Pulled Muscles

My plans yesterday were foiled because, get this, I pulled a muscle turning my neck. I still can’t move my head to the right or look up or down.

So what did I do instead of cleaning or quilting or baking, all of which I had planned to do? Had an ice pack along my neck on and off all day and took copious amounts of ibuprofen. Copious amounts. This morning it is still sore, I still can’t turn my neck very well, and my head seems to be curiously tilted to the left along with my left shoulder looking as though it is raised.

I find it humorous that every time I accidentally move my head in the wrong direction and the pain causes me to hit the counter or stomp the floor (or both at the same time) while spewing out a slew of cuss words, I tense up, causing the pain to worsen. And of course being told to relax and stop tensing up doesn’t actually help, but seems to make it worse. Okay, actually I find it quite annoying, really. I mean, why in the world would the body’s natural reaction to pain be to, what appears anyway, make the pain more pronounced?

Well, I may not have all the answers (which will be shocking to some of you, no doubt) but I think I can figure out one thing for certain… I don’t drink enough water. Even though I was taking ibuprofen every couple hours, I have a tendency to only drink very little liquids due to my uncompromisingly Irish bladder. In case you are unfamiliar, we Irish pee a lot. Even us partial Irish. Or perhaps only us partial Irish who’ve inherited the small bladder gene. It’s no joke, I pee twice as much as I drink, and usually within only a few minutes of consumption. Anyway, the point is keeping hydrated allows the muscles to stay hydrated and helps reduce toxins in the bloodstream produced by strained muscles. While yes, having ice on the affected muscle area on and off will help flush those toxins by reducing inflammation, water will help prevent stiffening of the muscles. So I suppose I’ll just have to buck up, drink more, and have to run to the bathroom frequently.