation for that.

Given how horrified I am with the whole thing I have rang a Japanese friend who is going to go with me to the gym tomorrow.  I’m hoping that if the staff start to yell at us for our stupidity that she can at least translate for me.

I’m fed up today.  I spent the morning at the hospital.  I thought I would feel better when my concerns about my thyroid function were confirmed.  But I don’t.  I now have proof that the tiredness, joint pains, weight gain, and brain fogginess are getting worse because my thyroid function is declining. What I don’t have is a cure.

It’s nearly a year  since I started taking medication for low thyroid function.  At the beginning I was told that it should be an easy thing to correct.  I would just need to take a tablet a day for the rest of my life.  It hasn’t been easy.  The disease appears to be progressing faster than the medication adjustments.

Today’s appointment left me feeling angry.  I was told that although my levels aren’t normal, and are still declining, that they want to wait another four months before changing my medication.  I tried to explain how tired I felt but the Doctor brushed my comments aside.  She had already written the prescription before I entered the room and wasn’t interested at all in my changing condition or symptoms.

I’m going to have to go and see my GP.  He won’t be happy with my current hormone levels.  I don’t know if he can override the hospitals decision but he can maybe do something about the joint pain and other symptoms.

I’ve been really tired the past few days.  I don’t seem to have very much energy.  I’m hoping it’s just a side-effect of the travel with some jet-lag thrown in and not my thyroid medication.

Now that I’m home again it’s time to start back into my exercise program.  I did consider continuing this whilst travelling but it was too awkward.  At home I use quite a few exercise DVDs which I didn’t want to bring with me.  This doesn’t mean I didn’t exercise at all but it did lack structure.

Marty has been going to the gym regularly and has been trying to convince me to join.  I find the gym boring.  Why would I want to sit on a bike that goes nowhere when I can go out and cycle around the river?  He has, unfortunately, come up with a valid reason.  Most of the exercise I do is aerobic.  I like to dance, cycle, and hit things.  I don’t really do any sort of strength training.  As thyroid disease causes muscle weakness I need to do something about this.

Yesterday I added strength training to my daily routine.  I have a set of dumbbells and a book on how to use them.  Day 1 focused on the top part of the body, which was fine, but today was all about the legs and lower back.  My legs don’t want to exercise.  I have enlarged calf muscles, as I walk strangely, but the muscles in the top of my legs are wussy things that like to hide behind layers of fat.  I’m not even going to look at what’s coming up in Day 3 in case it frightens my abdominal muscles into finding a way to prevent me exercising.

Tomorrow I might go the gym with Marty.  I suppose it can’t hurt to give it a go (though I have a feeling that those words may be poorly chosen.)

I’ve been trying to find exercise to do that I enjoy and that I can sensibly add to my daily routine.  I woke up this morning wanting to cycle.  The river path is so peaceful and it wasn’t too hot.  I’m not sure how viable cycling will be once it’s gets really hot but for now I’m going to enjoy my morning cycles.