Stiffness

Dear Bloggers,

As you could read in my last blog, pain is becoming more and more into my life. Also my fingers are affected by it and I really have to take my time to write a story, my blogs might become a little less frequent but as long as I can I will keep you posted. I was just wondering if you have any clue what is hitting me at the moment. I will try to write down what is making my live extremely difficult at the moment.



Do you wake up in the morning feeling like you are just unable to get out of bed?
Do you have joint aches and muscle stiffness?
If you can answer yes to these questions then you may be suffering from morning stiffness.
As I am suffering, but I do not complain that I am a victim of morning stiffness. This stiffness is often long lasting and recurrent, and sometimes becomes a permanent symptom.

What is Morning Stiffness?
(Yeah, right a dirty mind is joy forever, but it is not what I mean today.)
Morning stiffness is pretty self-explanatory – it’s stiffness that you feel when you first wake up in the morning.
But what does this stiffness actually feel like?
Well, let me describe morning stiffness as a tightness in the muscles and joints throughout the body.
This muscle joint stiffness usually lasts for at least 30 minutes, though it can last for hours.

It also doesn’t exclusively occur in the morning – it can continue well into the afternoon and evening. This stiffness can impede movement and range of motion as well as cause aches and pains throughout the body.



This morning stiffness can have a huge impact on a person’s daily activities, making it difficult to sit, stand, or rest for extended periods of time.

Where Does Morning Stiffness Occur?
Morning stiffness occurs in the muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments throughout the body.
Stiffness can be felt in pretty much any connective tissue, but the extremities are particularly at risk for stiffness.
This means that most of the time I feel morning stiffness in my hands, feet, arms, or legs.
The back is also particularly prone to stiffness, especially thoracic, and cervical spine areas.



Symptoms of Morning Stiffness
There are numerous symptoms that often occur with morning stiffness.
If you notice any of these symptoms, report them to your doctor so that you can get appropriate treatment and relief.

1. tightness in the muscles after you wake up in the morning
2. stiffness in hands, fingers, feet, toes
3. gelling, or tightness in the muscles after periods of rest (for eample: long car rides, sitting at the office, afternoon naps)
4. aching or throbbing pain, especially in the hands, arms, legs, and feet
5. inability to fully extend certain joints, limited range of motion
stiffness in the head, back, and neck
6. stiffness reoccurring at night

Aggravating Factors
Certain factors seem to aggravate morning stiffness especially I would note that cold and humid weather make their morning stiffness worse.
Also sleep disorders contribute to the severity of morning stiffness symptoms. Anxiety and stress are also known contributors to morning stiffness.

How does Morning Stiffness Impact You?
Morning stiffness can take its toll on you, especially if you suffer from severe symptoms.



Muscle stiffness and joint stiffness can make it difficult to go to work, drive a car, or even get out of bed in the morning.
However, with movement, morning stiffness does get better and it is usually possible to keep up with your daily tasks.
If you are suffering from morning stiffness for a longer period of time it is a good idea to consult with your doctor.

But take my advise:"Just look up, maybe you just miss the sun..."

The Old Sailor,

If pain is taking over your life.

Dear Bloggers,

What if pain is taking over your life.
At the moment I am living life with a lot of pain, my doctor got finally realistic and sends me to specialist of internal diseases.
I am just over 40 and my body is fully working against me. In the blood tests that were done, once again there was nothing found and I am so not amused.
All my joints are hurting, my neck, my elbows, my knees, my wrists (off and on in various finger joints) and one of my ankles.
The year has just started and it is a painful beginning.

About 12 months back they discovered that I have Tietze's syndrome.(Costochondritis)
I walked around for almost 2 years with a nagging pain in my left side at my 4th rib from the top counted.
First they thought that it was pain of the recovery of my lung after the pneumonia that I've had.
Because I was still fairly unfamiliar to the intense pain it caused, in the beginning I was a few times rapidly rushed to the hospital with an expected heart attack.
The symptoms seemed to be very similar and the pain at the left is so stinging that it just feels like you are going to die.
The hospital found out, after a number of examinations that there was nothing wrong with the heart.
But what it was, they were not entirely sure.



To my great surprise I had a number of things that I no longer used as such as my garden tools.
This kind of things I have to suffer with an intense pain that will bring me one or two days completely down.
When the diagnosis was made that I had Tietze, I started searching the Internet and came to the discovery that I was not the only one suffering from this.
I ended up on the site of A. G. Hol: www.tietze.nl
I discovered only now that it is something that has been there for years and I finally figured what was going on with me.

