Part of the package I was given with Lyme disease and babesia was intolerance to heat. I have an electrolyte disorder, so not only am I heat intolerant, but I lose a lot more electrolytes than most people. Babesia, a tick-borne pathogen that infects red blood cells, causes night sweats. Sweating all day and night is a recipe for extreme dehydration. If you don’t have proper hydration, the way I understand it, you’re going to have an even harder time dealing with Lyme disease.
Hydration Tablets and Caplets and Lyme Disease
My doctor ordered me to use Nuun tablets all day. They’ve helped tremendously and happen to taste really good. (My favorite flavor at the moment is Strawberry Lemonade.) I also take Hammer electrolyte caplets before workouts, even if the planned workout is relatively light. My blood pressure isn’t as dangerously low anymore and I don’t come close to passing out multiple times throughout the day, so I know the Nuun and Hammer are working.
There’s an abundance of scientific and anecdotal data available about Lyme disease and hydration. I asked my doctor how much water he wants me to drink per day and he said he didn’t have a set amount. He wants my pee very light yellow whether that takes two liters, three liters, or a lot more fluid. I mostly follow the Buhner Protocol, but the Cowden Protocol says it won’t work unless you drink a minimum of three liters of water daily. I don’t count any foods as hydrating even though they are. The small amount of water in apples, oranges, and my other favorites is pretty negligable in the scheme of things. I measure a liter of water every morning in a glass bottle and then try to have it gone (with Nuun tablets) by 10 a.m. I gauge my fluid intake for the rest of the day based on how I feel and what my activity level is. And, of course, the color of my pee.
Easy Recipe
Nutramedix stevia is a product I recently found after my doctor put me on a few Nutramedix tinctures for Lyme disease. Nutramedix is the brand name associated with the Cowden Protocol. Their stevia is by far the best I’ve tasted. A few drops go a long way and taste really good. My favorite, simple hydration recipe that I invented (no claims of chef skills here!) is this:
5ish drops of stevia, depending on tartness of lemon
Water Bottles
I hate carrying bottles when I run but it’s a necessity. Hydration vests generally bother my neck. I want to try a nice Salomon vest but can’t justify the price. I often plan routes around a place I can safely hide a full bottle, although that strategy isn’t foolproof. Not long ago, a bottle of Nuun was stolen when I was mid-run. Yes, during a pandemic, someone stole my bottle. I’m not sure what to make of that. Anyway, I can’t stand to carry more than about 10 ounces at a time because of the weight, so if I plan to run longer than 4 miles, I make sure there’s a bigger bottle accessible to me. Sometimes that means looping back to my house to drink from a cooler in the driveway. Other times it means circling back to my truck to grab some cold Nuun. Either way, the trackback is not an option. It’s a necessity.
Pruned Fingers
My fingers are still pruned most nights. Not the most scientific measure of hydration and its effects on Lyme disease, I know, but valid to me. It’s a battle to get hydration right, especially with babesia. I go to bed cold or comfortable. By midnight, I’m burning up hot and soaked in sweat. But hey, writing this just gave me an idea. Maybe I’ll pop a Hammer tablet before bed tonight and see if it helps. Might as well.
“Do you still have fibromyalgia now that you have Lyme disease?” This is a question I get more often than I care to acknowledge. The intention behind the inquiry is often quite different from person to person. While I recognize the validity of the question, it bothers me. It’s in the best interest of chronically ill people to work together to support each other, and sometimes questioning, intentionally or not, can come across as a micro-aggression. Diagnoses of Fibromyalgia and Lyme disease often go hand in hand, and the answer to the question is more complicated than a simple yes. Here’s the short summary– getting diagnosed with Lyme disease did not erase my diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Things just make more sense now.
Which Came First?
Fibromyalgia is often diagnosed when nothing else seems to fit. I know because I’ve been down that road. Unexplained pain, sensitivities, exhaustion, fatigue– you name it, and chances are if a blood test rules out (or misses) other diagnoses, fibromyalgia comes into play. I’ve done a ton of reading lately and learned that many, many patients with late-diagnosed Lyme disease were diagnosed with fibromyalgia years before Lyme. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have fibromyalgia. It simply opens the door for a conversation about co-infections, cause and effect, chicken-and-egg theories, and, occasionally, clarity.
I’m not educated enough to form an opinion about whether Lyme disease is a cause of fibromyalgia. But I do know that they share a lot of commonalities. The overlaps, for me, are undeniable. Exaggerated pain responses, overactive nerves (especially in my right foot), crippling exhaustion, brain fog, fatigue…the list goes on and on.
I was first diagnosed with fibromyalgia as a young athlete who was living in otherwise unexplained misery. It’s worth noting that no one bothered to test me for Lyme disease or any other tick-borne infections until many years later. But does that change anything? For me, not really. Lyme disease can’t be carbon-dated. There’s no way to know if a Lyme infection was present in my body all those years ago when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It’s possible that I got Lyme several years after fibromyalgia. It’s also possible that Lyme has been with me far longer than I can imagine.
