Trial and Error

Celebrating 49 and Feeling FABULOUS

I believe in trial and error and especially when it comes to what works best for my body and my life.  I will be celebrating the last year of my forties this weekend and I am thinking a lot about my life, and reflecting on many things that have got me to this point, how I feel about myself, and realizing that trial and error has served me well personally, physically, and nutritionally. 

In my journey of almost fifty years, I have experienced definite trial and error when it has come to relationships and defining what I do not want and what I do want, with healthy being at the forefront of all that.  It has been quite a process and as I look back, all the trudging through the unhealthy to open fabulous doors to healthy has been a blessed learning journey to create who I am right now, and whom I have chosen to share my life and I include my hubby, family, and friends through this healthy pondering.   Life is just too short not to take care of ME and it is too short not to be with people who are positive, supportive, real, and who nourish my soul in great ways.  Of course when I was going through the trial and error process, there were days that really sucked, and I allowed myself to feel all the pain of that moment, but all the time never saying “Why Me” but asking God to please “Show me how to be a better person through this, help me believe in your better plan for me, or what the heck are you teaching me now”…it was this kind of faith and belief going through the trials that provided the hope in the positive lesson that kept me going and keeps me going still.  

Moving on to trial and error with my fitness and workouts…now this has really

been quite the ordeal.  As many of you know if you have read my bio, I have suffered a cervical injury, live with diagnosed torticollis, and have undergone two major surgeries, in addition to giving birth to two children.   When injury face plants you to the ground and takes away your quality of life and job, a sense of hopelessness and stripping of who you are can take place…well…that was me a few years ago.  Talk about feeling scared and humbled, well I was that and more, and depended on strength greater than my own to get me through.  I utilized my skills and knowledge of the human body to begin rehabbing myself and although a slow process, I began to create through trial and error, a new modified ME.  I look back on that time and know that I do not ever want to re-visit that part of my life again, and do whatever I can to greatly reduce and hopefully eliminate that.  I am no longer the extreme athlete of the past, but I am happy to be ME, the athlete of today. 

My workouts are all about trial and error.  There are days I may push the envelope too much, and my body screams back later that night or the next day to not repeat that.  That calls for a check mark of that exercise off the list, and return to what my body likes best.  For example, I can no longer do pushups and boy do I miss those, but I can still chest press and fly like no other.  The beautiful part about fitness and exercise is that ALL things can be modified to fit the person.  I love to teach this to my clients and really have a passion for those with injury because I can say “I know how you feel” and truly mean that.  Also, it is about QUALITY moves regardless of the weight resistance being used.  I enjoy working out, sweating, and the way I feel when I am done, but what I really love most is being able to push myself through my workouts and not aggravate my injury…now that is happy success and has been accomplished through lots of trial and error. 

My nutrition relates to trial and error in eating the foods that best fit my system,

body, and overall how I feel energy wise.  If I removed whole grains from my nutrition, I feel a definite drop in energy and talk about constipation…no thanks.  Besides, I enjoy my brown rice and steel cut oats, and what I concentrate on is eating healthy, proper portions, and eating to live and not to feel like “Thanksgiving Dinner” at every meal.  If I eat something that does not agree with me, causes an upset system, then I eliminate that from my intake, but that takes trial and error to figure out, and yes even healthy foods can upset my system like certain dairy for example…talk about colon cramp to the ground…YIKES.  So, with my nutrition I implement what works best for ME, and provides MY BODY with the nutrients that make ME feel at my BEST.  I also agree that people are not generic, so what works for me may not work for another.  Life would be so boring to think that we all fit into the same size life…right?  I would be a negligent and insensitive trainer/coach if I did not listen to what was not working for my clients and tried to force feed some sort of one-size-fits all philosophy down their throats.  I am unable to support those types of ideals, and really that is why it is called “personal” training/coaching.

When it comes to my life, I have been happy with my trial and error education, personally and professionally.  Through my trials, I have become a better person, stronger, wiser, and a person who has woke up and really enjoys the coffee, one who appreciates that hard times bring about greatness, and I am thankful.  I understand what works for me emotionally, spiritually, physically, and nutritionally, and that is HUGE to me living a healthy LIFESTYLE.  I welcome the trial and error and the opportunities that always come from my learning through the journey.  It may not feel good all the time, but that is the reality of life and I would be untruthful with you to say that life has been all peaches and cream.  Life has not promised easy, but it has promised that it can be great.  It is what I have done through my trial and error process that has determined that.  I will close with my favorite “Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you respond to it”. 

                                                                                  

I dedicate this Blog to my Beautiful Mom and Mother-in-law!  I love you dearly and wish you the Happiest of Mother's Day! Happy Mom's Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, and all those fabulous women in that role...you are all truly appreciated for all that you do and all that you are!

