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.

I wake up everyday to stiff and achy muscles.  The variety in my exercise program does lead to variety in my achiness.

At the start of the program, two weeks ago, I got out a measuring tape.  It’s a horrifying experience (who wants to know how fat they really are) but at least now I know that after two weeks my waist is 5 centimetres smaller.

I haven’t felt like blogging lately.  I’ve started an new exercise regime which is zapping all my energy.  I need to do this as my under-active thyroid has done bad things to my muscles and I want to get stronger.

Today I start week two of the 100 push-ups challenge and the 200 sit-ups challenge.  Once I do that I have 30 minutes of high-impact aerobics.  After that -  I’ll just collapse in a heap.

I was back at the thyroid hospital last week.  I was a bit worried about the blood tests but the nurse had no problem finding my veins.  As I suspected my hormones still haven’t stabilized and my medication was increased again. The Doctor is hoping that I will start to feel better by mid-summer.

I decided to try a mid-week hospital visit this time in the hope it would be less crowded.  Instead of the 500 hundred or so people that are there on a Saturday morning there was about 100 this morning.  The only drawback was that I saw a different Doctor.

As I suspected, as I still spend a lot of time feeling exhausted, my medication needed to be increased.  I now have to spend another two months waiting for this new level to stabilize. Given how slow this process is I am not convinced that my hormone levels will be correctly adjusted in time for the summer conference season.  I am going to need to build in a lot of extra time to recover from the travel and the full days at the conferences.

Yesterday I went to see a dermatologist.  I had been putting this off as I had hoped that my thyroid medication would be working by now and I know my skin will be very dry until this stabilizes.  But since I’d gotten to the stage where any weight on my feet caused me pain I decided not to wait any longer.

I now have a variety of creams to treat my skin with.  I still don’t know exactly what is wrong.  The dermatologist had a book on how to explain skin conditions in English.  She used this to explain that I have eczema on my head.  But she didn’t know how to explain the problem with my feet.  She was able to tell me that it’s not something that can be cured – as my body is attacking itself – but it can be controlled.

Now I need to find something to help with fatigue and sensitivity to cold.

I’m feeling sorry for myself today. It happens from time to time. I was looking forward to getting back to Tokyo but I spent most of today in bed. I have bronchitis. It’s not overly serious but I did manage to avoid it in the winter of ’07 and ’08. And I didn’t want to catch it again. What is it about going to Northern Ireland that makes me ill? When I last visited I ended up with a really painful sinus infection.

I’m going to try to motivate myself to go and see a doctor. The last time I had bronchitis I also managed to catch some sort of bacterial infection closely followed by a virus – the combined efforts of which left me useless for around six weeks. At the minute my hormone imbalance is making me feel quite useless all by itself I don’t need anything else to help it along!

Another Saturday morning spent at the Ito Hospital.  The hospital waiting room wasn’t as packed this morning though I arrived a bit later than I wanted to.  Mind you it was only 7 minutes after the hospital opened and today I got to be number 174.

I was really impressed by how quickly they can turn round blood test results.  I had my blood taken at 8.45 and when I got to see the consultant at 10.15 he had the results.  I was surprised by these as, even though I’m now on medication, I’m getting worse instead of better.   So he prescribed more medication.  I’ll need to go back for more tests – not something I’m looking forward to but something that I’m going to need to do regularly for the forseeable future.

I don’t like having blood taken but the nurses at the hospital are very competent.  I wasn’t overly happy, however, with the way they put pressure on the injection puncture once they finished.  At my Doctor’s surgery they use neat little plasters.  At the hospital they used a large wad of gauze and what felt like packing tape.

Too Much Tape

Last week I went to a pharmacy for the first time since I moved to Japan.  Marty had gone for me before and he hadn’t mentioned any of the differences.  The first thing I had to do was register.  They wanted my name and address.  Then I had to fill in a medical questionnaire regarding any medication I was currently on, what symptoms I currently had, and what the doctor had told me about the medication I was about to be given.

I was there to pick up a prescription for the common cold.  After filling in my symptoms and the required information I was then interviewed by the pharmacist. So I got to waste someone else’s time discussing my rather pathetic cold.

The pharmacist also advised me to use a book to record my medication in.  This book is provided for free but you have to pay a bit extra for each prescription ( a bit being about 20 円, (15p or 22 cents)) as they print out a sticker for the book.  This is an excellent idea.  It means I don’t need to know the Japanese names for my medication and I won’t need to fill in questionnaires or try to explain what I am taking to someone else.

It was nothing like going to get prescription medication in Belfast.  In Belfast you pick up prescription medicine in a chemist that is going to also sell over-the-counter medicine as well as everything from shampoo to face cream.  In Japan these things are bought in drug stores and prescription medicine is dispensed in a pharmacy. Over-the-counter medicine in Japan is still actually behind a counter.  In Belfast you can pick up pain-killers and cold medicine in a garage or a supermarket.  And these are no longer behind a counter in a chemist.  It does make it harder for me to buy tablets in Japan, as I need to know how to ask for them, but it does seem to be a much safer system if less convenient.