Lifestyle Management
The main thing for me for both fibromyalgia and Lyme disease is lifestyle modification. Everything I eat, every action I take, every decision I make is colored by being someone with chronic illness. I eliminated gluten, dairy, most processed foods, refined sugar, and industrial seed oils from my diet a long time ago. The exception there is sugar, because sometimes exercise and exertion levels demand a quick shot of energy. But those times are quite rare for me. I made those dietary changes after I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. All I had to do was tighten them up a little more once I talked with a Lyme specialist.
Exercise is a huge component in the management of chronic illness. I tend to err on the side of doing too much. That was certainly true long before Lyme disease was mentioned in my medical history. (Hell, this website is called Fibromyalgia Athlete for a reason.) The only way I’ve seriously modified my exercise since learning I have Lyme is to be much more careful when exercising in the heat. Babesia, a tick-borne parasite, came along for the ride with my Lyme infection. It’s largely responsible for my heat intolerance and electrolyte imbalance issues. Nowadays, I’m much more careful about spending time in the heat.
Insomnia
Sleep is a major deal for me, or, more accurately, insomnia is a major deal for me. I didn’t sleep more than a few hours a night for over a decade, most of those years falling under “the fibromyalgia years.” Insomnia is also extremely common in Lyme disease patients. So I either have a double dose of insomnia-inducing issues or one of them is the primary contributor. At this point, I don’t care which is the culprit.
Chronic illness, whether fibromyalgia or Lyme disease, will only get worse without adequate sleep. Addressing the problem rather than fixating on the possible cause is much more worth my time. In my case, for now, tweaking supplements has made a huge difference. I largely follow the Buhner Protocol and swear by Stephen Buhner’s book Healing Lyme. Good-quality hemp oil has also helped manage my chronic pain and overactive nerves. My favorite is Runners High Herbals. I’m still not sleeping enough, but for someone with longstanding fibromyalgia, Lyme disease, and babesia, I’m doing pretty damn good compared to how my sleep used to be.
Testing for Fibromyalgia and Lyme Disease
The biggest thing, I think, that really separates fibromyalgia from Lyme disease is the ability to diagnose with a blood test. The blood tests, especially those covered by insurance, are notoriously inaccurate from what I’ve read, but they do exist. As of my last reading and search, there’s no definitive blood test to diagnose fibromyalgia. The caveat there is, a lot of physcians understand that Lyme disease is every bit as much a clinical diagnosis as fibromyalgia is, and false negatives on blood tests can happen for lots of reasons.
My personal example of test failure is from my first babesia blood test. The doctor–someone I don’t use anymore–ordered a test that looked for antibodies. The Lyme specialist later explained to me that that test was pointless. Because with an IgM of 27, there was no way my body could’ve made enough antibodies to show up on the babesia test. His theory was immediatley proven correct when he started me on babesia meds and I felt and saw immediate results. Since there isn’t a blood test for fibromyalgia, I didn’t have to go through any ups and downs with false positives or negatives.
Every case of fibromyalgia and every case of Lyme disease is different. No disease process looks exactly the same from one person to another. I think it’s important, especially if fibromyalgia treatments aren’t working for you, that you get tested for Lyme disease if you think there’s a shadow of a chance you could have it. The thinking on Lyme varies greatly from doctor to doctor, but that’s also true of fibromyalgia.
Books
As with anything, keep looking until you find a practitioner who respects you and treats you as a person and not just a number. A good place to start for more reading about both fibromyalgia and Lyme disease is in books. Two of my favorites are Healing Lyme by Stephen Buhner and Why Can’t I Get Better by Richard Horowitz. Whether you have fibromyalgia or Lyme disease or both, the important thing is getting the help you need to live the life you want. Both fibromyalgia and Lyme disease can be lifelong journeys. Expanding your knowledge base and finding competent practitioners can go a long way toward a better life.
Grocery shopping used to be a relatively enjoyable task, at least for me. I was social distancing way before it was a government order. Shopping at our local co-op was one of the few outings I allowed myself. I would spend half an hour or so looking over the organic produce, frozen vegetables, and prepared foods, hoping something I needed was on sale or at least offered at a decent price. After the spread of COVID-19, grocery shopping became a robotic task filled with fear and angst. By my third trip to the co-op (I’m going only once every 7-9 days), I finally got a system down that helps ease some of the anxiety I feel as an immune-compromised shopper.
An old-fashioned paper list is my new best friend. I was using Google Keep on my phone for grocery lists, but not now. I use scrap paper from the piles of junk mail we get and divide my list into sections. Produce, meat, bulk, frozen, canned, and refrigerated are my usual subheadings. Each subheading has its own corresponding list, which helps me get in and out of the store as quickly as possible. No more dawdling and no more browsing, but it’s worth it for a little peace of mind.
Sacrifices for the Sake of the Budget
I normally get my groceries from the co-op and a big-box store. I almost exclusively eat organic food (yes, my grocery bill is super high, but I also literally never go to restuarants or drink alcohol, so it evens out). The co-op often prices the exact same food– same brand, same date, etc.– much higher than the chain store, and while I like to support local, I don’t have unlimited funds to do so.
