After reading the book, I decided to give the Power Of 10 a try.

This workout seriously kicked my ass today. I felt it more than I’ve felt a weight workout in a long time. I hit the burn quick and was amazed at how few reps I was able to pull out of a single set. We’ll see how it goes, whether or not I put on some muscle easier than I have been doing the typical 3-set, 12 rep regimen. And we’ll see how sore I am tomorrow. I may be crying for my mommy as I try to roll out of bed in the morning.

Ideally, according to the book, that’s all you need—one or two weight workouts a week, but I don’t want to give up the water workouts. I hit the pool afterwards and did a combination of swimming and walking for about 40 minutes. Tomorrow I’ll go back and just do an hour in the pool.

Yesterday I took my 30th dose of HGH; I need to get in touch with my doc and see if there’s any point where I might increase the dose (I’m on a very low dose to start.) But so far, so good. Pain levels are staying low; I was just hoping to have shed a little more body fat by now.

link | posted by Thumper at 5:56 PM
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The Spouse Thingy had last week off, and we kept ourselves fairly busy. We hit the gym quite a bit, went fishing a couple of times, bowling a couple of times, and lots of running around in general. I was able to keep up this time, and wasn’t ready to drop from exhaustion by day 3.

I am willing to attribute being able to physically manage all the things we did to the HGH this time. I’ve been on it long enough and remember how I felt the last time he had a week off and we tried to keep a good pace going; it’s a 180 degree turnaround. Before I would have had to make choices: go to the gym orgo fishing. Go bowling or run errands.

We bowled yesterday, and I realized halfway through the first game that I was slinging the ball with more ease than I have in years. I roll a 16 pound ball; ten years ago that was a moderate weight, but in the last couple of years it bothered me and I was seriously considering dropping to a light 15 or a 14, but if this keeps up I’m going to have to re-tool my game to gain control of the ball before I start overthrowing it.

That’s not a complaint… it’s all good.

link | posted by Thumper at 7:13 AM
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After that initial 4 pound loss, my weight has held steady. I’m hoping there’s a little lost body fat I’m not seeing due to muscle gain; I definitely feel stronger. I haven’t added a whole lot of weight to my training routines, but I’ve added a little and when we went bowling today that 16 pound ball didn’t feel so heavy.

My overall pain levels are fairly low, as well. I had a couple of days that were iffy because of a high pressure weather front, but as soon as the rain finally hit and then passed through I felt fine. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d put it at about a 2.5.

I really would like to shed more of this body fat quickly, but mostly as an ego thing. I wanna see my bulging biceps ;)

link | posted by Thumper at 8:25 PM
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My truck runneth me over… at least that’s how it felt the last couple of days. I got up Saturday and felt like I had been drop kicked a few times, and then on Sunday the pressure was unbelievable, and the fatigue even worse than that. I’m not a napper normally, but after I’d only been up for a couple of hours, I crashed and slept for about 4 hours, and was sluggish the rest of the day—until this high pressure front that had been headed our way finally pushed through, dumping a chitload of rain along with it. Once it had passed, I felt fine. That was definitely FMS rearing its ugly head.

But… I hit the gym today and worked my upper body; I’ve increased the weights (just a little) I do on the lat pull-down and tricep pull, but I’m not quite ready to up them on biceps. After that I hit the pool for 40 minutes, alternating between walking and running. The plan is to just do the pool for an hour tomorrow—but if the weather looks good for fishing, I’ll have a hard time deciding what’s more important.

I’d swim in the lake, but there’s this problem with rebar sticking up, and I’d most likely impale myself… Eh, I think I’ll just hit the pool first, and fish in the afternoon.

I really do need to learn to like to eat fish…

link | posted by Thumper at 4:22 PM
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For the couple people who have expressed an interest in HGH and wanted to know how big the needle is… It’s a standard small-dose insulin needle. If you look closely, you can see the actual needle is shorter than the length of my thumbnail (and I don’t have very big hands.) Honestly, it doesn’t hurt.

link | posted by Thumper at 7:14 PM
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I’ve pretty much dropped the workout ball the last couple of days—there’s just been too much going on work-wise (excuse #241)—but I have to say, my energy levels are still high and my overall pain levels are fairly low.

Gosh darn it, I feel spiffy :)

link | posted by Thumper at 4:49 PM
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I don’t know how this rates on the Grand Scale of Things, but yesterday I went fishing. Yep, just an ordinary, everyday kind of thing, but for me, it was A Big Deal.

I haven’t been able to fish—at least not the way I enjoy—in several years. I prefer to fish with a lure, which means casting over and over, and my back hasn’t been able to handle that since 1998 or thereabouts. I spent about three hours yesterday on the dock of Bass Lake at Wright Patterson AFB, and fished my little heart out (and even caught a couple.)

It’s a Big Deal because I survived it, I wasn’t screaming in pain after ten minutes, and I wasn’t hurting when I got up this morning. The only thing that really hurts is my hands, which are ever-so-slightly sunburned.

