What Ails Me?

So either from stress or age, my body is starting to fall apart you guys.

I should preface this with the fact that I don't like doctors. In my experience (and no I do not have a GP) they are not very helpful. They tell you things like 'get more rest' and 'drink lots'. Well those are things that I already know and probably have already tried. And guess what? Not working. That's kind of why I'm here in the first place, a more expert opinion.

So I rarely go, preferring to rely on my own expertise, resting when required and always drinking lots of water (I don't really drink anything else. Except tea).

But rest and water don't seem to be cutting it these days.

Let's play a game. I will tell you what is wrong with me, and you will pretend that you have some kind of medical knowledge and tell me what's wrong so that I don't have to sit in a clinic exposed to H1N1 waiting to see a doctor that won't even touch me to figure out what's wrong.

OK?

Fun!

Here we go.

A few weeks ago I started to feel a twinge in my right knee. Under the kneecap. I did not hit my knee or do anything to my knee to make it start feeling like this. I feel it when I'm just walking normally but it's worse when I am walking up or down stairs, and up or down any kind of incline. I have been icing it (kind of treating it like a sprain). Feels better for an hour, comes back at the same level of pain. Its a little puffy but not overly swollen. At rest some days it feels like growing pains in my knee.

What's wrong?

It's so irritating you don't even know. Even during aquafit last week (a workout at such low intensity your grandmother is a gold medallist) it was uncomfortable.

Thoughts?

The second ailment is more bizarre.

Last weekend I was out enjoying the sunshine on Granville Island, buying some massive, beautiful steaks for dinner that night and I started to feel some stiffness in my jaw on one side. I know, I know, all kinds of inappropriate jokes are running through your head right now aren't they? Of course they are, my mind works the same way.

By the time we got home I could barely open my mouth without some pretty nasty pain. Chewing my steak (my beautiful, rare steak) was painful. I couldnt bite down all the way, making chewing tricky. I looked online and the Internet told me that I had a tetanus infection and I could die. But I didn't have any kind of wounds that tetanus might have gotten into. So it probably wasn't that.

It might also have been an inflammation of the masticular muscles (the ones you chew with, masticulatory?? you get the idea) and that applying heat, rinsing your mouth with warm salt water and some kind of ibuprofen should take care of it in 10-14 days. I did all of those things, went to bed, woke up, problem was gone. A little residual soreness but it wore off over the day.

Yesterday it started up again. Today its not as bad as last night (I know, that's what she said) but its still uncomfortable.

What. The. Hell?

I'm thinking these ailments, plus the fact that my face is being a b*itch and breaking out is my body telling my job to go f*ck itself. But what can I do to fix it?

In the meantime, I thought that I would embrace spring and am wearing an adorable dress and I have bare legs. Yes ladies, its warm enough for bare legs. Halleluiah.

But what good will bare legs do in the longterm if I have a bum knee?

So lay it on me people. Your medical knowledge is being put to the test. You might even get a prize if you figure out how to fix me.

OK, no sense in creating false hope. There's no prize. Just my undying gratitude that I won't have to be put down.