Carpal Tunnel Syndrome...Ouch.

60% of pregnant women experience symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome in pregnancy.

What that means is that as your body gains more fluid, the main nerve in your hand will be crushed and what midwives and DRs call discomfort ABSOLUTELY BLOODY KILLS!!!!!

Truly, no messing around, the discomfort you are told of is complete bollocks, I had a disc  removed from my back and it didn't hurt as much as this did in the end.

Here's the facts:










Midwives and DRs recommend taking ibuprofen. Don't bother. It's medically recognised globally that ibuprofen doesn't make any difference wehatsoever. Read this from our own NHS:

So don't bother taking medication that you do not need and that cannot help whilst you are pregnant. I have absolutely NO idea why they say this, I think it's to shut you up.

Here's the bad news: There is no safe drug to take for nerve pain whilst pregnant. It's really shit, it's really painful and there's FA you can do about it medically.

Here's the good news: In many cases the symptoms go away within 3 months of giving birth and in those first 3 months you will have an out of body experience with sleep deprivation and won't have time to think about your hand hurting. I'm under-exaggerating - you'll be tired for the rest of your life but I didn't want to scare the shit out of you.

More good news: Pineapple helps! Sadly i'm not recommending a daily pina colada but there are lots of foods that have anti-inflammatory properties. For pineapple i'm reliably informed that the magic enzyme is bromelain but you can read more here.

I didn't try them all but I did eat loads of pineapple in a smoothie every day and bizarrely it seemed to help although my tongue felt a bit weird as I ate it every day (more frequently on hormonal neurotic days).

A quick note on tumeric: The latest diet fad is that tumeric can make you uber skinny. Obviously that's complete nonsense (I know because I kept my existing lifestyle and ate tumeric every day and am still a size 16. Balls) but there is a lot of evidence to show that it does make a difference if you combine it as part of a healthy-eating plan. Don't take my word for it, Take That's Gary Barlow swears by it and he went from a chubby to a God so it must be true. Read more here.

So before I end this one, despite my best attempts I have had carpal tunnel syndrome for 2 years and had the op 3 days ago. Op took 15 minutes, I had it under local anaesthetic (I watched because i'm gruesome like that but you don't have to) and 3 days later I am able to type this post, albeit slowly and relying on a spell-checker so if worst comes to the worst, this op is 100% successful and isn't all that bad.

Over and out.

Carrots #metoo

Yesterday I went to pick Jack up from nursery and I walked in to see him brandishing an extremely large carrot as he chased a little girl around tapping her on the bum and shouting "tickle tickle tickle". No doubt she will be posting #metoo on her ToysRUs laptop tonight...