In winter I have trouble getting up on my feet and I'm stiff from head to toe.
All my moving parts are hurting like hell.
I am like a very old man when I am at the beginning of my day.
To give you an example of how my day is:
“You feel like having a heavy flu than you can also sense the pain from the muscles, also the heavy feeling and being extremely tired is part of it.” (I fall asleep in the middle of the day, I get sleepy out of nothing.)
I am simply falling asleep from one moment being fully awake until the next moment I am falling into a deep sleep.



However, the severe pain is getting sharper and tears my soul in two.
My fingers do not work with me and they are so stiff and painful, and my daughters, I can not help them, for example, a biscuit packaging I can not open it.
But whatever is coming on my path, I also have to learn to accept and that fibromyalgia is going to be part of my near future, and again I just have to get used to it.

Life is a path that is crossed by pain and love.
Only a pity is that I see more pain than love.
Happiness comes in small pills, who are also called painkillers.

The Old Sailor

Happy Birthday Old Sailor.

Dear Bloggers,

It is that time of the year again, soon there is my birthday to celebrate and year 41is there (that is 14.975 days).
Like every year the discussion starts what should we get you this year.
And funny enough the answer is already there, like always.

This year I get a new car stereo as the “old” one is giving up on us.
Not too expensive I claimed as the “new second hand car” might have these things integrated.



Aging. Getting old. Nothing seems to shrivel up a person's wish to celebrate the anniversary of their birth like the number of candles to be lit on their cake.

Sure, there's a large number of cards at the corner store dedicated to sagging skin and creaking joints, but you know: age is just a number, right?
Comedic interpretation, learning to laugh about turning 41 will do much more to make you smile than woe over your latest grey hair ever will.



There's great reason to look at getting older as a good thing - you get to move on from the torture of growing up and look forward to things to come. With age tends to come a sense of peace and forward thinking - as we move into adulthood, life can become more about what the future holds for us than what we missed out on yesterday.

Now, a quiet dinner with your loved ones, without any gifts at all, can make for the best celebration you've ever had.
Remember the hell that was adolescence? You're done with shyly wondering if the popular kid in school was gossiping about you or one of your best friends.

Your early twenties were likely the years of (not just birthday) parties, hot dates, not being a grown-up, but no longer a child. It seems like every one's got the same early 20s strife: we searched to figure out who we were going to be with someone else, instead of figuring out who we already were. We were running after the perfect achievements - things, friends, careers and lovers - without being able to sit still and recognize what we already had.



I've heard that with the 30s comes a sense of peacefulness and acceptance. We stop always looking for something better, shinier and more expensive and get to know ourselves. We become more focused on comfort, as opposed to unachieved idealism. Some of us develop families and become the parents we would like to be; others put their time and effort into career and personal development outside of the home. Some of us do both! All of us tend to learn that what we have is okay and even a little bit wonderful, and we drop the feelings of regret over unimportant choices we made in the past.



With our 40th birthday, we might evaluate our lives. Our kids (if there are any) are often growing old enough for us to grant them more independence, we've got a lot of experience we didn't 20 years ago, and we've come to know ourselves and the world around us enough to ask, "What's next?" without negating anything we've already lived. We can sit, pondering whether we'd like to study something new, take a new turn in our careers, start a business - and best of all, we've gained enough confidence in ourselves to believe that we can do what we set out for.



I can't wait to get older and to celebrate each birthday that marks me maturing. Maybe wrinkles and sagging aren't on my wish list, but the wisdom, being comfortable with myself and my life's choices, peacefulness and the adventures that await? Definitely the best birthday presents I could ever hope for.

What are you looking forward to as you get to your next milestone?

The Old Sailor,

A night out with the Old Sailor,

Dear Bloggers,

Sometimes I have these brilliant ideas to go a night out with my wife, but when you are having two kids not old enough to stay on their own.
You need to organize things on forehand.
And this is not easy when you are like me, and right away I say yes to a spontaneous idea.
Ok, everything turned out the right way.
Although I need to thank a lot of people for this great support and cooperation they al gave. We had the opportunity to have a look behind the scenes of the musical Sunset Boulevard.



First of all I will revert to the movie.
Sunset Boulevard is typical of Billy Wilder's penchant for risky subject matter, but it's also more visually appealing than some of his films combined.
It's a film that succeeds on many levels of production; the script is intricate and boldly conceived (if at times melodramatic), the set design is marvelous, Wilder's direction is fluent, and the lighting and camera movements are stately.
Aside from these concrete elements, the film also seduces the viewer into its own special world that is rather indescribable; if you don't believe me, bad luck and I wonder if you have seen it.

