Spring is in the air

Spring is so much in the air currently you could have mistaken April for July, I'm happy to say. The warmth and light certainly makes everything seem happier and brighter. Later today I'm off for a long walk to get the exercise going, right after I've had physio for my sciatic nerve pain of 5 weeks now.

It's 8 weeks since I started the DHEA, nearly 5 weeks of the new diet and I've had 6 acupuncture sessions too. I'd already lost 11lbs at week 4 so looking forward to my Wii being happy with me again when I weigh myself this week - my stomach no longer looks like I'm 8 months pregnant with a lard baby! Maybe 4 months lard-pregnant now?

I still have hot flushes and night sweats though during the daytime they have decreased a bit so I'm not quite as dog-tired as I was. At the moment I feel fully committed to the diet and believe that to be the key to feeling better in myself. Weight loss that has happened so quickly certainly adds to the motivation to carry on with it. Family and friends seem more worried that I can't share their hot cross buns and other treats with them than I am, as I don't feel particularly bothered that I'm missing out as much as I thought I would be. I put this down to my body saying that it doesn't want these things particularly so I don't get cravings. I also don't get the horrible raw hypoglycaemic hunger if I don't eat within a couple of hours of normal anymore, which is really good.

That's not to say that if someone had some chocolate I wouldn't mind a piece as occasionally I have a small bite of something "wrong" as it's not going to spoil the whole diet for me. I'm just not obsessed with the food I can't have as many dieters normally are hence the yo-yo effect with dieting.

I've also discovered Stevia, a sweetener those of us in Europe are not allowed to have at the moment but which not only is much better than sugar for you but actually helps fight off the candida - yippee! So this week, I'm going to make a gluten-free lemon cake with potato instead of flour and Stevia instead of sugar. If it works out well, I'll post the recipe here..

What's my name?

I am very aware that worse things could happen to me than POF, this isn't a serious life or death situation on the surface. However like those who have depression and other mental disorders, this isn't always as easy to deal with as "pull yourself together", in fact the stress involved has been researched to be akin to having a diagnosis of a serious disease. I am grieving my loss of reproductive ability that 99% of women my age still have. It makes absolutely no difference with POF if I want children or not, it's the fact that it's no longer an option open to me in the conventional way. Having an ovulation process that works is part of the essence of being a young female and without it, I often feel that I've totally failed at being female.

Of course, that's not how those of us with this should think about it, but we do partly because of the name: Premature Ovarian Failure. To this end, it's been mooted to replace the name Premature Ovarian Failure with Primary Ovarian Insufficiency to remove the "failing" element because we haven't failed but our ovaries have. There's much more to me and my life than a pair of ovaries I would hope! Premature Menopause also has negative connotations as "menopause" is a word that shouldn't be in our vocabulary until our late 40s at the earliest. And yes I have days where I also think it is POF or menopause, just get over it, but it's such a final sounding name that gives no hope, when in fact for some of us lucky enough, total ovarian failure isn't always the case. And whats more, being female is not about ovaries or mammary glands, that's simply the biological aspect. I reserve the right to throw a girly hissy fit, wear makeup and dresses (well, sometimes), mother those around me whether they want it or not and dance around my handbag if I want to!