Question for all: If your doctor presribed you a drug for a valid medical reasons, but non-life threatening reasons of course, perhaps dull frequent headaches, and you found the drug made you faster, would you take the drugs?

Question for all: If your doctor presribed you a drug for a valid medical reasons, but non-life threatening reasons of course, perhaps dull frequent headaches, and you found the drug made you faster, would you take the drugs?

If I don't take the meds, will the illness run its course and be over, or am I going to be stuck with it?

I'd probably have to remove running from the equation. Would I take the drug if I wasn't a runner, so didn't know how it would affect my running?

Resisting urge to make snarky comment about Australian winter...

I hear ya, friend! Those sound like IRC to me! Bugs... you're making my head hurt. Maybe enjoy the nice side effect, but don't get hooked on it. (drugs for a temporary problem? or one you need to work on for life? that would make a diff) 6.55 miles of hill stuff last night, 8:33 avg pace. Of course, average paces don't mean much on hills... Didn't go slower than 8:50, didn't go faster than 8:18 I guess is a better way to put it. Felt good though, except for that @#%$*% North wind. Sure could do without that. I wore my Spikey's on my shoes cuz I'm tired of slipping on the ice. That worked out well. DS1 turns 16 today! He's taking his drivers license exam after school... Not sure if I want him to pass or not... It would be nice, but if he doesn't pass it'll give him a good idea of what he needs to work on. He really hasn't practiced as much as he should have, and he really hasn't done much parallel parking... 10 miles on tap for tonight... gotta fit it in before birthday dinner somehow.

Occasionally have to be on the look out for snakes but not so much of the kangaroos. Australian summers get pretty warm. I live in Melbourne which is the second biggest city here so naturally thats different to the desert/outback climate or even further north in our tropics zone which are hot all year around and only variation is a few weeks of wet season. Our normal summers day average around 30C/86F but regularly get up to 95-100F - just this time last week we were pushing 100 for 8 days straight. As for the head ache question bugs, i agree with what has been said; if you weren't running, had the headaches and this was the best way to treat the condition then do it, if its not the best way then use the best way. Hope that helps Hank

Bugs - it isn't crazy. My 1 thought as ready this was - are you eating enough? Not during your runs not right after your runs but all the time. I ask because I remember looking at your food log thinking that it resembled my lose weight for wedding food log. And when i was eating like that I couldn't recover, I felt like crap all the time, I was miserable, and running wasn't comfortable. DH came to me and said 1) you need more protein and 2) you need to eat more. I tried it and have felt great since. So I was wondering if you have tried eating more?? I feel like for how active you are you should definitely be in the 2000-2500 cal area, but your food log was putting you at 1500 most days. Could it be that this restrictive eating has taken a serious toll on your body? In regards to the medicine... most medicines work that way. By that I mean they typically only work if you have the problem. If not it typically does the reverse of what it is supposed to. For example, in teenagers giving them antidepressants if they are not truly depressed (meaning they are just hormonally down because teenagers do that and have not shown the signs of clinical depression - which takes 2 years to reach) it can make them depressed and in some cases suicidal. So, as you can imagine being on a drug when you do not need it could potentially be very dangerous. It is also taxing your liver for no reason. But, if you need the drug then you need the drug. Also, look into why you are taking the drug! Is it for depression or anxiety or is it because in your accident you possibly did enough damage the level of seratonin in your brain? (you don't need to answer these were for you to ask yourself) Because that makes your reason for taking it very different. My thought is that being healthy is much more important then the stigma associated with the drug. Especially considering no one needs to know about the drug. You can easily just call it a vitamin or birth control or something people don't flinch at hearing. You of course have to work out your own thoughts/feelings with being on the drug, but I certainly wouldn't not take it because of negative stigma if it meant I could function normally in the world. PS is it possible you are overtrained? OMG Bugs LOOK AT YOUR LOG!!! 24 miles, 40 miles, 18 miles, 21 miles, 38 miles.... look at some of those jumps!!!!! And it's not the only thing you are doing there is lots of cross training going on also... Look at February - calendar view to get a better idea - no freaking wonder you are sick. I seriously think you might have run yourself into the ground and that is why you are sick!! YOu went 3 weeks in February without a rest day, then 2, then 1 the last two weeks. And there are very few days where you only did one thing. Many days were were doubling or tripling up on the exercises!! Holy cow miss bugs maybe you need to think about all this exercise and how you are eating before you go back to the drug...

