Taking The Conversation "Public".

These first few entries are copied from Facebook and emails in an effort to keep the thought stream together.  I've left the comments that I think specifically add to the discussion, and substituted initials for names.  If you recognize a comment of yours and don't want it here, please let me know and I'll remove it asap.

Facebook post:

Possible indirect overshare: whichever woman said the 40s are the best obviously hit menopause late.

Seriously, fuck this shit.

• J.B.:  testify sister. pass the hormones.
• M.S.:  I'm peri. Just [went to] my substitute doc yesterday to talk about night sweats. Meh.
• A.C.: I'm just a bitch.
• L.A.:  HRT is my very bestest friend.
• Susanne: Night sweats! OMG! I totally have been having those and didn't put it together. I'll add that to my current collection of symptoms: anxiety attacks, deep sad mental holes, & crying anytime anywhere. Reverse puberty is SO much fun.
• Susanne: HRT - I've just started on a low dose cream; we'll see.
• Y.S.: I am so there  I have reduced swimming pools occurring on my back by taking black cohosh. The crazy mood thing is so frickin challenging. Cohosh seems to be helping that, too, but the dark and angry places I go are such foreign territory to me. Not knowing when, if, or how much your cycle will be has wreaked havoc on my life. Grrrr!!!! Get offa my lawn you kids!
• L.A.:I don't think my mood swings were *that* bad (maybe ask my husband) but the night sweats were really hard on me. The worst, the very worst, was that not only did my libido disappear, sex became increasingly painful. I might have tried to put up with the rest, but I found the complete destruction of my sex life to be intolerable. Screw that noise.
• Y.S.: My mood has been shitty enough it drives away the sex partners  Actually, I am so cranky I decide to not subject the world to my "state of being". I did have a few people tell me that my crankiness was hot, though. Go figure...
• K.V.:  Reading all of this REALLY makes me think that I need to make an apt. to talk to a doc about The Big Change. I'm starting to feel a lot of these things. It's nice to know I'm not just going crazy.
• Susanne: I understand the idea of the crone living out in the woods with the plants and animals a little better now. I'm pretty sure that's where I should be for the next 5 to 10 years. Crazy hermit witchy woods lady. I'll come back when I'm sane. We do get sane again at some point, right?? RIGHT??
• A.G. I hope you find a doctor that will get you to a steady pre-menopausal estrogen level. Having experienced several months of menopause when switching from testosterone to estrogen made the steady hormone levels I have now feel quite great.
• F.E.:  I'm on HRTs since my hysterectomy and still trying to get dose right. On days that I forgot I am so ill I couldn't imagine how I would survive without them. But at times I still have the mood swings and they are really, really horrible. Hang in there and I hope you find the help you need.
• Susanne: At the moment it seems that my estrogen levels haven't yet started to drop, just my progesterone - so my estrogen levels are what I'm used to, but its effects aren't balanced by the other, thus the super sad mental holes and crying. When it hits, its like I'm Eeyore crossed with the saddest clown you've ever seen, plus there is a grey rain cloud sitting in my head and raining on me.
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• C.G.:  Maybe speaking as a guy here may not best thing ever or just might be useless altogether. (Keep your jokes to yourself). I haven't quite reached the point of no return, but the freedom of not being ruled by your hormones is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. The decisions I make are more personal/spiritual. You couldn't pay me to be 18 again. You girls are awesome! And I know this because i see you for who you are. Not because I'm hungry.
• M.S.:  I haven't gotten to HRT yet. My doc prescribed a black cohosh/Chinese herb mix, reduce spicy foods and caffeine. But what has been most interesting - and seems to be helping already - is ending every shower with cold water to reduce my body temp. I've started taking a quick shower before bed ending it with cold water. I can only do so long but should eventually work my way up to 30 seconds and very cold. I've been taking 5htp for years to deal with anxiety, so that's not new.
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• C.A.:  Bio identical hormones
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• Susanne: C.A. - I'm happy to say the HRT my doc has started me on is low dose progesterone, not progestin.
• C.A.:  I like that bio identical are made from yams.
• I.B.:  I find this discussion terrifying. My mother had it so bad, also simultaneously raising teenagers. Glad I won't have to do the latter.
• Susanne: Ya, looking back now I realize my mom went through menopause while battling cancer. I can't imagine having to deal with cancer, radiation, & chemo while also dealing with all of this. I understand what I saw her go through much better now - and fuuuuck that!
• K.C.: Aw. Ouch. I think also for some types of female cancers, the docs force menopause (with hormone suppressors) to help keep the cancer at bay...
• A.D.: My mom was a smoker, so she got it early, and bad, complete with sores in her mouth. I'm thankful I quit smoking at 18.
• R.E.: I hear vitamin E helps with hot flashes and night sweats. But some of those symptoms could also be from low thyroid levels, ladies. Please make sure your doc check that out too, before deciding you are menopausal.
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• R.W.: I have been going through "all" of this shit since 1996, and still going through it! Fucking compliments of chemotherapy, threw me into early menopause at 33! Can you imagine...? 33 and your body has no control over itself? Its been a long...long...road, and still more road to travel  I wish there was something I could say...some wisdom...? Sorry...

