Literally! It took 2 weeks and an inconceivable amount of drugs of varied strength to find peace. My new resolution: collect the containers of all pain relief pills that I will have consumed by mid-October 2011. I already have 1 empty container. This is some scary math and chemistry combined. Not only am I volunteering my liver to be tested by chemicals, whose names I cannot even pronounce, I am actually paying for it! Along with millions other women, I am literally fighting my body's present pain with my body's future pain. By the time my future pain comes, I am sure there will be a pill for that, too.
So why has my consumption of pain relievers increased drastically in the past couple of years? Yeah, that same reason, I don't have to invest in tampons. Interesting trade-off...
Even after starting to talk about menopause, we still keep quiet about PAIN as one of its side-effects. Joint pain, leg pain, headaches, breasts, cramps (just as with PMS but without the bleeding), muscle pain - these are not the pains of an old age - I am 45, not 65! These are the pains that are a big part of my hormonal awry-ness. Just as I was unaware of how painful it would be to nurse and have milk rushes, I was completely unprepared for these pains. (There might be a conspiracy of sorts behind the nursing issue).
So, of course, after visiting my local Walgreen's, armed with a bunch of pills, I go on the Internet in search of the light at the end of the tunnel. (And I mean it literally, as it gets eerily dark when my cramps strike.) Most sites try to sell you something. Of course, an horde of gullible, hormonally handicapped women open their wallets, desperate for any kind of relief. (I'll know exactly how much Walgreen's will have made from me by this time next year! I support the pharmaceutical industry, the not-FDA-cleared herbal industry and the local economy with my dollar. I am probably paying someone's salary! I feel like a CEO of my little pain world!)
The about 50 sites that claim to ease my pain that I reviewed (it's fascinating how much they rip off of each other), pretty much agree on a few simple principles:
Easy on caffeine;
Nothing exciting (like exercise or sex) before bed;
Keep the room temperature low (around 65F);
Easy on alcohol;
AND FINALLY:
10 herbal remedies OR Tylenol Night, depending on the site!
All in all, there are 34 symptoms of peri-menopause. I am proud to say that I have 33 of them. I am sure that the 34th - bleeding gum - will arrive shortly. I have a feeling that with this one, my last earthly pleasures of coffee and wine will be marred. I am not very happy about it, but apparently being perpetually unhappy is one of the 34 symptoms, so I am not worried.
On the bright site - the last pain reliever prescribed to me by this young neurologist was a strong muscle relaxant. Yeah Baby!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Rock-A-Bye Baby
I was always a great sleeper. An image of a pillow would make my upper eyelid tremble. No sun in the morning would wake me, if I needed my sleep. I may have managed to sleep through an occasional mid-night sex. I have my priorities! Sleep was important to me. I needed it to function properly during my waking hours. Some people need 6-7 hours, some need 8-9. I need 9-12.
It all started when I was 6 months pregnant - I could no longer sleep through the night without waking up several times. There was a short break during my child's 4th and 5th years, but I never fully recovered the hours lost. I thought: the night would come when I'd sleep uninterrupted and not wake up in the morning at an ungodly hour to feed or wash or whatever other reasons there are that I didn't used to have when I was unappreciatively young. As such a possibility became almost visible - boom! I've entered my Peri-menopause. Here is how your hormones screw you out of your well-deserved sleep:
No One Knows!!!
There are plenty of theories about how your hormones affect your brain, trick it into sleeping and then an abrupt waking, changing your body temperature, changing levels of cortisol, melatonin and GH (growth hormone). After reviewing several scientific articles and a multitude of useless web pages, I have found only one thing that most scientists agree upon - the ever changing balance between estrogen, progesterone and testosterone is largely to blame for the changing sleep pattern.
So now that my ovaries are on a permanent strike as of January 2009, I am out of balance! Guess what it did to my sleep pattern. I practically never reach that Slow Brain Wave stage. I dearly miss it...
A study at the University of Chicago in 1999 describes 11 young (!!!) adults who went through 3 days of an 8-hour sleep, 6 days of a 4-hour sleep and 7 days of a 12-hour sleep. During the sleep deprivation period the subjects' glucose tolerance decreased by 30%, consistent with a stage-2 diabetes. They also observed increased levels of cortisol in the evening hours, which are typical of much older people and are thought to be related to age-related health problems such as insulin resistance and memory impairment.
My memory has left the building during my pregnancy without the forwarding address. I waited for it at the door for many years... I am sincerely glad I can recognize my child when I meet her after school.
Rock-a-bye my brain, in the tree top
When the hormones blow, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come my brain, cradle and all...
It all started when I was 6 months pregnant - I could no longer sleep through the night without waking up several times. There was a short break during my child's 4th and 5th years, but I never fully recovered the hours lost. I thought: the night would come when I'd sleep uninterrupted and not wake up in the morning at an ungodly hour to feed or wash or whatever other reasons there are that I didn't used to have when I was unappreciatively young. As such a possibility became almost visible - boom! I've entered my Peri-menopause. Here is how your hormones screw you out of your well-deserved sleep:
No One Knows!!!
There are plenty of theories about how your hormones affect your brain, trick it into sleeping and then an abrupt waking, changing your body temperature, changing levels of cortisol, melatonin and GH (growth hormone). After reviewing several scientific articles and a multitude of useless web pages, I have found only one thing that most scientists agree upon - the ever changing balance between estrogen, progesterone and testosterone is largely to blame for the changing sleep pattern.
So now that my ovaries are on a permanent strike as of January 2009, I am out of balance! Guess what it did to my sleep pattern. I practically never reach that Slow Brain Wave stage. I dearly miss it...
A study at the University of Chicago in 1999 describes 11 young (!!!) adults who went through 3 days of an 8-hour sleep, 6 days of a 4-hour sleep and 7 days of a 12-hour sleep. During the sleep deprivation period the subjects' glucose tolerance decreased by 30%, consistent with a stage-2 diabetes. They also observed increased levels of cortisol in the evening hours, which are typical of much older people and are thought to be related to age-related health problems such as insulin resistance and memory impairment.
My memory has left the building during my pregnancy without the forwarding address. I waited for it at the door for many years... I am sincerely glad I can recognize my child when I meet her after school.
Rock-a-bye my brain, in the tree top
When the hormones blow, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come my brain, cradle and all...
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