      Me and My Mom                                                               My Fabulous Moms!

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Stay Healthy~ Darla 

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Friday Q&A: Post-Surgery Scar Tissue

Q: Hi good folks. Several years ago I had emergency surgery for diverticulitus (I was 44, now 48). Afterward I lived with a colostomy bag for six months and then had a colon resection. During the second surgery it was discovered that I had extensive scar tissue. I am assuming that there is even more scar tissue now resulting from the second surgery. Since then I have experienced some occasional intense short blasts of pain when doing asanas (parsvottanasana and prasarita padottanasan in particular). I know I have to be careful of causing hernias and have worked to increase abdominal strength. I have two questions: What about the forward bends is causing the pain and how do I correct myself to prevent the pain? Will stretching (twists and backbends) aggravate the creation of scar tissue or can it help to keep my abdominal area more supple? Thank you in advance for any information and/or advice you can provide.

A: Thanks for writing in! Your question is challenging for several reasons. The most obvious one is that without a longer interview about your recent and past history and without an actual physical exam, it is really hard to know what is the source of your abdominal pain. As we have advised students in the past, make sure to get a good check up soon with your surgeon and family MD if you have not do so yet. Secondly, you could assume, and maybe rightly so, that your pain is coming from scar tissue that formed as part of the healing process from your two surgeries. It would be helpful to know if you had similar pains between the two surgeries, or only since the second one, when you have been able, I would imagine, to be more physically active. But—and the big but—there could be a completely different source of your pain that is as yet undiagnosed! Ergo the need to see your docs for a check up to rule out some other source of abdominal pain.

Finally, I am not sure, but must assume, that the abundant scar tissue seen during the second surgery may have been a result of a ruptured diverticuli, that ruptured into your abdominal cavity. This could explain the need for a temporary colostomy bag. When you have a rupture of this sort, the contents of your large intestines, stool, can escape into the belly cavity. This can result in an infection and inflammation situation in the belly, often treated with strong antibiotics. A side effect of such a situation is that the tissues of the belly can end up sticking to one another and adhesions (like the word adhesive) form between these tissues, and they are often referred to as “scar tissue.” Sometimes these adhesions don’t cause any trouble, sometimes they cause pain or pulling, and in rare instances, they could block to gut and cause a serious back up.

I would also assume that during the second surgery, they probably cleaned up the scarred areas while they re-connected the two ends of your large intestine. If everything was clean and no infection happened after the second surgery, you could expect little or no new scar tissue or adhesions. This is good news, and your assumption about more scar tissue after the second surgery may not be true.

But even with an uncomplicated surgery, healing tissue forms a scar as part of healing process and this is an expected and normal situation. However, the areas of scar on the surface of the body and even inside the body could lead to some tightness and restriction of movement in the affected area. I know this first hand, as I had a double groin hernia repair about ten years ago, and after the initial pain subsided, I definitely had tightness and mild discomfort for months if not a year afterwards. A patient yoga practice gradually got me back to a full experience of yoga.

Backing up a moment, clean wounds seal up pretty fast, with in a few weeks, but they continue to get stronger for a while longer, at least six weeks. In fact, a common warning after surgery is to limit activity for about six weeks after surgery to give the body enough to form a strong scar.  Usually, after that, you can gradually resume your pre-surgery activity.

So if we assume you have been to the doctor and have a clean bill of health, how do you approach the pain you are having? If it is exclusively happening in forward bends, is it in all forward bends, or only the two standing ones you mention above?  The fact that it happens in forward bends makes me suspicious that the action of “compressing” the abdominal contents is the trigger for the pain, especially if twists and backbends don’t cause pain. If the source of the pain is fascia or connective tissue in the belly, you can cautiously and safely do backbends and twists as a way of releasing some of that tension, which could lead to lessening of pain on forward bends.

If you love forward bends and want to keep them in your practice, consider tipping from the hip joints and avoid rounding the spine and don’t bring the lower belly in contact with your thighs. In other words, stay a little higher up in the forward bends and see if you can avoid triggering the pain. You can still feel a nice stretch in the back of the legs and torso with this modified way of doing forward bends. Also, for seated forward bends like Upavista Konasana (Wide Angle Forward Bend), where the legs are wide apart and the belly is not so compressed, I’d hope you would have less chance of triggering pain, even though the standing version was a trigger.  You will have to do some experimenting in your home practice and have an experienced teacher observe you in your forward bends to begin to get more details on what poses seem good to do and others that might be best avoided. If I have a pose that I avoid because it triggers pain, I like to have one that I can substitute in when I am in a public class and don’t want to miss out.

Hope these thoughts are helpful in you yoga explorations!


—Baxter