Sunday Girl

Well it's been several months since I last posted. The Premique did the job in the end albeit with an increased appetite and a resulting 10lb weight gain. But the flushes and menopausal symptoms were mostly relieved, and so I decided to have a few months off of continually obsessing about the next move with this condition. And so I carried on, fell off the diet a little at Christmas and after but my body doesn't seem to mind quite as much when this happens (the odd small piece of cake, occasional pizza, a night with 2 or 3 alcoholic drinks typically)...when something happened totally out of the blue two Sundays ago. I woke up depressed and tearful then when I got to a shopping centre (I'd decided shopping and a meal out was the only way to happiness even though I knew it would disappoint me!) I finished on the ground outside with the craziest painful abdominal cramps I'd had in decades along with a very real urge to vomit in the street. My better half asked if I needed the nearest A&E department but I reassured him this was mightily painful but us ladies are used to such things! He took me home where I curled up with strong painkillers and a hot water bottle, and suddenly the memories of teenage period hell came surging back: this was honestly the first time they'd been that bad for 20 years!! And they didn't stop there, twice during the week that followed, I was woken up in the night by the waves of cramps and again early last Friday morning too. As I write this I can feel e cramps though just mildly, there's been no bleeding to speak of so what's happening? Could my body be trying to ovulate again? Earlier today I signed up with a new doctor so will see what he thinks and begin this roller coaster ride again...

The bitterest pill

Two Fridays ago I saw my GP for the results of my diet and lifestyle choices expecting to hear some improvement but guess what? Nada. Nothing. No change at all. My FSH is stubbornly stuck at 73. Not only that but my blood pressure had risen too. Damnit!

As there's some major changes going on at work and some hot weather, my rate of flushes and night sweats had also increased leaving me in such a strung out state I did the unthinkable and said "ok, I give in, give me some HRT". That was the one thing my GP agreed on, to use HRT and not the pill. So I'm now on Premique continuous pills.

On the following Monday, with the Premique having done nothing to alleviate the flushes and reading in the information that it wouldn't for several weeks(!), I went back and got myself some Clonidine too. Clonidine had apparently stopped the flushes dead in a normally menopausal colleague at work within a couple of days so for me, that sounded like manna from Heaven. Clonidine, isn't hormonal, it "prevents the dilatation of blood vessels and subsequent increased blood flow to the skin, which causes hot flushes in post-menopausal women." ( from Netdoctor here). A week later and several degrees below the hot temperatures of last week, it does seem to have reduced my daytime flushes but I still have plenty of night sweats.

I feel like a failure in a way for allowing myself to give up and go on the HRT but having been in such a horrible state with mood swings, tears, flushes making me feel ill and back trouble that won't clear up very quickly - indeed, nerves in my legs and back seem incredibly easily irritated - I have forgiven myself for the decision. Sometimes it all gets too much and I just couldn't function day-to-day anymore.

Flowers in the rain

I am posting today about how useful it has been to be a member of The Daisy Network, the only UK charity purely supporting premature menopause. As you know, I've had a tremendously frustrating time with GPs and gynaecologists to date, but charities such as Daisy do offer us hope with their hard work getting us all answers and support that would evade us otherwise.

Sadly I couldn't make the Daisy annual conference that is arranged each year in June. This is a fantastic event when we can all meet up together and go to talks and workshops by experts who do have a clue how we can be treated - hurrah!

However, I received my Update newsletter through the post last week which devoted a full 2 pages to Dr Nick Panay's presentation which was absolutely a sight for sore eyes - how to treat and manage premature menopause/POF properly, right down to the use of bioidentical HRT and DHEA instead of the pill. I am now looking forward to the next GP appointment at which I shall be armed with this article, to ensure that my GP knows I'm not crazy and that I have thoroughly researched my treatment - and they should read the research too.

In the beginning...

Just come across this piece in the Daily Mail and it really seems like modern lifestyles aren't good for us. I'm not the only person I know with premature menopause, so I've always felt the numbers must be higher as more and more of these articles are published, most of which though are the usual negative story about high-flying career women leaving it too late to have children.

