Something Amiss

Figure 1 shows a record of my activity over the past few days generated by a pedometer app:

Figure 1

As can be seen, Thursday marked the day when I overextended myself and I spent the following three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) recovering. I did not go for an intentional walk on any of those days. Today, Monday the 2nd October 2023, I did go for an intentional walk although at a very leisurely path. I even rested for awhile on two park benches.

Despite the slow walk, I found that toward the end of my journey my left arm was becoming quite numb. This is not due to an impending heart attack because I've often noticed this before on my walks but never to such a severe degree. On my return home, I promptly took myself to bed for a couple of hours and just rested, lapsing briefly into a dream state. I'd had a good night's sleep and wouldn't normally have been fatigued after such a walk.

In bed, the joint in the pinkie on my right hand began to pain me for a while. Once I got up, I had some lunch and because I was chewing on the right side, I began to experience a dull ache in the teeth there that fortunately subsided quickly. My teeth and gums have almost returned to normal, which is to say I still have a gaping hole where a molar had been on my left side and a hole in one of the incisors on my right side. SNAFU as one might say.

It seems clear that even mild activity is a little much for my body to bear at the moment. My chest discomfort has returned a week or more ago. I'm coming up to the fifth anniversary of when I first noticed the problem. Getting back to being quickly overcome by fatigue, the issue is whether the normal deterioration caused by age is the culprit or whether some other factor is at work. Much as I dislike any medical scrutiny, it might be wise to have a blood test. We'll see. I'll continue to monitor my condition.