Aching Arms

My arms hurt today, especially my left bicep. I've been having a fair bit of trouble with my arms lately, not in terms of weakness, although that is certainly happening, but in terms of aches and pains. These are not the aches and pains of aging. These are the aches and pains of what remains of my muscles working extra to make up for those which have been lost.

Consider it this way. Suppose that every day you pick up a jug of milk. Then, each day, it gets replaced with a jug that is slightly larger and slightly heavier; not enough so you notice immediately, just enough so that it's a bit heavier. Now consider that after a week or so. You might notice that your arm is hurting from picking up that increasingly heavier jug. Then after a month or so, you discover that you can't pick it up with just one hand; you need both. So now both arms are hurting from the ever increasing weight of that jug.

That's kind of what it's like for me, except instead of things getting heavier, I am losing muscle ability. The muscles remaining are working overtime to keep up, and failing constantly at their tasks. So my arms hurt. Not just today. They've been seriously bothering me for about a week now. The real problem is that it's not only my arm muscles working overtime. I have the same issue in my neck and all down my back. It's not a pain which needs medication; it's just sore enough to be annoying.

Now add to all of this that I did exercises this morning. I do Range of Motion exercises every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. These exercises are not intended to stress my muscles. In fact they are done mostly on my legs. Since I can't move my legs, the Home Care Aide does the exercise for and with me. My arm exercises I do for myself; I still have arm muscles. As such the arm exercises to tire me a bit, and do add to the muscle stress.

So here I sit, aching, sore, and tired. No wonder I want to go back to bed.