My dear Mum who passed away 9 years ago left us a blessing in the form of her diaries which she wrote all her life, so I am wondering if there are any clues to what may have happened to me in there, anything that happened to her during her pregnancy with me possibly? Widespread use of the Pill for example, occurred after my sister (now 45 and still with periods) was born but before I turned up - would the much stronger hormones used in those days have any bearing? Perhaps it isn't the whole story but part of a catalogue of unfortunate lifestyle coincidences creating the problem I now have. And no, I would never put any blame on my mother for any of this - she would be devastated at knowing what's happened to me.

The dietary changes have definitely had a fabulous effect - another 5lbs gone in the last 2 weeks adding up to a 25lb loss. I did have a faddy diet for the first 30 years of my life unfortunately which in itself stressed my body out as well as the emotional stresses that followed. So I'm of the opinion that all of these things add up to my premature menopause.

As I'm a natural researcher, I will continue with the detective work to somehow give myself closure for what's happened, and find the key to what to do next for my health.

The sun is shining

Whilst trying to find a good time to heal myself naturally of the stress that has affected my body so much, the last few months has seen a family bereavement, 2 further family members with major illness worries, a major redundancy situation coming right up (the third in five years!), and another 3 family members going through the major fallout of another divorce. So, not much to stress about then!!

Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, I am happily distracting myself with other pursuits to give light to the shade within which it's all too easy to wallow in sometimes. Not that it's not important to give time to grief and the sadness, but the happy times are what life's about and seeing the good things around me and being mindful enough to enjoy the moment is my current focus. I've been looking at photos which look like happy times but I can remember at the time being grumpy about something insignificant - what a waste. Life goes along too quickly not to enjoy as much as we can on the way.

So today I'm back at work after a fabulously distracting weekend with family, playing in my covers band The Uninvited on Friday night, seeing the Foo Fighters and Biffy Clyro on Saturday night at Milton Keynes Bowl and chilling about on Sunday. As you can guess I'm a muso, and I find it a wonderful distraction from the other stresses in life. Sometimes when I'm happily distracting myself, I feel like I'm being some kind of slacker, not dealing with practical things that I should be or facing issues "head on" but it's the joys in life that can ultimately heal you. This is the life lesson that I keep reminding myself of whenever the negative emotions return. It's July and the sun is shining :)

I believe in miracles

It was fantastic to read on Shannon's blog that her efforts to treat her infertility holistically have reaped rewards, namely a reduction of her FSH from 50 to 6.2 (post-menopausal to fertile and normal!). Contrast that with my visit to my GP today who congratulated my weight loss and consequent reduction in blood pressure but wouldn't entertain the notion that POF can be reversed in this way, and not even for the tiniest percentage of afflicted ladies.

I managed to convince her to give me a blood test to see how my FSH is doing, and she casually added a thyroid test when I started on about the fact that no-one has ultrasounded me, checked my bones, tested me for autoimmune disorders or any of these things. Her viewpoint is that the pill would solve everything for me, why would I even want HRT?

I decided not to tell her about the DHEA as that would just inflame her opinion further nor did I ask for the specialist that I wished to be referred to as she was only interested in referring me to the same gynaecologist who wanted the next conversation to be about egg donation.

Once I've had the blood test though, we will have another conversation until I get what I want. I'm afraid I do believe in "miracles" that happen once you treat the cause of your affliction holistically, rather than randomly throwing overly strong medication to plaster over the effects.

Take another little piece of my heart

Yesterday my 94 year old uncle lost his valiant fight with pneumonia, fighting to do what he wanted as he always did throughout his life right until the very end. We will miss him greatly and grief, my now lifelong friend, has popped in for an open ended stay as expected this time.

Despite on the face of it knowing that at 94 he'd enjoyed "a good innings" as we do in the UK, cricket-loving nation that we are, the reaction is no different than it would have been had he been a much younger age. In fact he's the oldest relative or friend I've known to pass away, the youngest being 12 many years ago - but this doesn't make the loss any easier. He was a father, brother, uncle and grandfather and its those relationships that define the sense of loss, not their age.

As he was a blood relative, this makes the grief much rawer especially in relation to POF. It's at times like these that I most feel the need to biologically procreate, not to replace the lost relative, but to extend family by adding a new relationship and completing a circle of life somehow. Instead, whenever a much loved family member passes away, I feel I've lost another part of myself, another piece of my heart that is me, my essence, my soul, my very core of being.

Bless you Uncle Bill - you will be sorely missed xx