Imagine it, fibro-friends… A day in the sunshine with no repercussions. Ooohyeah :)
I can’t say 100% for sure that this is because of the HGH, but I also can’t say it’s not.

link | posted by Thumper at 12:24 PM
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My ISP decided to take a nice 24 hour vacation, followed by intermittent naps, leaving me with time to only write a comment in the last entry, but little else. During the ISP downtime I found myself overly irritated by lack of internet access--I mean really irritated--but I don't attribute that to anything having to do with the HGH. I blame it all on hormones, something I haven't had to deal with the last 15 months, but suddenly am. And it sucks. I feel like one giant, raging, PMS, get-the-crap-out-of-my-way, give me allthe chocolate, don't BLINK at me the wrong way, hormone.

Aside from that, everything is all hunky dory ;)

Workouts have consisted of a lot of walking the last couple of days; I picked up this book I heard mentioned on TV, The Power Of 10, which is basically another fitness how-to book. I found it intriguing, because it's similar (and the author gives props to) another weight lifting technique known as the Super Slow method. The idea behind both is to do single sets of weights, but do each rep very slowly--on both the positive and negative resistance ends--and take the muscles to fatigue. Workouts should take only 20 minutes or so, once or twice a week, but with more gains in lean muscle mass than doing weight training 3-4 times a week at the regular speeds and numbers of sets and reps.

It clicked with me because I remembered hearing about the Super Slow method a few years ago; it was developed as a way for women with osteoporosis to exercise, gain some lean muscle, and protect the bones. The women made so much progress in so short a time that some body builders gave it a try, and realized they were making huge leaps in muscle gained.

I'm only a little way into the book, but it looks interesting and I may give it a shot. I like the idea of only hitting the weights once or twice a week, but more importantly, I like the idea of making quicker progress in gaining lean muscle mass. Less time in the weight room leaves me with more time in the pool, which I'm discovering I really enjoy. I hate having to parade around in a swimsuit, but I love working out in the water.

link | posted by Thumper at 9:49 AM
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If I don’t get up tomorrow seriously sore, I’ll be very surprised. We did about 45 minutes in the weight room today; I concentrated on my upper body (because, honestly, my knee can’t take much lower body weight work): standing bicep curl, tricep pulldown, lat pulldown, seated row, crunches, and shoulder shrugs. I pushed, but not too hard, just hard enough to feel a little rubbery afterwards.

I’d intended to do some walking lunges for my quads, but the available space for that was taken up by 15 very loud, active, sweaty pre-schoolers.

That was followed up by 45 minutes in the pool; mostly a slow jog, with a few laps of grapevines and hopping. Yes, I hopped, up and down four or five laps, everything flapping and jiggling, splashing the water into the lanes on either side of me, but it got my heart rate up a little more than just jogging through the water.

Pain level today was still low, and the thirst seemed more manageable too (without taking extra DDAVP.)

We have a strange little cat, Max (also known as PsychoKitty) who has taken an interest in my HGH shots. He wants to “help.” If he gets any closer, he’s going to help himself to a needle through the nose.

No worries, I’m not going to stab the little monster… all I have to do is hiss and he runs off. But dang, he is definitely curious.

link | posted by Thumper at 7:42 PM
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The time change is kicking my a$$. I prefer daylight savings time (once I get used to it) because I like having daylight extend into the evening (being night blind, it helps; I feel like a frigging 10 year old during the winter, when I have to be home by 4:30-5 o’clock); these first few days, though, with my sleep cycles screwed up, my poor beee-hind drags like I had cement in my underwear.

The good thing is, aside from being tired, this year I don’t feel a nasty fibro-flare trying to piggy back onto the fatigue as it has in the past. All I am is tired; my pain levels are pretty damned low right now. On a scale of 1 to 10, with one being merely annoying and 10 being “oh my god my nipples are going to explode and I’m going to die,” I’d put it at about a 2. Normal for me is about a 4.

The one thing I have noticed the past couple days is increased thirst. Having diabetes insipidus complicates this, because I don’t know if it’s because of that—and perhaps I need to increase my dose of DDAVP—or if it’s a side effect of the Somatropin. And if it is because of the Somatropin, will an extra dose of the DDAVP take care of it, or will that just cause me to stop urinating as much yet leave me with increased thirst?

I’ll give it a day or two, and if it looks like I’m retaining water, or not putting out as much as I’m taking in, I’ll get in touch with my endocrinologist.

Or, another thought… I wonder if there’s something about being in the pool so much that’s contributing to increased thirst? I am awfully thirsty for the first half hour after I get out of the pool; could be the chlorine, or the extra sweating from working out. I’m not sure.

link | posted by Thumper at 7:14 PM
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I woke up with energy today, but not a whole lot of oomph. I woke up early, and the first thing on my mind was “work out today… weights… ugh.” I battled a whole lot of rationalization (Hey, it’s Saturday, the Y will be crowded, there will be too many men hogging the weight machines, there’s housework to be done, Fark to surf through, porn to be downloaded, Wil Wheaton to stalk…) but finally decided I had to go.

