The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Half the reason why I, unlike most of my family, didn't opt for a surgical specialization is because I hate standing for hours. It often involves having to hunch forwards too, so both my back and my legs end up absolutely aching by the time I'm done.
Well, I just started a job as a Simia custodialis, or humble Ward Monkey in an oncology department and my legs are fucking killing me. Standing around being useless while Consultants perform interminable ward rounds is absolutely my least favorite part of the profession.
It's so bad that I've been stealing paracetamol and chlorzoxazone tablets to help with the body ache, or I can't drag myself out of bed in the morning.
Anybody have any suggestions for how to tolerate it better? It's not like this is a new thing, I've always hated standing, and I've had to tolerate similar nonsense for years so it's not a matter of just losing the habit from lazing around for a few months. I semi-seriously conjecture that my body is akin to a chihuahua fed
humancanine growth hormone till it's the size of a St. Bernard, my poor spine can't take it.Miss me with walkable cities, I'm going to surgically remove my legs and put on a motorized rocket powered wheelchair as soon as the Science™ is there.
Any hypermobility going on? If there is, lift weights with good form. If not, maybe try something like yoga. Good luck. I hated my surgery rotations too; at least when you're rounding you get to stretch occasionally and walk around instead of standing in the same spot and position for hours.
I haven't noticed anything that could be described as hypermobility, far from it.
Working out and strengthening my back did help when I was regular with the gym, but it's annoying that I would have to do that when the typical person seems to manage just fine without it. I'm feeling very meh on hitting the gym again, I only really bothered when I was single, and I haven't been that for the better part of a decade.
It never helped with the standing at the very least.
Sucks to suck. I have that problem as well due to mild EDS plus a very mild herniated disc. Deadlifting was the best thing I ever did for my back. During the pandemic, I was stuck lifting literal heavy rocks in the woods because the gyms were closed. 95 percent of regular Joes didn't have to fuck around with heavy-ass rocks in the woods just to keep (minor) chronic pain at bay, but them's the breaks. A lot of people have bushleague bullshit like that that they deal with. You're a doctor, I'm a fourth year, not much that we can do here for this kind of thing.
P.S: You've seen incredibly driven Indian doctor types. Did they have not just exceptional work ethic but insane memories? I've seen guys memorize 100-slide powerpoint presentations and tell you what slide something came from, a week after watching the lecture. I've seen undergrads at no-name schools do entire labs from memory, reciting the lab manual word for word. Is that common where you are?
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