
So, what I'm going to tell my rheumatologist in a few days about physical therapy is this: I can exercise, but it doesn't solve the problem.
I'm not strictly convinced that exercise doesn't aggravate my other symptoms, but I've also moved away from my previous belief that exercise causes them. I get symptoms whether I exercise or not, and they're frequent enough that determining the exact nature of the link is difficult at best.
So I'm trying exercising again. When there are symptoms I'm pushing through when I can and lightening the load when I can't-- but I'm not stopping this time unless I am rendered totally physically incapable. We'll see how it goes.
In other news, per a reminder by my counselor of something my GP said a while ago, I'm trying life without caffeine again as well. I did this once before but only for a few days, which is hardly scientifically conclusive. This time my goal is to make it two weeks and see where I stand. This is day three.
As with anything else, I'm having a hard time sorting out symptoms in connection with this. I've been having massive headaches since going off, but I get those occasionally when I'm on caffeine and it could just be a coincidence. Alternately it could be withdrawal symptoms, or I could normally be having these symptoms all the time and caffeine just blunts their effect.
The problem with my kind of condition is that it's obviously not one thing but many, and that means making adjustments is a fiddly and uncertain process. I wish I could do something and just have it work even a little bit but without this constant shading of doubt.