PS is it possible you are overtrained? OMG Bugs LOOK AT YOUR LOG!!! 24 miles, 40 miles, 18 miles, 21 miles, 38 miles.... look at some of those jumps!!!!! And it's not the only thing you are doing there is lots of cross training going on also... Look at February - calendar view to get a better idea - no freaking wonder you are sick. I seriously think you might have run yourself into the ground and that is why you are sick!! YOu went 3 weeks in February without a rest day, then 2, then 1 the last two weeks. And there are very few days where you only did one thing. Many days were were doubling or tripling up on the exercises!! Holy cow miss bugs maybe you need to think about all this exercise and how you are eating before you go back to the drug...

Shan, I think eat fine overall. I eat less during the week and more on the weekend. I have kids and constantly nibbling on their crap that doesn't always get logged...although I tried to keep it accurate. I was logging to make sure I got enough protein. If I eat more I gain weight and not the good kind. I have a small build, and am sure I'm suppose to be on the low end of the weight charts. I weight 125 and doc says to keep weight above 112. I have not had a 40 mile week, but I want to BADLY. I had a 34 and four weeks later up to 35. Really I don't see any big mile jumps. If you have a low week because your sick, you should be able to get back-up to where your miles use to be quicker than when the 10% rule doesn't always apply. Plus some of those runs had lots of walking breaks so I didn't fret over it. I had no problems running my miles, but the intensity is not there. I was pleased on Tues to run 6 miles at 9:00 min pace, but a year ago could run 26 miles at that pace..it was an easy pace then. Most days (now) I don't do double workouts, you can't count walking, feet exercises, or even yoga... But I logged for VRAA points and to help understand the injuries since doctor said to do yoga. All I can say is last year I could run at noon and do aerobics or lift weights in the evenings. I know I'm active, (but not active compared to my old self) and if it was just the injuries I could blame the activity, but I'm fairly certain it's going off the SSRIs. I do think I could have done a better job at cutting back more on cut-back weeks. When your only running 25 mpw and you want to be running 40 it sucks to cutback. Some people only need to cutback 10-15% and I think I perform better at the 25-30% level. BTW, I think most people should be able to some sort of physical activity everyday. If you have a sit-down job, 30 minutes on a bike, biking easy is nothing. P2R They will make it my decesion. I explained my theory to my graston doctor, someone who input I value. Struggling with running is getting depressing. That's part of the reason I feel guilty for wanting to go back on them. Like it's cheating.

Bugs - I was going through the thread and I got as far as "you'd be stuck with the headaches" and was ready to chime in with "I'd take the meds" What you're outlining is pretty complex and a highly personal issue. As a general concept, I would simply say that if something was wrong and meds fixed it and improved my overall quality of life, I would lean heavily in that direction. While doing so, I would spend a lot of effort trying to figure out the root causes of the headache. I'm not a headache sufferer, but from the very little I know about it (basically just anecdotal from a few sufferers I know) sometimes docs simply can't lock down the cause. After reading your detailed explanation, I get the impression that your biggest obstacle in this decision is the stigma involved and that can be a tough issue to deal with. Running sets us apart as strong. Marathon running sets us even further apart as endurance athletes. To feel lumped in with the sluggish and slow who can't even connect to their lives well enough to be happy can be a huge psychological blow. While this doesn't reflect the reality of what depression is, that is often how it's perceived. A few things to consider: Would it make a difference to you if you took the meds and nobody (even us) knew about it? Like others said, if you took running out of the equation, would that affect your decision? If you're taking it for headaches, does that actually lump you in with the folks taking it for depression? When you've talked with your docs, what has their input been?