Now, though, I can’t take the risk of hitting the chain, so I reconfigured my idea of staple foods to my my co-op experience as affordable as possible while still buying things that won’t make my health decline. Potatoes and strawberries are my main sacrifices right now. I simply cannot afford to pay $8 for a small box of organic strawberries that I normally pay much less for at the chain. Same with potatoes. They’re a rare treat now.
Evolution of the Shopping Experience
When all the coronavirus panic began, I wasn’t sure what to do or what to buy. I didn’t want to be a hoarder, but I also didn’t want to have to make unnecessary trips to the store. On my first trip to the co-op, I bought a lot of frozen organic vegetables and canned tuna. On my second trip a week later, I relaxed my concerns a little and focused more on fresh foods, especially those that could be cooked rather than eaten raw. I went for a mixture of sturdier items like carrots and more quick-perish items like chard. The co-op, like all stores, has its share of empty shelves. With a little improvisation, I mostly got what I needed. By my third trip, I really got the system down.
My Routine
I only go shopping on a weekday morning, but not immediately after the store opens when I suspect there’s a crush of people vying for soap and toilet paper. I go about an hour after the place opens. First and foremost, I make sure I don’t forget my paper list. Next, I take off my wedding ring and watch and leave them safely at home. Then I take my license and credit card out of my wallet and zip them into the waistband pocket of my shorts. I get a paper mask– we still have a few from pre-virus yardwork– and a small bottle of hand sanitizer. Then I try to enjoy the simple act of driving and listening to music. Admittedly, I’m not finding the trip very enjoyable these days.
Once I’m at the store, I park next to a cart return corral as far from the store as possible. Usually no one else parks out there, which adds a little reassurance to my routine. I drive a pickup truck with a camper shell over the bed, and I open the shell and the tailgate before going inside. A tiny bottle of hand sanitizer sits in a corner of the truckbed for when I return with groceries. I zip my key into the pocket with my license and credit card.
The mask goes on when I’m about twenty feet from the entrance to the store and take one last breath of unfiltered fresh air to calm myself down before donning the mask. I remind myself that I’ll see people on every part of the spectrum, from terrified to arrogant, and that their actions have nothing to do with me. Then I grab a cart and sanitize it with the spray that the store provides. Finally, I start shopping from my list.
My List
Nowadays, I’m buying much less frozen and canned food than I was when all this started. I’m still hesitant to buy anything prepared, like my beloved kale salad, but maybe I’ll get back to that one day. Some fresh standbys include: bananas; carrots; onions; lemons; apples; and cabbage. All of those things have relatively long shelf life for organic fresh produce.
Canned standbys include: tuna; salmon; garbanzo beans; and kidney beans. I grab soy milk from the fridge for my wife and Nutpods coffee creamer for me. I get whatever nuts are on sale from the bulk bins– last week it was pecans!– plus split peas and lentils and oatmeal. I buy frozen fruit if it’s on sale. Lately it hasn’t been. I choose whatever is a decent price from the butcher, which nowadays is a mystery until I see what’s in stock. I try to buy things that will go together to make good meals but it doesn’t always work. We’ve definitely eaten some weird but nutritious combinations lately.
Once I pay– the checkout process is always the most tense, since that’s where I encounter the most people and have to use the communal credit card machine– I sanitize my hands before leaving. Then I wheel the car to my truck and put the bags in open bed. I return the cart to the corral next to my parking spot, then sanitize my hands with the sanitizer I leave in the truckbed. I lean over the passenger floorboard of my truck, pop the earpieces loose from my mask and let it fall to the floor, sanitize my hands again. Then I try to relax for the ride home.
Home Sanitizing Station
Once I’m home, there’s one last round of sanitizing before I can chill. This is the reality of social distancing grocery shopping. It doesn’t really end when the social contact ends, because the germs don’t just evaporate. We sanitize everything with either disinfectant spray and wipes or with soap and water. (Yes, I wash our bananas in soap and water.) I strip under the carport and drop my clothes in our washing machine, and then I take a shower while my wife puts away the groceries. Honestly, it’s a draining process, but I think I’d feel a lot worse if I didn’t do my utmost to protect myself, my family, and our community. I’d rather be safe than sorry.
It’s not quite Thursday yet, but here’s my TBT to some awesome hiking and trail running this summer. I can’t wait until my iron deficiency clears up and I can hit the trails again! My new Altra Lone Peaks were barely broken in before my ferritin level dropped so low that I couldn’t run, and every time I see them in the closet, they look sad and ready to go. I can definitely relate!
It’s finally cooling down a little here in FL, which means prime trail running weather is almost here. The Florida Trail, which essentially runs from Pensacola Beach to the Everglades, is a great, diverse trail system. My favorite sections to run are through Blackwater State Forest and through the Gulf Islands National Seashore/Ft. Pickens property. I hope I’m well enough to run before November, but if I have to wait, so be it. My Lone Peaks and I will grit our teeth and wait. I’ve been through a lot this year, but I’ve never lost sight of my goals, hopes, and dreams. Onward, friends.
