Pinched

I wanted to talk about getting older, and how it comes with some fun but not so fun situations alongside it! This one is one of those ones that's not as fun as it should be.. lol.

We're all victim to it these days: laying in bed, on our phones for a little bit before we fall asleep. My wife and I both do it even though we really shouldn't but that's life with what we've got right now. I would like to eventually get away from that practice, and have been trying to make some steps towards doing that but that's besides the point here. While on my phone, I've realized that I'm regularly laying in an awkward position for extended periods of time. This has led me to experience some odd stuff!

I've experienced pinched nerves in the past, so I at least know what the situation is, though the previous episode was a lot scarier because it had far more noticeable negative effects on me. I would get muscle twitches pretty severely, so much that sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night with them. That was scary as fuck because that's often a sign of something that is guaranteed short-term death like ALS. Not the way I want to go out that's for fucking sure!

Thankfully I made intentional moves to correct the issues that caused that bout of odd behavior with my body and it did thankfully eventually go away. It was poor body position when laying in bed when my son was a lot smaller. I would lay in a way that allowed me to keep a closer eye on him but that did have negative consequences to it. Fuck that was one of the scariest things in my life! I'm not necessarily scared of death, but I am more scared of abandoning my wife and son at the most important time and formative time in his life, and that's a thought that does indeed scare the hell out of me!

With this most recent issue though, it's much smaller than that although it is likely around the same cause. I get this very noticeable and odd fuzzy feeling on my ear. Fuzzy is the easiest way to describe it, but it's a little bit like a tingling of someone flicking you with a feather, though far less sexy and fun, thinking of things that partners would do to each other.

The interesting part about it is that I've analyzed it quite a bit, as it's been happening for a few weeks now at this point, and I can't identify the exact behavior that causes it to occur at the time. I have noticed that when I hold my head at a certain angle and even when I move my arm in a specific spot like when I'm driving and holding the steering wheel for a while, that is when it tends to occur. This absolutely leads me to believe that it is positional and a behavioral issue with what I am doing.

I've also noticed that since I have been making a conscious effort not to lay down in the awkward position that I know was causing it, the frequency of this occurring is reduced quite a bit. Granted, the weird position I was laying in was more comfortable for me when doing it, long-term it's obviously not something that I should be doing so I've been suffering of sorts on my phone while laying in bed. That's not ideal but we do what we have to do sometimes, you know?

I think at the end of the day, with as absolutely terrifying as it was to have experienced the abnormal behavior of my body that was due to my poor choices of body mechanics, I am grateful for the experience that it gave me. It helped me realize that consistent abnormal behaviors over time add up to abnormal behaviors of our bodies. If we do something that isn't what we should be doing (as I've been drinking beer a little too frequently these days.. lol), our bodies eventually say something to us and we have to listen. Since I've listened, the strange feeling in my ear has subsided quite a bit!

What about you, have you had weird experiences with your body that you tried to figure out on your own? What was the outcome? Let me know in the comments!