Last night we went to the musical version.
The music has been composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber another big name in musical world.(Jesus Christ superstar, phantom of the opera, cats, and Evita.)
Although musical is not really my thing as I am not that good at sitting still for a long time.
We were invited to come and see the show, we were allowed to use the foyer were the cast is having their break and the artist entrance.
My wife did not know anything about it and for her it was a big surprise.
The only thing she knew was that we were going out for diner and that her work schedule was changed.
(A lot of organizing for me behind the scenes, but that is the toll that you pay when you are a hopeless romantic like me.)


Norma Desmond (Simone Kleinsma) and Joe Gillis (Antonie Kamerling)
It is of course something special when you are being so close to the star players, not everybody gets this chance.
I really have to say we had a great night out and the musical is absolutely catching.
As my wife had no pre information about the story as she did not see the movie, or could pre read on internet about it.
Within 5 minutes you are being dragged into the story.


Betty Schaeffer (Maike Boerdam - Strobel)

Well let me give a short impression about the story:
In a passage that is pure Golden Age Hollywood, screenwriter Joe Gillis (Antonie Kamerling) escapes his shadowy creditors to the side of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles where he unearths the crumbling mansion of the equally crumbling, self-proclaimed silent film "star" Norma Desmond (Simone Kleinsma/Pia Douwes).
However, her problem is that she hasn't come to accept the reality of her current situation, which manifests itself into the several misshapen aspects of her life: the "fan letters" she believes she receives (but which are actually sent by her butler Max, another has-been filmmaker, played by Peter de Smet), the general otherworldliness of her mansion, which seems to be fusing into the shrubbery that surrounds it, or the lack of locks on her vast doors as a safeguard for Max in the instance of a possible suicide attempt.
"I am big. It's the pictures that got small,"
While her personal corruption seems to be associated with her loss of fame and aging body, Gillis is on the opposite side of the spectrum.
He's a writer who has frequently been on the cusp of a big hit, but whose minor failures have progressively made him more and more cynical.
When asked by Norma to assist her in writing her script, he jumps at the opportunity, being well aware of the status she had reached as an actress.
Creepily however, Norma takes hold of Gillis, scrutinizing his every move, an action that eventually turns for the worst when Gillis begins a love affair with Betty Schaeffer an engaged script reader played by Maike Boerdam.
When ambition runs in Sunset Boulevard, self-absorption is not far behind.
Gillis seems to lose his identity, grabbing hold of the promise of money over a more worthwhile situation.


"The Butler" Max von Mayerling (Peter de Smet)

A very deep and sad story but I was absolutely impressed by the musical, so I like to applaud all of you.
A great piece of art made by all of you.
I am normally not that impressed by the Dutch translations of top songs but you could feel that it was performed with a lot of passion.
The original movie Sunset Boulevard is certainly one of the most handsome productions of the 50's, and Wilder's knack for weaving a complex psychological tale while also keeping his taboos close to mind is undeniable.

Anyway we had a great night out.

The Old Sailor,

Happy with what you have, not with what you could get

Dear Bloggers,

My wife… What can I say about her? She is always there for me. Always giving up her own life for me. She studied still when she we first met. But she gave up her own career for me to pursue my dreams. I know, she will say our dreams. But the honest truth is that she gave up her future career for me to go off and tackle the world. Always taking a back seat…

My wife. A mind as sharp as her tongue! And damn! If only you knew how sharp that tongue can be! I always tell people to rather deal with me because I am the easy one. The soft one. But you mess with her… Man, man, man… All hell will break lose! Remind me that I tell you about the poor insurance guy one day. Haha! I don’t think he ever recovered.
Anyway…

My wife… We moved in together and she gave up her own job for me, and started work for peanuts at Arriva. Because that was what I wanted her to do. I was in between jobs all the time and worked as a freelance bartender and only weekends we were busy. As I needed to be a bartender.
You know what my wife did? She was pregnant… But she had to go and work somewhere for us to earn a bit more money because I got us into that situation. She stuck with it until I found a better paying job two years later. That’s what my wife did. That’s what my proud pregnant wife went to do.



My wife… That is how much she loves me. She would do everything for me. She has done everything for me. She has given up her life just for us to be together and for me to explore the world.
This take-no-shit, bright as hell, (and hotter than hell) proud, strong and suffering woman will do all that just for me. Can you imagine that?
And that isn’t even half the story. Apart from giving all that up she loves a crazy man. Her suffering is double what you can imagine!
Baby, I love you so much. I truly know what it means to love someone more than life itself. Because without you there will be no life. No me. I love you more… I think of you every single minute of my day. I always just want to be with you. Hold you and love you. (And all that other good stuff as well!)