I felt bad for months without answers and had no idea that low ferritin could be the culprit. The first sign or symptom, I think, was when my feet suddenly hurt so bad that I couldn’t walk. I went from comfortably running 12+ miles at a time to being unable to take a single step. The pain in my feet was incredible. A five-week saga involved complete rest, new shoes, custom arch supports, and tons of medical treatments that didn’t work. Then a young chiropractor finally got to what seemed to be the root of the problem.
Near the knee, the sciatic nerve splits into two and becomes the common peroneal nerve and the tibial nerve. Extremely tight calf muscles were compressing the nerves, which in turn sent agony to my feet. The chiropractor used e-stim, heat, and RockBlades on my calves, then adjusted the bones in my ankles. The difference was immediate and shocking and wonderful. I went from no life to an almost normal one, or so it seemed.
But as time passed, my calves stayed tight no matter what, so my feet still hurt almost all day and night. I drank extra water, used a foam roller, a stick roller, and had my colleagues RockBlade my legs, but the pain and tightness always came back quickly. I knew something still wasn’t right, but I was so damn tired of going to doctors and spending time and money that I just decided I might have to manage my calf issues indefinitely without a real answer.
Decreased Exercise Tolerance
That was late spring. As I made my comeback to running and strength training, I never felt right. I was sweating profusely after even short, early-morning runs, my endurance stopped progressing, and I began to feel dead tired after any exercise at all. After so many years of chronic health problems, I wondered if what was happening was a natural progression of the disease process. I also started noticing that I had increasing trouble concentrating, felt exhausted most days, and my usual insomnia was worse than ever.
Things really took a turn for the worse when I drove through eight states to get to Baltimore for a few days of work. What should’ve been a fun, exciting solo trip that involved camping, a super nice hotel, old friends, new friends, and tons of adventure was downright terrifying. The four nights I was in the hotel in Baltimore, I honestly thought I was going to die. I couldn’t sleep at all despite being beyond exhausted. The mental fog was incredible and like nothing I’d ever felt. When I laid down at night, I was so tired and sick that I would tremble hard enough to lift my body off the mattress. I began living on extra coffee and energy drinks and strained to keep up professionally and socially. I had no idea what was happening but was very afraid.
Urgent Care and Primary Doc
I thought I’d start feeling better after I got home, although the justification for that thought was pretty weak and didn’t pan out to be true at all. I continued to get worse and despite HATING going to medical facilities, I went to urgent care one night when I was so lightheaded and wracked with tremors that I thought I might be dying.
My blood pressure was 82/58, then suddenly shot up to 140/92. An EKG showed that my heart was in atrial fibrillation (AFib), and I almost passed out a few times in the exam room. The urgent care doctor wanted me to go to the emergency room, but I refused. After years of dealing with our medical/industrial complex, the last place I want to go is a hospital. I went home and made an appointment with my primary care doctor and crossed my fingers that I’d live long enough to get to the appointment.
I developed all kinds of theories about what was going on, from reactions to supplements to simply, “I’m dying.” My doctor ordered a huge battery of blood tests and said he suspected iron deficiency. He told me to start taking iron pills just in case, and that if the bloodwork results showed I wasn’t anemic, it wouldn’t be a big deal to have been on the pills for a week. I hadn’t eaten red meat in a long, long time and had unpredictable, heavy periods, so his theory seemed plausible. I agreed to the blood draw— my first bloodwork in more than two years (I wasn’t kidding when I say I hate going to medical facilities).
Bloodwork Results
I began taking iron pills every morning and begrudgingly ate beef. I didn’t feel better at all and was too exhausted to run more than a couple miles at a slow pace and with frequent breaks. Eventually, I couldn’t run and could barely even function during day-to-day tasks. My thinking, concentration, and mood got so bad that I felt like I’d had part of my brain removed. Since the doctor ordered such a massive volume of tests, the bloodwork took more than a week to come back. When it finally did, several truths were revealed. I had extremely high testosterone, which could partially account for my months of extreme sweating. My progesterone was rock-bottom, which further signaled major trouble with hormones. My white blood cell count was low as though I were fighting a bad virus, which was unexpected and never fully understood.
And, perhaps most telling for my symptoms, my ferritin level was in the basement. (For those who aren’t sure what a ferritin level is, here’s what Mayo Clinic says about it: “Ferritin is a blood cell protein that contains iron. A ferritin test helps your doctor understand how much iron your body is storing. If a ferritin test reveals that your blood ferritin level is lower than normal, it indicates your body’s iron stores are low and you have iron deficiency.”) So, my doctor’s suspicion about iron-deficiency was well-founded, but there were also other issues to address.
My next doctor’s appointment was a few days after the bloodwork came back, but I saw the results online in my patient portal before the appointment. I understood pretty well what was happening but still had tons of questions. I spent a solid hour making a list (yes, an hour for a list, which is indicative of how bad my cognition got) of questions to ask him during the appointment. Every aspect of my life was affected. I was depressed beyond measure, stupid beyond reason, and exhausted to the point of near death. I hesitate to say I’ve never felt worse, but I think it’s true.
