Just when I thought life was going
great, Mother Nature had to throw something new into the mix.
Basically, I'm not sleeping well. I
wake up every night at 3:30am, boiling hot, soaked in sweat. I throw
the blankets off, then an hour later I'm freezing. I'm usually that
person who can fall asleep anywhere, even after five cups of coffee.
Well, no more. Once 3:30am rolls around, I'm awake staring at the
ceiling.
Welcome to The Menopause Years.
So here's warning to my sisters: it
started slowly, around age 38. It only happened when Aunt Irma** came
to town. Within the last year, it progressed to Every. Single.
F@ck1ng. Night. And let me tell you, it gets old really fast. No pun
intended.
It's especially fun now when the hot
flashes show up during the day. Or better yet, while I'm getting
dressed for work. There have been many days where I'm heading off to
work in 35 degree weather with no coat trying to prolong the
usefulness of my antiperspirant.
My skin dried out, my hair dried out,
I've got fuzzy brain syndrome, although that could be due to lack of
sleep. Either way, I need to write notes to make sure I brush my
teeth and dress myself appropriately.
Diet and exercise are useless now, the
weight just doesn't shift. The only diet that actually works for me is Low Carb. But that's another post.
And there's the mystery rash: hives on
my hands daily. It doesn't matter if I moisturize, they're always
there to make me look like I've got leprosy. Some Googling finds that
hives and The Menopause go hand in hand (That pun wasn't intended
either).
Topical antihistamine doesn’t work.
They show up out of nowhere, stick around for a few hours, then
disappear without a trace. Stress and heat makes them worse – I had
a “stress incident” a few weeks back, triggered a hot flash, and
the hives blew up to epic proportions. My hands looked like purple
balloons.
Although it might also be allergy
related. I haven't had them since I started Zyrtec-D. It could also
be sleep. Oddly, I noticed they're not that bad when I get enough
sleep. Lack of sleep might be putting just enough stress on my body
to cause the hives. Which just brings me back to the fact that I'm
not getting enough sleep, apparently.
The only upside is that Aunt Irma isn't
nearly as bad as she used to be, nor does she hang around as long.
After tolerating her for 33 years, I'm glad to see the back end of
that bitch.
Estroven didn't work, I'm about to try
Femestra. What's worse is I can't take hormones since I had a blood
clot a million years ago. I think it was during the Jurassic.
Doc says I'm still in the early stages,
most of this is what he calls peri-menopause. Not that it makes me
feel any better. I still feel like my body is staging a revolt.
I assumed my father was to blame - I
usually blame his side of the family for ailments. I'm surprised any
of them made it to adulthood with all the disease in that family. I
heard that my paternal grandmother had early menopause. Then I find
out from my Mom that her mother had a real hard time with it. Double
point score! Both sides are cursed.
I try making fun of this, but it's just
aggravating. I'm too young to feel this old.
**Aunt Irma is an episode from the TV show The IT Crowd where Jen has her monthly. I was going to embed a video from YouTube about it, but couldn't find one without advertisements, which suck. But, I highly recommend anything IT Crowd, it's worth it. Go to YouTube.com and search on Aunt Irma. It's pretty funny.
**Aunt Irma is an episode from the TV show The IT Crowd where Jen has her monthly. I was going to embed a video from YouTube about it, but couldn't find one without advertisements, which suck. But, I highly recommend anything IT Crowd, it's worth it. Go to YouTube.com and search on Aunt Irma. It's pretty funny.
1 comment:
Good to know. Hang in there. We'll all be crotchety old ladies soon enough!
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