I Has the Menopause

[livingdeb]

As of yesterday, I am officially menopausal.

How it happened for me

Last year my doctor said she could make me bleed monthly forever if I wanted her to but instead recommended that I switch from regular birth control pills to the progesterone-only type (aka the mini pill). I did so.

I immediately stopped bleeding. Boom!

Then you know that feeling you get when you realize you've made a horrible mistake and now you have to give people the bad news, or maybe you have to give a speech? I noticed a few times that I was getting that feeling when nothing was going wrong with my life before I finally realized--duh, these must be hot flashes.

Then at this year's annual physical, my doctor tested my FSH and the levels showed that I'm done now.

How to commemorate it

Shouldn't there be some sort of celebration? Community ritual? (I'm kind of afraid to read about rituals from other cultures. And my own culture is all about complaining about the millions of things that could suddenly get worse in your life, at least for a little while, but maybe forever, but how there's still hope and you could still have a fulfilling life and so you shouldn't kill yourself. Thanks, my own culture!)

At one point in my life, I enjoyed celebrating each new month where I wasn't making a baby with a doughnut. So going the rest of my life never making a baby could mean ... a gigantic box of doughnuts!

What I most want is to go to my favorite Tex Mex restaurant and eat whatever I want. Like I do pretty much every Sunday and will do again tomorrow.

And I have stopped taking the pill as of today. And I will stop buying it. And I am writing this blog post about stuff people don't talk about. And I have already gotten rid of various supplies. (Sometimes decluttering is so easy and fun!) These are pretty good rituals.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Not there myself yet, but looking forward to it!

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Uh, that was me. Guess I wasn't logged in.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

All in good time!

And LiveJournal LOVES logging people out for some reason.

[indigo-rose99.livejournal.com]

So besides the hot flashes (boo!) and the period stopping (yay!!!), what else can we expect from menopause?

Are you on any kind of drug for the hot flashes? Any I-just-got-menopause medication?

Everybody's different

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

There's no telling what you can expect because everyone's different. Sorry! There is a huge, depressing list of things that affect various people during menopause which you can read about anywhere. Nobody talks about anything good even though, duh, no periods, no worrying about periods, no worrying about pregnancy, and no worrying about scary pregnancy (birth defects). Fortunately, most people don't have a lot of terrible symptoms and the symptoms do usually go away as your body adjusts. I think I read that only 20% of people take medication for natural menopause (not induced by hysterectomy).

My hot flashes are laughably cute. Basically they are short enough that I tell myself I'm not going to bother taking off my jacket, but long enough that I eventually usually do, like some trained monkey. I also like having something to fan myself with. And something to put my hair up with.

And I actually have liked some of the hot flashes in the cold weather. For example, say I'm snuggled up to Robin under the covers and nature calls, but I don't want to get up because it's freezing out there. If a hot flash comes then, it feels good to rip off the sheets and answer the call.

The only negative is that I want layers (which I already always have anyway) but now I want them to be easy to take on and off quickly, which means I'm not wearing my favorite pullover sweater this winter, and I don't like long sleeves that can't be pushed up.

I just got off the progesterone, so things could get worse. But for now, no I am not interested in any of those scary treatments. And, since you are not afraid of math, you'll understand when I say that my I-just-got-menopause medication is negative. I now take one less medication. Woot!