Excuses, Excuses

I've had way too many good reason not to workout such as being sick, the Holidays, working on my garage, etc. Spring is coming and now is the time to be training.

via The Everyday Athlete

Technorati Tags: fitness | health | training

Campylobacter Is No Fun

Last Monday night I felt a little cold when I went to bed. I woke up a couple times during the night and felt cold. We drop the temperature in our house to 60 degrees at night but I'm normally plenty warm.

Tuesday morning I had a headache but Tylenol pretty much took care of it. By noon I had a worse headache and Tylenol wasn't doing much good. I went home from work around 4 and was having chills.

I was hoping a nap would help and I'd feel better. Instead about the only times I got out of bed for the next 48 hours were for way too many trips to the bathroom. During that time I lost 5 pounds although it was mainly from dehydration and my weight bounced right back.

Thursday evening I felt descent. I went to work Friday and felt pretty good all day. Soon after I got home I started having bad abdominal pain and making trips to the bathroom again.

I got bad enough that I ended up going into the ER. Based on my blood tests, the doctor was pretty sure it was food poisoning and not the stomach flu that has been going around. He gave me some medication for pain and antibiotics to kill the bad bacteria.

Yesterday I got confirmation from my doctor that it was food poisoning. I also got a call from the country health department because I had campylobactor. Normally it occurs in isolated cases but sometimes there are outbreaks of it. They asked a bunch of questions about what I had eaten and where. They said most likely it came from something I ate over the Thanksgiving weekend but didn't really pinpoint what.

Yesterday I spun very easy on the bike path for about 40 minutes. I felt pretty good so I headed over to Ute Valley today. I've been wanting to get over there now that I work close again. I could tell I was still pretty fatigued. I only rode about 45 minutes but that's about all I had. I'm also still feel like sleeping a lot.

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Technorati Tags: health

Sinus Infection Prevention

It's fall and we're heading into the cold part of the year. At least here in Colorado, sinus infection are common with cyclists during this time of year. I'm not sure exactly why but I think it was to do with the really dry, cold air and breathing hard while training. It's also when we get more colds and try training too much before we get over them. My non-active co-workers also are more likely to have sinus infections during the winter too but not as bad as cyclists.

For the last several years, I haven't made it through a winter without being on antibiotics at least once for a sinus infection. Not only do I have bad summer time allergies but I'm also allergic to molds and dust. I have some congestion most of the time which contributes to my sinus problems.

With my extra job stress this year, I've been on antibiotics 4 times for sinus infections. The last time was about 2 months ago. The biggest thing that makes it hard for me to train while on antibiotics is that it messes my stomach up. That makes it hard to eat enough on long rides and can cause a bonk. Eating yogurt and taking iFlora or Digest Caps really helps my stomach.

This last time I was on pretty strong antibiotics for 18 days. Within a week of finishing the antibiotics, I was feeling like I had a sinus infection again. I was doing everything that I know to do. I was taking antihistamines, using nasal spray and Mucinex.

When I was in to my asthma and allergy doctor's office to get my allergy shot, I told them I was having trouble again. They said I really should be using the Sinus Rinse. A couple years ago they had tried getting me to use it too and had given me a free one.

I had never used it. You use it to spray a saline solution up one nostril and let it run out the other side. That just didn't seem pleasant to me. My dad had been using it for a while and had told me it doesn't feel that bad and had really helped him.

They gave me another one even though I told them I still had the other one. I figured I'd give it a try to try to avoid taking more antibiotics. It ended up not feeling bad at all and I got a lot of crud out of my nose. The key is to bend over enough so the solution doesn't run down your throat. I've also found when I'm really stuffed up it helps to take a really deep breath and hold it while squirting the solution up my nose.

Even after using it once, my sinuses felt better. After a couple more days of using it, my sinuses felt fine. I used it for a couple weeks and then felt well enough and quit using it. After several days, my sinuses started bothering me again. I guess I need to use it every few days to keep things cleared out.

According to the list on the website of places to buy the Sinus Rinse, it should be easy to find at a drug or grocery store. My free one only came with 5 packets for making the solution but I think the ones in the store come with 50 packets. I bought a box of 100 packets at Walgreens once the ones that came with mine ran out.

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