Strained My Back Deadlifting

[disappointed_lesbian]

I'm having trouble deciding what to post about.

I'm an insomniac. I recently stopped taking all pharmaceutical sleep aids, mainly because they were fatiguing me and putting me in terrible moods that lasted half the day, but also because I wasn't sleeping much better with them than I was sleeping without them. Whatever extra sleep I was getting, I couldn't detect the effects of it, because every med I was taking made me groggy.

I tried Gabapentin, my most recent prescription. It didn't help me sleep at all, even when I took six times the starting dose. Then I went back to hydroxyzine, something I'd tried last year and given up on because of the side effects. I was desperate. The depression and suicidal thoughts started with hydroxyzine. Then I moved on to melatonin, an over-the-counter sleep aid. It didn't make me as groggy as hydroxyzine, but I still felt bad physically and mentally, and I couldn't muster up energy, even taking huge doses of caffeine. Coffee (which is what I usually use for energy) had no effect. It was bizarre because I'm actually rather sensitive to caffeine.

Although the looping depressing thoughts let up when I switched from hydroxyzine to melatonin, they didn't go away. Maybe it was when I found myself grabbing my head and yelling, unable to stop thinking about certain things, that I decided to give up on the melatonin.

I feel so much better now. I have more energy during the day, even when I don't sleep at all. And speaking of not sleeping at all, I didn't sleep at all last night, which was the night of my home sleep study. The VA sent me a mini version of the measurement device that was attached to me the other times I did sleep studies (at the sleep centers). There was a probe I had to put on one finger, a quarter-sized probe that I had to stick to my upper chest, and a tool that looked like a flip phone docked in some type of holder, which I wore on my wrist like a wrist watch.

I can't sleep if sleeping conditions are just the slightest bit different from what I sleep with each night, so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised that I could not sleep, but I was a bit surprised. And upset. Yet another sleepless night. I don't even know whether the sleep medicine department will get any usable data from what I did last night; I could have gone without sleep for nothing. The only reason I even considered undergoing another sleep study is that the psychiatrist who prescribed my sleep meds suggested it as a sort of last ditch effort to fix my insomnia in response to my complaint about the Gabapentin not working.

I've been doing these pansy back workouts on the days off from my regular workouts. Three days ago, I got fed up with the boring pilates crap and decided to strengthen my back by doing a shitload of deadlifts. Stupid idea. I'd given up deadlifts because I was worried about hurting my back, particularly since it seemed that I could never get the form down.

Well, I was doing just one last deadlift (I should have stopped before that point), and it seemed like something finally clicked for me, I knew what was wrong with my form: the bar needed to be further back, closer to my legs. Barely thinking about what I was about to do, I rolled the bar to this position and lifted. I don't think I've ever lifted in quite this position, so maybe my back wasn't prepared for it. I was lifting on 110lbs., but I strained my back a little anyways. It was terrible; I wasn't really in pain. But I was hellbent on finally locking in the correct deadlift form, so I decided to do just one more rep, knowing that I shouldn't. I felt the strain in my back but kept lifting anyways. Then I was hurting even more.

My back is still sore now. I hope it's just soreness, that I haven't actually injured myself. Sitting on the floor (which is how I almost always sit at home) and bending over are very uncomfortable. I don't want to say they are painful. It's not pain, is it? I hope it's not pain. I hope it's just soreness, DOMS (delayed-onset muscle soreness, which is common with exercise). Then again, the feeling wasn't delayed. I felt it as soon as I lifted. Shit.

Well, it can't be too terrible. I'm not in horrible pain and I've been able to workout still. I'll just have to wait and see how my back feels. I'm going to be pissed if I've injured myself because I took such care to not injure my back, even going so far as to swear off my favorite lift.

I don't want to say that I'm on a diet because I don't really ever feel hungry. Sometimes I feel a bit fatigued after exercise in a way that seems related to lack of sufficient caloric intake, but I don't feel hunger pangs. I've altered the way I eat so that I feel full on fewer calories. I guess I am eating just slightly less than I'd like to, but it's not like the typical (stereotypical?) dieting experience.