Calling All Girlfriends!

These first few entries are copied from Facebook and emails in an effort to keep the thought stream together.

October 7th, 2014
Email to girlfriends:

So, you ladies experiencing the menopausal hormone ride (or those who have found their way through already), how do you cope?  What tools / herbs / meds do you or did you use to manage the anxiety and crying?

I started over a year ago on the emotional rollercoaster - first just one day during my cycle I was teenage-level emotional, then 2 days, then 3, until over half the time was like that.  I didn't know what it was, I just knew that everything was hard and sad and personal and hopeless during that time and it was running my head when it hit.  Since then its added to the mix full blown anxiety attacks and what one doctor wants to label as simple depression.

  

I started on maca root and that has helped pretty well when I remembered to take it regularly and before I built up a tolerance. 

I went to see a standard western style doc a month or so ago and she waved off menopause saying I'd have more symptoms if it were that, and offered Zoloft.

Last week I went to see a naturopath, and he drew me this awesome graph of how our estrogen and progesterone levels flow when we're in our 30s, and then drew another of what happens in our 40s.  He showed how the progesterone can or does drop before the estrogen levels start to drop, and that can absolutely cause these kinds and levels of stress/depression/anxiety as what I've been feeling without yet having any other symptoms.  So he gave me Vitamin D and some progesterone cream to use each night and we'll check in again soon to see how its going and adjust as necessary.

During all this time, I've been working to teach myself to manage these feelings.  One thing I've been doing is removing from my life when possible the things and people that trigger me to go down the grind-churn-angry hole.  Another is to train myself to recognize these feelings when they hit as feelings being caused by my hormone levels - NOT by something outside of me (ok, in most cases).  Meaning, I'm getting quite good at remembering when I'm in the depths of an anxiety attack that nothing in my life really warrants this type of anxiety, that nothing in my life is hopeless or worthy of so much crying.  That my life is fine, pretty fucking great as it happens, its just my hormone levels.

So, I'm on a path with a doctor I like who actually listens, and I'm mastering not letting my head get to an actual freak out about my life when my life is fine and its really just the hormones.

  

BUT.  Knowing its just the hormones and knowing nothing is actually fucked up and worthy of so much anxiety doesn't actually stop the physical manifestations of those feelings.  When it hits, I still have to sit and cry (or hide and cry when I'm at work), I still feel all flighty and speedy inside, I still feel the nerves going crazy, I'm still triggered by certain topics and people.  I still have a really hard time leaving for work in the morning (I don't always make it out the door) because I loath the idea of being this way in the middle of cubicle-land and in front of people who will ask me whats wrong but that I'm not really close enough to to want to talk about it.  I still have problems wanting to participate in my social scene unless its been a really good day.  

All of this even though I *know* my life is essentially fine.

I'd thought of doing the Zoloft anyway, but then my naturopath said that our bodies take about 6 months to get used to the internal noise of that drug that makes it work and then I'd get to up the dose or take something else; he painted this picture of me needing to take it for 4-6 weeks before we really knew if it'd be effective enough, and then in 6 months I'd be the same person I was when I started only my body would need the Zoloft to stay there and not get even more depressed.  He feels its a bad short term solution that was just easy for that other doc to prescribe because it is so normalized a "solution" to depression, and that we need to be finding a better long term solution that my body wouldn't just build up a tolerance to, especially since he agrees with me that its not simply depression but instead mood/emotional flux due to menopausal hormone level changes. 

So I don't want to do any head-meds that will act like that; I don't see that as useful long-term and the short term use I don't see as worth the long term let-down.

So far I'm using the progesterone cream nightly, working to build a meditation / mindfulness practice to help me cultivate tools to quiet my mind, stirring regular exercise back into my routine, upping my vitamin D and Bs, and starting to adjust my diet to maximize foods that'll give me progesterone and reduce those that'll give me more estrogen.

Its also been suggested that I start journaling, but I feel about journaling the same as I feel about yoga - in theory its totally awesome and we should all do it, but in practice I've never managed to keep it up for more than one or two sessions.

I haven't shared this with many people, not the true levels I'm being effected by all this.  Not till now - I need help from smart women who've dealt with it!

What This Blog Is...

Several months into my 41st year I started to experience what I'd later figure out was the very beginnings of The Change.  This blog is a place for sharing my experiences traveling through menopause.  It helps me to talk about it; maybe it'll help you to read about it.