I am one lucky, lucky man to have found the one person who makes me better than what I was meant to be. I am nothing without you. But I am everything because of you.
You have given up so much just for me. And the girls. You tolerate us. And you love us. Without asking anything back. All I have to give you is me.
A reminder. So incomplete. But it will have to do to give you a glimpse of how much you make me who I am. Baby, I love you. More…
How I Love My Wife

How do I love my wife?
In so many ways…
I love how I never want to write about my love for her because I know that I can never say it just the way I want to. And how I know that I still wouldn’t be able to say or write it the right way even if I was more gifted than Shakespeare. How words can never tell the story of my love for her. Because words have boundaries.



I love how she holds me and asks me what is wrong when I don’t know how to say what is wrong. When all that is wrong is that the world just got a little bit too heavy. And that all I need is her arms around me to make me feel safe and strong again.
I love how I listen to that stupid Hero song of Enrique and cry because I just want to be her hero. I just want to wipe away the tears. I want to kiss away the pain. I just want to stand by her forever. Because she always takes my breath away.
I love how she has to bite her lip when she laughs when I do my silly accents. And how she laughs with no sound and the tears runs down her face. And she’s laughing at my stupid jokes.

I love how she pretends to need me even though she is so much stronger than me. I know she doesn’t climb mountains. She will make the mountains come to her. And that they will just obey.
I love how she speaks with a “little voice” when she gets back from shopping and asks me “Don’t you want to help me carry?” And how I know there will be a little something in there for me.

I love how I used to hate Tom Cruise for taking the best line with “You complete me”. But how I know he didn’t even get close. She makes me. Not complete. She just makes me. Me.
I love how she laughs and shakes her head and says “What am I going to do with you?” whenever I make one of my suggestive comments. And how I do it just to hear those words.



I love how I look at her and compare every girl I see to her. And how no one compares even if they are on the pages of magazines or in leading roles in the movies.
I love how she is the centre of our universe. How she holds everything together and give meaning to our family. Stronger than gravity or any law of science.

I love how my smile gets bigger the closer I get to home. How I just want to run and laugh because I know she will be there and everything will be just fine.
I love how she wanted me even though she could get anyone she wanted. And how she stays with me even though she can get anyone she wants.

I love how her hand feels in mine when we walk with the girls. I love how I touch her while she’s walking and kiss her on her cheek.
I love how my heart still races when I kiss her when we make out. How her lips make me forget everything that makes me mad.

I love how she acts all needy when she wants me to get her some Coke or crisps. And how I love getting it for her.
I love how I still get butterflies when she reaches for my hand without her knowing she is doing it.



I love how she is the first thing that touches my lips in the morning and the last thing at night.
I love how she holds me and looks into my eyes when she tells me that she loves me more.

I love how I know every part of her body but still don’t know enough.

I love how she puts her hand on my leg when we go for a drive.

I love how she believes in me even when I have my doubts.

I love how I can write another million words and still not tell you how I love my wife.

The Old Sailor,

My scientific approach of valentine’s day

Dear Bloggers,



When Love Blossoms
Romantic love, is not an emotion.
Rather, it’s “a motivation system, it’s a drive, it’s part of the reward system of the brain.”
It’s a need that compels the lover to seek a specific mating partner.
Then the brain links this drive to all kinds of specific emotions depending on how the relationship is going.
All the while, the prefrontal cortex is assembling data, putting information into patterns, making strategies, and monitoring the progress toward “life’s greatest prize.”



Love also hurts.
A recent study where 40 percent of people who had been dumped by their partner in the previous eight weeks experienced clinical depression and 12 percent severe depression.
It is estimated that 50 to 70 percent of female homicides are committed by lovers and spouses.



Divide love into three categories involving different brain systems:

1) Lust (the craving for sexual gratification), driven by androgens and estrogens;

2) Attraction (or romantic or passionate love, characterized by euphoria when things are going well, terrible mood swings when they’re not, focused attention, obsessive thinking, and intense craving for the individual), driven by high dopamine and norepinephrine levels and low serotonin; and

3) Attachment (the sense of calm, peace, and stability one feels with a long-term partner) driven by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.

“I think the sex drive evolved to get you out there to get looking for anything at all,”
Romantic love, is developed to focus one’s mating energy on just one individual while attachment works to tolerate this individual long enough to raise children as a team.



Romantic love, is a stronger craving than sex.
People who don’t get sex don’t kill themselves, she said.
On the other hand, it is not adaptive to be romantically in love for 20 years.
“First of all, we would all die of sexual exhaustion."Not surprisingly."



