When I was about 25, I was hit by a car when riding my bike which resulted in a dislocated right shoulder. Because I was 25, I popped that shit back in myself. I’m not mad at that part; dislocated shoulders hurt like fuckeries and popping it back in (mostly) stopped the pain. What I am mad about, is that I never sought treatment to help my shoulder recover.

Never sought treatment, that is, until about ten years later when I started to suffer almost constant pain in my shoulder, anterior and posterior, which subsequently spread into my neck. Not only was I suffering almost constant pain, but I started to suffer a progressive weakening in that shoulder that eventually resulted in an inability to do pushups and means that I have been chasing “more than one pull up” for a decade. When particularly bad, I wasn’t able to pour a kettle or juice a lemon with that arm, which is ludicrous.

From my mid-thirties, for about another decade and up until the pandemic when my income took a serious nosedive, I sought treatment, usually monthly, from a variety of different practitioners. I have seen a wide range of masseuses (shout out to Jambaal Jeng who shines above the rest), osteopaths, acupuncturists, many, many physiotherapists (shout out to Ibby Abucar who also shines), an orthopaedic surgeon, and a neurosurgeon. Oh and spas. I live for spas and heat treatment now.

[Read more…]

As a recent post indicated, I have been doing a lot of reading around health these last few years. I have primarily concentrated on literature pertaining to metabolic health and literature pertaining to the microbiome. This is all in addition to practising a healthy diet and lifestyle.

The more I read, the more I became interested in learning about my own health markers beneath the visible or easily discoverable. This is mainly due to knowing I have a sweet tooth, knowing that when I do gain weight it is largely around my abdomen, and learning about the phenomenon of TOFI: thin on the outside, fat on the inside.

As the health tests you can get on the NHS are sorely limited, I recently went private to get some more thorough tests through Medichecks. In particular, I was very interested in learning about my HDL:Triglycerides ratio as a more meaningful cholesterol test, and, of course, the biggie for me was insulin resistance. The latter is because I have learnt that many people are insulin resistant and therefore on their way to diabetes, even though their fasting blood glucose levels look fine.

The results surprised me a little and so I thought I would share them to show why it is so important to pay attention to your diet and get more thorough blood tests done than the NHS offers. But first, some basic stats:
[Read more…]