Physio

Physio appointment was yesterday. Typically, my physiotherapist's name is Naomi, which is just wonderful because I really want to be reminded of a difficult relationship every time I go. She pronounces it differently though so it should be okay. Just my bad luck.
She got me to take off my top and shoes and poked and prodded me for a while. My nerve tests were fine so it's not a nerve problem like we thought, which means the doctor was right about it being a muscular issue. The muscles in my neck are tight and so are the ones in my lower back. I think the back ones are from an injury I got when I was 16 so it's cool that she's happy to deal with that too. I have a sheet with some stretches to do a few times a day and I'm due back on Thursday next week so she can work on trying to loosen the muscles up for me.

I spoke to my doctor who agreed with the physio and I when we talked about how nothing has changed since I went off work so going back isn't going to help right now. The plan now is to get my bed on Saturday as planned and rest up for a week. Don't stay in bed all the time, go out for walks, do my stretches, and try to do normal things like hoovering the living room or cooking a meal. The reason the pain is spreading is that I'm subconsciously doing things differently due to the pain and tightness in my neck. So other muscles are working harder and it's hurting me. I need to try and do normal things and focus on keeping my back straight and doing things the way I was before, instead of working around the pain.
On Thursday I'll have an idea of what the appointments will be like and how they'll affect me aferwards. So if I'm in pain and need to lie down afterwards, I can try and get one of her 6pm appointments so I can go after work and then go home and to bed afterwards instead of taking more time off work. Hopefully by then I'll also be able to tell if the new bed is helping. In theory, I should at least be able to sleep better without waking up every time I need to roll over. I don't want to get my hopes up though, everyone keeps reminding me this won't fix itself overnight.

Thankfully I have an amazing manager who is being really supportive and not pressuring me to get back to work, so that's a relief. My anxiety was through the roof about calling her today because I knew I was going to be off for longer. I still have some diazepam left so that helped. I know it wasn't prescribed for my anxiety but I had some spare and if it helps I don't really care to be honest.

One day at a time. Two more nights and the new bed will be here and things will start getting better. Meanwhile I've been sitting up in bed with my orthopaedic pillow playing Harry Potter on my PS2 because I'm cool that way and I can't sit through another episode of Matlock when mum's home.