Treatment Plan for Low Ferritin
Based on the bloodwork, my doctor quadrupled my iron pills, added liquid vitamin B to my supplement regimen, and sent me to a compounding pharmacy for a custom concoction of progesterone cream. He also prescribed Tamiflu to knock back any viral infection I might have, and ordered me to stay out of the heat and to not overexert myself at all. His reasons for why my ferritin level was so low were speculative but seemed reasonable— heavy/frequent periods, heavy sweating, long-distance running, and lack of dietary meat. He said heme-iron, the kind that comes from animal products, is the most readily absorbed by the human body, and that at least for a while, I’d need to eat meat again.
We discussed an intravenous iron infusion to raise my low ferritin level. He didn’t want to risk me going to the hospital for the infusion with my health history and low white cell count. I struggled to take a deep breath, struggled to walk to my truck, struggled to concentrate. I knew there could be nasty side effects to taking four iron pills per day, but I also knew I couldn’t keep going on a fake-it-til-you-make-it mentality. The way I felt was affecting every aspect of my life. I’d called in sick a few days at work for the first time in years. I don’t have benefits, so calling in sick means losing significant money, which is pretty much the last thing a person needs when caught up in our broken, profit-mongering medical system.
Slight Progress
I asked for a timeline for improvement. My doctor said he hoped I’d start to feel better at the two-week mark, but that the 4x daily iron pills might still take six months to restore me to a healthy ferritin level. Six freakin’ months? I tried to focus on his two weeks comment. Two weeks is a long damn time, but six months sounded like something I couldn’t handle. Running and hiking are my major stress relievers. To not be able to do those things during such a hard time was even more crushing. But I’d gotten to the point of feeling so out of it— totally disconnected from life— that I almost didn’t care.
I’m now on day fourteen of taking iron four times a day. I have no way of knowing if my low ferritin level is rising a little, rising a lot, or staying the same, but I feel different. My next blood draw won’t be for another month unless I get worse. I hope it shows a huge rise by that time. I hope I feel so good by then that I’ll almost forget what I’m fighting. At this point, I do NOT feel good and haven’t noticed nearly as much progress as I thought would happen by now.
The side effects of big doses of iron aren’t hitting me super hard, but my period came early and heavy and it’s possibly undoing a lot of the progress that I’d started to make. Heavy blood loss is one of the worst things for iron deficiency. My coworkers, patients, and family say I look better, and that there’s more color in my face than there had been for months. I’m not quite as stupid or exhausted as I was. The hot flashes are coming a little less often. I’m able to do light strength-training indoors with the AC blasting.
I still have zero heat tolerance, am foggy-brained, and very tired, but everything is a little better. One of the biggest changes is the pain in my feet and legs– it’s almost gone! But do I feel good yet? Definitely not. It’s amazing how long this process takes. Hopefully in a couple days, when my period is gone and I’m at the two-week mark on iron pills, I’ll really start to notice a difference. I miss running and hiking. I miss thinking clearly and I miss being sort of smart, but at least I finally see a tiny pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel. Y’all, don’t be like me. Get your routine bloodwork done and don’t try to hide how bad you feel. It can really suck to get caught up in the medical system, but avoiding it when something’s wrong is dumb. Don’t be me. Don’t be dumb.
This summer has been insanely hot, and the heatwave started way too soon. By the middle of May, most of us in the deep south were avoiding the outdoors after 10 a.m. if we could, not showing our faces outside until nearly sunset. It’s gotten worse, with “real feel” temps around 106 for our new normal. That’s not particularly healthy for anyone, but especially for those of us with underlying health conditions, excessive heat can be dangerous.
I first tried Greater Than Cool on a boiling-hot day in my parents’ backyard. Even in their pool, I couldn’t get comfortable and felt constantly fatigued. I love being outdoors (I should move out of Florida!) and didn’t want to go back inside while everyone else was outside. It seemed like a great opportunity to try Greater Than Cool.
Filling the Wrap with Ice
My parents have an icemaker, and after extracting a few perfectly uniform cubes—which excites me since we don’t have an icemaker and our cubes are randomly sized—I folded them into ice pockets in the Greater Than Cool wrap. The experience was vaguely reminiscent of making a burrito and was quite easy and user-friendly. My left hand was around 50% numb that day thanks to scoliosis and bad cervical spine discs, but I got the wrap full of ice and around my neck without much issue, which tells you it’s reasonably simple even for someone with less than ideal dexterity.
My neck is extremely sensitive to everything. Ever since I royally jacked it up while working in the back of an ambulance when I was an EMT, I’ve dealt with everything from cervical dystonia to herniated discs to hand numbness and, of course, chronic pain. I was a bit concerned about wearing the Greater Than Cool wrap around my neck, but the weight of it, even when full of ice, wasn’t symptom-provoking at all. My neck got damp when I put the ice straight in the wrap, but I didn’t care. I was already sweating anyway, and it’s not like the melting ice poured down or even dripped. It just made me a little damp. If you don’t like that, try using the small plastic bags to house the ice within the wrap.
