So Ass My Psoas

[shanmonster]

My plague has calmed down to a dull roar, and I'm feeling somewhat energetic for the first time in a week or so. I decided to go and work on one of my dance DVDs, but alack! It will not work. You see, the DVD player is hooked up through the VCR, and the VCR is dead. I'm not sure where to change all the wires around, and the way everything is set up, and the way my balance is, I'm sure I'd send everything crashing to the ground if I try. So I guess I'll have to wait until f00dave gets home sometime tonight. I think it's a two-person job.

The VCR died about a week ago during a power bump. For some reason, this killed the VCR, and it refuses to turn back on. I have a dance tape stuck in there, and the only way I'll be able to get it out is by disassembling the player. Once again, I have no way of watching my dance VHS tapes. This is highly irritating.

Even more irritating is what woke me up at 4:00 this morning: arse cramps. Do you ever get those? Every now and then, in the middle of the night, I'm awoken by painful spasms of the colon. It's really painful. It feels like I have to go number two, but nothing happens. My arse just screams and gasps and convulses. Eventually, the spasms go away on their own, but while they last, I'm having as much fun as Job.

Three hours later, the sun hadn't yet risen, but I had. It was time to go to yoga. This was the first time I was to seriously exert myself in several days, and I was apprehensive. I took a couple of hits off my asthma puffer just in case, and then boogied on down to the yoga studio. The instructor, Ruth, took me right to the very edge of what I could handle, and then, just as I was about to collapse in defeat, we went on to some less demanding asanas. I found the class very educational. I learned how to isolate my psoas.

To isolate these deep-down muscles, lie on your back with your legs out straight. Raise one leg so your heel is just off the floor. Now, while keeping this leg in position, completely relax through your abdomen. If you're like me, you'll feel an engaged band of muscle running around where your leg joins on to your trunk, running from your groin and up around your hip. Try it with the other leg, and then try it with both legs simultaneously.

Although I'm more flexible than your average person, I'm stiff through my psoas and lower back. I guess I know what I'll be working on, hmm?

Comments

Hey

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

You and hotblue should get together and talk about yoga and your psoas. She's got psoas problems and the two of you are the only people I know who even know what a psoas is.

Arse Cramps

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Oddly, enough, I've met one other person
who told me he had this problem, which
usually awoke him in the morning hours.
He was Canadian, too, originally from
Ontario (I think), and living in BC at
the time of the spasms.

The only thing I could think might be the
cause was his high consumption of caffeine
or his gogogo lifestyle of constant work.

It sounds absolutely awful. Phantom poo
syndrome. Maybe it just needs to be fed?
:-/

Re: Arse Cramps

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I've heard that caffeine can cause this, but I don't take in much caffeine. I may have a cup of tea in the morning, and maybe a bit of chocolate every few days, but that's about it. I really have no idea what causes it for me, or for f00 (who is also occasionally afflicted by this nastiness).

It is absolutely awful.

I've heard that taking a puff off an asthma inhaler can cause it to relax. I must remember to try that the next time it happens.

Re: Hey

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Psoas are pretty keen muscles. They keep our mayas working, and help us to walk and other useful stuff like that.

I'm still a total novice at this yoga stuff, but I really would like to be able to teach it someday.

IBS

[cathellisen.livejournal.com]

Don't mean to be an ameteur doctor here, but it sounds suspiciously like a spastic colon (also known as Iritable Bowel Syndrome); my ex-bf suffered from it, and he had to cut all kinds of 'trigger' foods out of his diet.

Try have a look here http://www.helpforibs.com/footer/spastic.asp

Re: IBS

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

It could be. My father was diagnosed with it, and I tend to get whatever my father does. However, my father was also diagnosed with celiac disease a few years ago, and my doctor said I probably had it, too. As a result, Dad and I both went on the gluten-free diet for over a year before discovering that no, we didn't have celiac disease.

I'm of the opinion that Irritable Bowel Syndrome is what doctors call a bad gut when they don't know what else to call it.

I've already cut some trigger foods out of my diet (slow-cooked oatmeal, lentils, and fish 'n' chips), but I still get stomach cramping on a regular basis. Stress brings it on, as does waiting too long before I finally eat.

As for the arse cramping, to the best of my knowledge, it's an ideopathic ailment which also strikes people who don't have IBS.

BTW: I've been to see lots of doctors over years and years, and they ran test after test on me. When they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, they essentially shrugged and stopped investigating.

Re: IBS

[cathellisen.livejournal.com]

Not to make any assumptions wahtsoever on your lifestyle - but I know that for my ex, smoking pot made it a million times worse.

That felt so wierd to type... we don't call it pot in our country....

Re: IBS

[f00dave.livejournal.com]

The medical name is "proctalgia fugax", which is literally transated into "fleeting rectal pain" (or "temporary pain-in-the-ass"). Affects something like 10% of the population, causes unknown, usually occurs in the "small hours" (around 3am), duration is usually about 15 minutes, treatment is to wait for the cramp to leave (it's a cramping of one of the muscles inside the pelvic floor). The reason huffing an asthma puffer (Salbutamol) may work for some is that it contains a long-muscle relaxant, which can break the spasm cycle.

In my case, anyway, it's uncorrelated with smoking pot. What do you call it there (there's a thousand names for marijuana here)...

Re: IBS

[cathellisen.livejournal.com]

Spliff, Zol, Dagga (pronounced with a guttural "g" sound - I heard a Marilyn Manson song that pronounced it like "dagger' - made me laugh), Durban poison, Malawi gold, Swazi, majat, doob, um....loads of things really. My dad calls it aap-twak which translates roughly as "ape-tobacco". We have so many different cultural groups in South Africa that it really doesn't seem to matter what language you use - people will know what you're talking about. Some people say "grass" like the Americans, but I hardly ever hear it called "pot", except in movies.

In my country, pot-plant means a plant grown in a pot, this has occasionally caused confusion...

Re: IBS

[f00dave.livejournal.com]

Common terms here: weed, pot, doob, grass, doob, herb, greens, ganja, maryjane, MJ, dope, a [joint|jay|puff|spliff|pinner|blunt|...], wacky-tobaccy, wackybaccy, skunk, skunkweed, stinkweed, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseum.

Re: IBS

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Rest assured, I'm not exactly "chronic." I don't think I so much as caught a whiff of demon weed on the breeze on those days when my arse sphincted.