Health update

[lnr]

Woke up on Sunday randomly achy, for no good reason, and not obviously full of flu. By Monday morning it was no better, and I remembered a note in the leaflet about the statins I'm taking that I should talk to my GP about any unexplained muscle pain or weakness, so I went along and he took some blood to test my liver function, and also did some other tests at the same time, since they're due soon anyway.

GP rang this evening. Turns out I don't need to worry about the statins destroying my muscle tissue, as the blood test is all clear on that front. But the liver function test isn't right, in fact when they tested it last March it showed some signs of fatty liver (one aspect of the Metabolic Syndrome), and now it's looking worse. Dr Tweedale briefly considered sending me for a liver scan, but he's decided I should stop the statins for a month and then come and have the liver function tests repeated and see if it improves. I guess if it hasn't then I'll be off to the hospital again :/

Dammit, I've lost over 20% of my body weight, I'm practically out of the "obese" category by both BMI and body fat percentage. This sort of thing is supposed to get *better*, not worse. *sigh*

Still, the random viral achyness seems to be fading at least.

Comments

[keirf.livejournal.com]

Perhaps although things aren't good, they are better than they would have been...

[lnr]

On the other hand perhaps if I hadn't had any blood tests in the first place I'd not be worried about it and no worse off than many other overweight youngish women :/

I'm still not 100% convinced that dieting to lose weight actually makes people healthier in the long run. Even if I've bought into it at the moment.

Small silver lining: at least if I'm not on statins I can eat grapefruit!

[keirf.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure dieting is a good idea in any case, because it suggests a state out of the ordinary, and that you'll return to your original diet afterward. A change of diet, on the other hand, can be a good thing.

[lnr]

Tell you what, you can think of it as a lifestyle change, I can think of it as a diet, and either way I'm not going to stop when I reach a target weight and we're both happy.

Erm, sorry if that sounds a bit stroppy, but I get a bit sick of being told I'm not on a diet when blatantly I do need to follow something more limited than just eating healthily or otherwise I start to gain weight again. It's not too hard to keep eating a diet which concentrates on home prepared food, lean meat and fish, lots of fruit and veg, low fat dairy and so on. I need the structure of a diet plan however to help make sure I'm allowed a certain amount in the way of "treats" without going overboard.

But don't worry, the slimming world diet insists it's a healthy way of eating for life, and not just a diet too.

[miramanga.livejournal.com]

Shiny!

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

That sounds annoying. Which statin are you on?

[lnr]

Simvastatin, which I think is pretty much the default, it's the same one my dad's taking.

[miramanga.livejournal.com]

Good work on the speedy hotfoot down to the GP!

[lnr]

It seemed like a good idea, and I guess it's good even if it turned out to show up something completely different :)

[k425.livejournal.com]

OTOH, at least they're taking you seriously rather than giving the glib "it's because you're overweight" response.

[lnr]

I don't think this was ever going to be a "it's because you're overweight" thing on this occasion: basically I've had a virus, whose symptoms look a lot like a reaction to the meds I was on, and it's just lucky that the test for that has shown up another problem.

But *overall* actually I do feel like I'm being blamed for having made myself ill, because metabolic syndrome *is* basically a bunch of symptoms some fat people get. They might be treating me, and pleased I've lost some weight, but that will never be good enough and it's still always going to feel like it has been my fault.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

But *overall* actually I do feel like I'm being blamed for having made myself ill, because metabolic syndrome *is* basically a bunch of symptoms some fat people get.

But but but, that's the wrong way around, isn't it?

[lnr]

It's a good question actually. There does seem to be some evidence that the reason you find a lot of fat people with metabolic syndrome is because the syndrome makes it more easy to gain weight. But equally the being fat seems to be part of the definition of it (circular or what) and some of the symptoms that make it up are often believed to be caused by being overweight, rather than vice versa. They're certainly all linked, and it's very unclear how much of the correlation is causation and which way round. I'm not sure it's very well understood at all.

It would be *nice* to be able to blame the fatness on the illness and not vice versa, but I guess I was still hoping that if I lost weight it would all magically get better :/ Ah well.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess lots of these sorts of things reinforce one another and are a vicious circle.

Food has no moral value and eating according to what your body says it needs isn't somehow wrong or bad or silly, it's perfectly sensible, it just doesn't always work so great for everyone.

Did they tell you that any magical gettings better would be immediate, or might they still take a while yet? Because presumably being in a state of weight loss is pretty stressful for the body isn't it?

[lnr]

They weren't really very specific about how the weight loss would help, or how quickly. Generally as far as the pre-diabetic aspect is concerned the advice seems to be aimed at getting people to lose 7% of body weight over a year, so I've rather exceeded that goal. Of course I don't know what the recent blood sugar readings were. Hopefully good, because chocolate does make up quite a lot of the "treat" aspects of my diet, and I'd hate to have to cut back more on that!

I think it would be less annoying if I'd ever been an obvious binge eater or huge comfort eater, but I don't think I am really - I just gain a little each time I have a holiday or special occasion, which I think is fairly normal, but it doesn't come off again so I gradually get heavier over time.

Still, it's not the end of the world, I'll deal with this problem whatever it is once I've got the results in a month's time. And if it means more changes then so be it.