Details
The fastener is Velcro, so it’s easy to handle and adjust. According to the manufacturer, “the proprietary cotton polyester multi-layered material is engineered to absorb and distribute cool moisture evenly throughout the neck wrap.” The Greater Than Cool wrap is navy blue, so it looks nice enough with just about any outfit (although I’m looking forward to them considering a unicorn design, hint hint y’all!). You can put the ice directly in the wrap or in small plastic bags, or I guess if you wanted to, you could buy and use re-freezable packs. As of this post, the wrap costs $22.99 on Amazon, which isn’t a ton to pay if it allows you to live a more comfortable, full life outdoors.
Does It Work?
Yes! There’s science behind “central cooling,” which was a term I learned when training at a firehouse in the Florida summer. Since so many of us had overheating issues, our chief drilled the basics of central cooling into us. Essentially, he told us, putting icepacks over arteries is a great way to cool the human body. Greater Than Cool circles around the neck and comes into contact with a couple of major arteries, and I could really feel a difference in my whole-body comfort while wearing it.
The wrap is unlikely to help with major heat illness like heatstroke, but it might help you avoid getting that sick. I was able to stay in the backyard with my dogs and family while wearing the wrap, when otherwise I’d have been forced to go back inside. As my ice melted—which didn’t happen as quick as I thought it would—I simply went back inside for a minute and got new cubes. The wrap could work even if you’re not home, as long as you have access to a few ice cubes, like from a restaurant or a hotel or a convenience store. I filled up all the ice pockets, but if you just want to cool down a little, you can add less.
Verdict
If you spend time in the heat and need a little help staying cool, definitely give Greater Than Cool a try. They’re a small, family-owned business born from the need to help loved ones participate more fully in life without overheating. They’ll unveil new options soon, like color choices and multiple sizes, but their basic product (blue, one size fits most) is great! Click here to check them out on Amazon.
Disclaimer: I received a Greater Than Cool wrap in exchange for an honest review. I’d tell you if it sucks, but it doesn’t! It’s a solid product and a good choice if you deal with heat intolerance.
My second Headsweats ambassador box arrived yesterday and I was super excited to find it on my front porch. Along with some other great gear, I got my first-ever Headsweats visor. I’ve worn Headsweats hats for years and loved them, but never bought a visor because I wasn’t sure if that style would work for me. I’ve had visors in the past that didn’t fit right no matter what I tried. They were usually too tight to the point of giving me a headache or so loose that they slipped down and folded my ears outward. I love the Bigfoot line of products that Headsweats produces. After cyber-stalking the full moon Bigfoot visor for a few months, I decided to give it a try.
Unboxing the Visor
The first thing I noticed about the visor was the awesome graphic on the front. It’s printed well and clearly and looks like something an artist created. No pixelated junk! Sometimes online photos don’t represent reality, but the Bigfoot visor looks even better in person than it does in pictures. The next thing I noticed was the lack of adjustability of the headband. I wasn’t sure if that would be ok or create headache city, so I wore the visor around the house before taking it for a test run. I couldn’t believe how comfortable it felt! It was secure and snug but not at all tight. The elastic band is very thin, wide, and flat, and pretty much becomes unnoticeable once it’s on my head. No headache, no slippage, no ear-bending. My ears are small and sit very close to my head, so the ear-bending struggle is real with a lot of hats and visors and even headphones.
Wearing the Visor
We’re already in the mid 80s in the first week of May and the sun has seemed brighter than ever this spring. I decided to put the visor through a nearly literal trial by fire on its maiden voyage. It was already 82 degrees when I left the house in the morning. The humidity was between 85% and 99%, depending on which app I looked at. Hot as hell and wet as a swamp. The sun was intense and beginning to rise high enough above the trees that shade would soon become scarce. I started to sweat within five minutes out the door, but the visor stayed exactly where it was mean to be. No slippage at all.
I didn’t wear sunglasses, so the all-black underside of the visor was especially helpful. If you’ve ever worn a hat or visor with a light-colored underside, you probably know how ineffective they are at blocking glare. I had a hat once with a light gray underside and I swear it reflected more sun into my face than if I hadn’t worn it at all. All Headsweats hats and visors have a black underside to minimize glare, and I really appreciated that feature this morning.
I’m rehabbing from a major health setback, so I only ran 2.75 miles, but I kept the visor on for a metcon workout in the sun and a 1.5-mile walk home from the park. Running, jumping, pullups, pushups—nothing made the visor slip, shift, or otherwise do something unpleasant. I even banged the brim on a pullup bar by accident and it held firm on my head and only needed a minor adjustment. By the time I walked home, I was in love with my new Bigfoot visor.
As an athlete in Florida, sweat in the eyes is a major problem. It burns pretty bad on its own, but add sunscreen to the mix and it can be temporarily blinding and very uncomfortable. Never once did I even get one drop in my eyes today. The soft, wicking headband underneath the Bigfoot design did its job perfectly. Having the top of my head open to the breeze (unlike with a hat) helped cool me down. I went into Headsweats visor ownership feeling a little unsure, but now I’m hooked. If you’re not a fan of Bigfoot (or if you are), they have a ton of designs, from neutral to loud. I definitely recommend getting one and will probably get another visor for myself soon. Let me know if you have questions and I’ll do my best to answer.
