Perry Men 'O Paws

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.