Buffeted by wind

Yes, that's right: buffeted by wind. Not the wind. Not winds. Now that's clear you can decide if you want to read on.

Last week's cold has slowly been abating. The sore throat is gone, the stuffy headache too has disappeared, I'm still a bit snotty on a morning when I get up but that's lessening each day.

The things that have remained or gotten worse are a feeling of being bloated and getting stomach cramps - the sort you feel in your back as much as your stomach. Unsurprisingly these are accompanied, or caused, by a lot of wind. Generally, though far from exclusively, of the upwards variety.

Initially I'd thought this was due to the cold, then I thought it might be stress related. There's no major stress at the moment: a few niggles from work and some annoyance over the weekend at getting behind on the training plan but nothing major, though Sue said I seemed a bit uptight. Interestingly though, the pain didn't lessen when I felt particularly relaxed or happy.

I've tried a couple of 'wind' medicines with limited effect as well as some anti-spasmodics which had zero effect. That made me wonder if it was really stress related at all. I now think its just the vestiges of the cold.

It made the reformer class yesterday a bit of a risk. When you're lying on your back with knees bent up for much of an hour its an ideal gas release position and in a small quiet studio with only 4 other people there's nowhere to hide should such an episode occur. Last night I was lucky.

So, when I got in I decided to go for another tactic. About 5/6 years ago I had a similar thing and ended up going to the doctor who suggested I take soluble fibre supplements as well as eating a lot of 'bulky' foods for a couple of days. His theory was that by sending a lot of bulk through the system I'd push out any lingering bacteria or virus - rather like a sweep cleaning a chimney or, more pertinently, a guy from Dyna-Rod unblocking a drain. As a result last night after my tea I had 4 slices of wholemeal toast and 3 bowls of Shreddies. Not great weight loss tactic but hopefully enough to do a bit of good in settling the stomach.

There. That wasn't so bad, and I didn't even have to confess to the time a couple of years ago when I let out an enormous and involuntary fart when setting off on a club run but managed to get away with it by giving a dirty look to the partially deaf chap who was running alongside me.

Oh. Right.