Headsweats Ambassador
I’m an ambassador for Headsweats, which means I get some of their gear at no charge. This review is my honest opinion, but I did not pay for the visor. If you want to get one for yourself, you can use VICTORIASTOPP25 at checkout for a 25% discount. Click here to see the collection.
My feet are still not functional after a month of rest. I do, however, finally have more precise answers. The second specialist I saw diagnosed me with severe capsulitis, especially in the second metatarsophalangeal joint. Theories abound about how it happened. The main thing now is getting it fixed so I can first walk, then hike, then run again.
The pain of capsulitis is like nothing I’ve ever felt. Through all the years of spinal issues, chronic pain, and other health problems, nothing compares to capsulitis. My right foot is now the worst, although it started out opposite. Luckily, the pain is starting to localize a bit and is primarily focused on the joint capsule of the second metatarsophalangeal joint.
Through many sleep-deprived nights (I’m an insomniac anyway, but the nighttime pain in my feet has been unbearable), I’ve done a ton of research on capsulitis. There are a ton of theories out there, and as is often true with health-related information, a lot of the theories directly contradict each other. One example is in footwear. Many podiatric and orthopedic websites (and doctors) swear by a rocker sole for a shoe, while some decry traditional shoes as part of the problem. As with all things, it’s best for me if I gather information and opinions and then form my own plan.
Shoes for Capsulitis
Since I already run in zero-drop, wide-toebox shoes, I’m definitely a believer in natural foot motion and foot strength. I think it’s possible that my capsulitis developed from walking in more traditional footwear: i.e., the kind with toe spring and a major heel-toe height differential. For those who’re clueless like I was, “toe spring” is the amount of upward turn in the toe are of the shoe. If you think about it, that really is an unnatural, weird position for the human foot, which is meant to be flat on the ground when standing.
Debilitation of Foot Pain
The pain, swelling, and dysfunction in my feet go so bad that capsulitis landed me in a wheelchair. It was almost surreal to be pushed around the park in a wheelchair because of foot pain. The fresh air and change of scenery was great, but it was unbelievably frustrating to be in a chair for what seems like a ridiculous reason. The capsules that’re causing this misery are tiny, but holy crap are they sensitive.
Solutions for Capsulitis
One of my coworkers helped me tape custom-cut (courtesy of a wonderful podiatrist), firm felt metatarsal pads into the metatarsal arch area. By elevating and supporting the metatarsals, plus wearing flat, zero-drop shoes, some of the pressure is taken off the capsulitis. I’m able to hobble-walk with a borrowed rollator, which isn’t awesome, but it’s a hell of a lot better than being in a wheelchair due to foot pain.
I’ve been good about doing upper body and core workouts throughout this nightmare, but it’s demoralizing and depressing to be unable to walk, run, or hike. A major trip was postponed and I began to reach a scary level of depression and hopelessness. Throwing everything at capsulitis—ice baths, epsom salt baths, CBD oil, ibuprofen—and getting no results was crushing. My auto-immune specialist called in a prescription for a Medrol dose pack. Steroids aren’t necessarily standard treatment for capsulitis, but I was desperate and he was quite worried about the raging, long-lasting inflammation. I’m on day three of the steroids. They’ve made me a bit more emotional, they’re slowly helping clear up the agony of capsulitis.
One thing I’ve become conscious of is my toe position. It seems that for some time, I’ve been walking with my toes bundled together. I think I’ve been running that way, too, but I’m not sure. I have no idea why that’s happening, other than weak intrinsic foot muscles and tight extensors in my feet. I found a website with a wealth of information about all things feet, and I highly recommend checking it out if you’re suffering from capsulitis or any other foot malady. There are a ton of informative videos available for free, especially on common complaints such as plantar fasciitis. Click here to get to the the video library of all things foot-related.
The next phase of the plan to heal my capsulitis is more of the same for several more days—rest, elevation, gentle stretching of the extensors, and gentle foot mobility exercises. I’ve never been this sedentary in my whole life, but it’s necessary for now. The core and upper body exercises are keeping me a little bit sane. In a few days, I go back to my auto-immune specialist, and then back to the podiatrist. I’ll be done with steroids by then and really, really hope to feel good enough to declare capsulitis a thing of the past. For now, I’d be over the freakin’ moon if I could just take a few normal, pain-free steps. Capsulitis sucks big time and I never want to go through anything like this again.
UPDATE!
It’s a long, long story, but my problem turned out to be coming from entrapped nerves in the calf musculature. After intense sessions with Graston technique (Rock Blades, scraping, and other names, all pretty much the same thing), my foot pain was drastically diminished. I now keep it away by obsessively rolling my calves with a foam roller, stretching my calves, and wearing calf compression sleeves. It seems it wasn’t ever a foot problem at all, despite multiple doctors saying it was. If you’re having issues with capsulitis or other foot maladies, it’s probably worth getting a good, deep calf massage and seeing if you get results!