But, the good thing is, it wasn’t a battle of energy levels, it was a battle of degrees of laziness.

I spent about 40-45 minutes in the weight room working on mostly my upper body; chest, back, delts, biceps, triceps, and abs—and was fairly happy that there was no one else in there other than the Spouse Thingy for a long time, and after that just one significantly elderly man (who was kind of cute, in any case)—and then hit the pool for an hour.

Originally we’d only planned on spending 30 minutes in the pool, but I wasn’t quite ready to be done at that point. I tend to just walk in the water (or run; I’m sure I look like a total dork trying to run in the pool, but right now I’m embracing my inner dorkiness), but today I gave swimming a try. Not too many laps, just enough to remind me I need to seriously work on my endurance.

Also just enough laps to make me wonder if anyone makes a womens’ single piece swimsuit that doesn’t delivery reliable wedgies.

Pain levels for today were fairly low, just a little aching in my lower back and my knees. My weight was the same this morning, still at –3 pounds.

And no, I don’t really download porn.
Really.
I swear.

link | posted by Thumper at 5:19 PM
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I found one of the pounds I lost. I expected as much, but it was not a happy discovery—I would have been very happy for it to stay lost, never to be found again. I may find another one tomorrow morning; we had a coupon for a free Big Mac, and talked ourselves into it. That’s “we” as in the Spouse Thingy and I, not the collective voices in my head (those voices tried to talk me into a hot fudge sundae...)

Or, I may get lucky. Breakfast today was a banana (no Pop Tart, surprise-surprise), I skipped lunch, and we had dinner very early (eh, we’re getting old, we ate at 4:30) so if I don’t really eat anything else tonight, it might not do too much damage.

I took today off from working out; energy-wise* I could have done it, but I felt some strain in my quads, shoulders, and back, and figured 2 days on, 1 day off wasn’t a bad way to go initially. We’re planning on hitting the Y tomorrow on doing some weight training, and if the pool isn’t crowded, a little water walking or swimming (but probably not an entire hour’s worth.)

From email: How did you manage to get your doctor to prescribe HGH, and is the injectable different from the oral spray? Is it expensive?

My endocrinologist was willing to prescribe HGH only after testing my IGF-I levels a couple of times, and then he required me to under go an Insulin Stress Test for a final check before writing the scrip. The insulin stress test isn’t something to undertake lightly, though to be honest, I didn’t know it was a dangerous test until he was standing there with several residents and said “Now this is a dangerous test…” I still would have done it.

As far as I know (from surfing around online, so take it for what it’s worth), the oral HGH sprays are completely ineffective.

Injectable HGH is very expensive; anywhere from $700-1000 a month. I would not be able to afford it if we had to pay the costs ourselves—being able to try this now is another benefit of the Spouse Thingy being in the military. I would guess that if it were prescribed by a civilian endocrinologist with supporting lab values, insurance would cover it. I wouldn’t place a cash bet on an HMO paying for it, though.

*since it’s only been four days, I’m assuming my surge in energy is a placebo effect, but I’m not complaining. I’ve definitely felt more alert the last couple of days, and not nearly as fogged.

link | posted by Thumper at 2:57 PM
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I’m going to assume it’s water weight, but I was down 4 pounds this morning. My ego would like to believe it’s all body fat, but realistically, 4 pounds in 2 days is most likely to be largely due to water loss.

Normally I can be fairly sure about that; when my weight is down several pounds I can usually track it to my DDAVP wearing off early the night before, which causes my kidneys to have a free for all until I remedicate, but it hasn’t really worn off early the last few days.

I hit the pool again today and walked/jogged for an hour. So far I really haven’t made any huge dietary changes. I eat fairly well, but I do have this thing about starting my day with a couple of Pop Tarts. I keep telling myself I’ll switch over to oatmeal, but it hasn’t happened yet.

I did buy the oatmeal. That’s a start :)

link | posted by Thumper at 2:34 PM
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Thar She Blows…

All right, I’m keeping track of my weight (phfft no, I’m not telling!) and have taken my measurements. I even bought a spiffy Day Planner so I can keep track of what I’m doing and when, including all the medications I take.

Using the growth hormone isn’t half bad. It’s given with a low-dose insulin needle, so it’s pretty much painless—a very tiny prick. Spouse Thingy talked me through the first injection and watched the second; I think I can handle it from here on out.

I’m also getting back into the workout routine. I’d intended to hit the weights today, but woke up with a raging backache (big surprise, eh?) so I hit the pool instead and did about an hour of water walking. Working out in the water helped my back ease up some and I was able to get up to a near run for a good 30 minutes.

Considering I can’t run a city block on dry land, that wasn’t too shabby.

link | posted by Thumper at 6:56 PM
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Tsk

I had my first injection last night. And dangit, I didn’t wake up with bulging muscles and a gorgeous bod. This may take more time than I thought ;)

link | posted by Thumper at 5:48 PM
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