When Love Fades
High levels of oxytocin and vasopressin may interfere with dopamine and norepinephrine pathways, which may explain why attachment grows as mad passionate love fades.
The antidote may be doing novel things together to goose the two love neurotransmitters.
Meanwhile, elevated testosterone can suppress oxytocin and vasopressin.
There is good evidence, Dr Fisher said, that men with higher testosterone levels tend to marry less often, be more abusive in their marriage, and divorce more regularly.
The reverse can also be true.
If a man holds a baby, levels of testosterone go down, perhaps in part because of oxytocin and vasopressin going up.



“Have you ever been dumped by someone you really love?”
An equal number also dumped someone who really loved them.
Getting dumped makes you love the person harder, a so called “frustration attraction.”
Psychologists also refer to “abandonment rage” and “frustration depression,” which may paradoxically work to hasten the relationship’s end.
Then comes resignation and despair, where the brain’s reward system begins to realize the you are never going to get what you want.
Despair may seem counterproductive, but it is in essence “a failure of denial” that allows us to see the world for what it is and sets us on the road to finding a more suitable partner.



Love at Risk
“Sex, Sexuality, and Serotonin,” antidepressants may jeopardize romantic love.
As well as high dopamine and norepinephrine, she said, romantic love is characterized by low serotonin.
Low serotonin would explain the obsessive thinking attached to romantic love.
For example 95 percent of the day and couldn’t stop thinking about your loved one. This kind of obsessive thinking is comparable to obsessive compulsive disorder, also characterized by low serotonin.
Serotonin-enhancing antidepressants, will lower the emotions, including the elation of romance, and suppress obsessive thinking, a critical component of romance.
These antidepressants also inhibit orgasm, clitoral stimulation, penile erection (“the entertainment system, as I would call it”), and deposit of seminal fluid.
From an anthropological perspective, a woman who can’t get an orgasm may fail to distinguish Mr Right from Mr Wrong.
Seminal fluid contains dopamine and norepinephrine, oxytocin and vasopressin, testosterone and estrogen, and FSH and LH.

Without an orgasm, said Dr Fisher, men lose the ability to send courtship signals. Said one man, who lost his motivation and self esteem as a result, “I just stopped dating.”
Ironically, because antidepressants inhibit depression, patients may lose their ability to send an honest clear signal for social support and (for those with mild depression) lose the necessary insight to make hard decisions (the failure of denial factor).



When Sex Goes Right
If I research what goes on molecularly during arousal and orgasm: Testosterone drives sexual activity in men.
Testosterone also affects women, plus estrogen and progesterone, associated with permissivity and receptivity, respectively.
These three hormones help maintain genital structure and function.
Dopamine is tied into sexual desire while norepinephrine is related to subjective excitement.
During orgasm, oxytocin levels rise.



When Sex Goes Wrong
I mentioned that serotonin can dampen sexual desire and excitement.
It can also deaden sensation, leading to vasocongestion (“blue balls”).
Prolactin can have a negative impact on sexual excitement.
Risk factors for sexual dysfunction include being at least 50 years old, married, less than college education, not employed full time, tobacco use, higher doses of antidepressants, concomitant meds, co-occurring ills known to cause sexual dysfunction, prior history of antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction, history of little or no sexual enjoyment, and regarding sexual functioning as not or somewhat important.



In patients with depression, that figure is 70 to 80 percent.
Depression itself rarely causes sexual dysfunction, Dr Muskin explained.
Untreated depression, however, often causes a lack of interest in sex, and disrupts intimacy.
The reality that getting well is more important than sexual dysfunction.
Patients and their partners, he said, may need to reconfigure how they have sex. Arousal may need to be at a higher pitch before intercourse, and orgasm need not be linked to the act.
Although Viagra may improve erection, it doesn’t help much with libido and orgasm. The following natural treatments, he said, show promise: Rhodiola (an arctic plant that works for both men and women, may work on dopamine, helps libido and boosts energy); Ginko biloba (for impotence in men and maintains erection); Gingseng (appears to work on dopamine, so woman can benefit too)



Love from Potion Number 32
“Valentine’s Day cards usually depict Cupid’s dart as the messenger of love.
New scientific research, however, shows that a key messenger molecule, rather than Cupid’s dart, is responsible for female sexual receptivity.
Hmmm, how can a normal man stimulate the woman of their dreams into a sexual driven animal?

The Old Sailor,

Is it all over?

Dear Bloggers,

This item was removed, we are sorry but it was hurting too many feelings.

Stop wasting your time and do something useful with it, at least try to enjoy live.
Let me end like this: “Love may be blind but you don’t have to be blind not to see things. After all it’s your future life that is concerned. ”

The Old Sailor,