My stellar run in new shoes turned out to be not so stellar at all. Despite feeling fine during the 6.25-mile run, and fine during a walk later in the day, I woke up the next day with sore feet. Those sore feet turned into agony and debilitation when I tried to to walk to the park near my house. Within a quarter mile, I had to stop. I couldn’t even get myself home and had to call for a ride. My feet felt like something was tearing off the bones in the space between my metatarsal heads and my toes.
I had no idea what was going on and had never felt such pain before. Perhaps scariest, the burning, tearing sensation was in both feet. I only felt it during push-off in the gait cycle, but of course that’s a major component of walking and running. I discovered that if I took off my shoes and socks and walked barefoot, I was pain-free. But as soon as I put on shoes– any shoes, regardless of model or style– the bilateral foot pain was so intense I couldn’t take a single step.
Transverse Arch Pain, Not Plantar Fasciitis
After extensive Googling that consistently turned up results for plantar fasciitis even though plantar fasciitis didn’t make sense with my symptoms, my fear and discouragement grew. I co-taught anatomy & kinesiology at our local community college for four years, but still couldn’t figure out what was going on with my feet. I pulled out the two textbooks I kept from my teaching days and still couldn’t quite make sense of what I was seeing. The internet definitely wanted to convince me that I had plantar fasciitis, but I knew that wasn’t right. I started wading through information on the structures of the foot and paid particular attention to the transverse arch. Bingo. The transverse arch essentially runs through the foot rather than along its length. I honestly didn’t even know the transverse arch existed until it caused me some of the worst pain of my life.
I’ll spare the details of a very intense eighteen days, but suffice it to say that the last couple weeks and days have been terrible. With the help of other practitioners, including an orthotist, we decided my hunch was right about the transverse arch in each foot. I tried everything, spent a ton of money on shoes (most of which I returned), used supportive insoles, and nothing helped. The insoles made me even more miserable because they were so rigid and high that my longitudinal arches and heels started to ache. The orthotist showed me metatarsal pads, which are essentially hard little pieces of foam that look like large guitar picks. If placed behind the metatarsal heads, the pads should support the transverse arch. I took the little pieces of foam home with renewed hope that I could at least walk from one room to another without agony.
In Search of Metatarsal Pads
The met pads (lingo, so I’ve discovered, for metatarsal pads) were a new kind of misery, but they had potential. Unlike the full-length insoles, the met pads targeted one problem area, the transverse arch, rather than trying to rework the entire shape and mechanics of my feet. I sanded down the hard foam to make them not so intrusive, but they still felt like smooth rocks under my feet.
A trip to Walgreens for something to support my transverse arches was a bust, but CVS provided a little more hope. I bought a package of thin, soft foam metatarsal pads. They were much larger than the met pads from the orthotist, but I cut them down with my old EMT scissors until they were the same shape and size as the hard foam ones. I put one in each shoe, and after a lot of misery and trial and error, was finally– after two weeks– able to walk semi-humanlike. The thin foam must’ve been just enough to support my transverse arches without feeling like I was walking on rocks.
After a day, though, the pain got worse again, even with my homemade met pads. I realized that the cheap foam must’ve compressed too much and not rebounded, even though I’d probably walked only a total of a quarter mile on the pads. I cut another set and doubled them on top of the originals and began moving somewhat humanlike again. Transverse arch pain is no joke! This is some of the worst pain and debilitation I’ve ever experienced, even beyond the years of back and neck issues I’ve suffered.
Followup with the Doc
As things stand now, I’m heading back to the doctor tomorrow for an updated plan. I haven’t run in almost three weeks and can still barely walk, but the left foot seems to be improving. The right foot is the worst, which is weird because it started out better than the left. I have all kinds of ideas for inexpensive ways to custom-build some met pads for myself and will likely take a trip to Home Depot and/or Michael’s tomorrow to buy industrial foam and craft foam. Medical supplies are marked up so high, but it’s easy to find workable materials other places that will stand in just as well as the so-called specialty medical crap.
I’m very worried about my feet, especially the right one, but worry and anxiety only contribute to pain, so I’m trying to chill. I have newfound knowledge about the transverse arch, but I wish I never had to know anything about it. Here’s hoping tomorrow’s doctor’s appointment is worthwhile and helpful. I’m going crazy without running, walking, and hiking.
To go from nearly crippled by injury to writing a book about it and now being an ambassador for a running-focused company is surreal, and I’m beyond grateful. Being chosen as an ambassador reminds me of how far I’ve come and gives me a larger platform to share encouragement with others. And I happen to love running in Headsweats gear, too. They make the only hats that don’t bother my ears (I have small ears that sit very close to my head and are quite sensitive). The underside of the brim is always black regardless of the hat color. In Florida, the sun stays bright all year long and that black underside really makes a difference in cutting glare.
If you’re interested in ordering any Headsweats gear, I have a code for 25% off: VICTORIASTOPP25. Feel free to share the code far and wide. I’m having a setback right now and am unable to run, but I hope to be much better soon. See y’all outside!