Girly Crap

[mrissa]

I finished the writing week two chapters ahead of my schedule for finishing this book (and two short stories behind, I suppose you could say), and today is my day off. timprov thought it would be understandable if I just needed to go with it and take the day off later, but I'm not close enough to done that I'd get one soon, so I'm going with it. And feeling cruddy enough that lying around reading Megan Lindholm's Luck of the Wheels is about what I'm up for.

It's a bad, bad period, it is. It made me throw up this afternoon. Wheee. When I told my doctor (who rocks) that I was having rough periods, she said, "Oh, really? A lot of women find that the Pill makes that better." I said, "Nope." And this in addition to still feeling about 14, in terms of hormone swings. Ohh, wheee, what fun. You know what? People have all sorts of horrible things to say about repression, but I am all for repressing in some circumstances. If I have five seconds of wanting to cry at someone I love for doing something totally reasonable, just because my hormones are doing their by-now-usual roller coaster act, I really should repress that, and I'm always glad that I do. If it's more than five seconds or the person I love was not being reasonable, then okay, we talk about it. But my flashes of body-chemistry-induced misery should not give other people whole days of Mrissa-induced misery, and that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I'm going on a new flavor of the Pill (Now Available In Strawberry!) starting Thursday, and I'm hoping it's better than this one. We're staying away from triphasics, so I shouldn't get the ten-to-fifteen-day periods or the nonexistent periods that I did with the kinds I tried before this one. We'll see. (I don't understand how sexually active women on Depo are okay not having that little "no baby this month" reassurance, actually. No form of birth control is 100% etc. If I don't intend to have a kid soon, I want to know I'm not having a kid soon. Even if it does feel like an angry hedgehog is wreaking havoc in my lower abdomen.)

I am unreasonably annoyed with the packaging on my Kotex, because it has "tips" for dealing with your period. Creative tips like drinking a reasonable amount of water! Who would have thought! No one has ever advised that before! Nor have they ever advised consuming less caffeine! Go figure! And then there's the old favorite, exercise will make your period better! Umm. Is that before or after the vomiting and the passing out? Because I've tried several different kinds of exercise during my period, and I still do some of them anyway because I enjoy them, but they don't make me feel better. I promise. It's my body, and I know how it behaves, thank you so very much, Kotex. Grr. seagrit once told me that the women on her college cross-country team did not notice a difference in their times at different times of the month, and I believe her, because she doesn't generally lie to torment me. (Or, you know, for other reasons, that I know of.) But I might suggest that women who have a hard time consistently retaining food or consciousness for 10-25% of the month are less likely to be competitive on that level and might go do something else instead.

On the up side, the packaging is blue, which makes me happy because it is, y'know, not pink and all.

Also, I am a moron. It's a good idea to have different bras for different clothing -- some that go under low necklines, for example, and some where the lace does not show bumps through thin, fitted shirts. It is not a good idea to forget to wash delicates so that the only bras available at the cruddiest time of the month are the minimizers that leave red welts on one's breasts. All my own fault. Grumble grumble grumble. porphyrin is not doing well today and can't make it to coffee, but Heathah is still coming, so I don't feel like I can just put on a sleepshirt and deal with it all later. But I really wish I could.

For those of you who don't care about what familiar feminine fun my body is having with me this month, I will point out that I finally decided to pay up for my lj account and have a bunch more icons as a result. I hadn't added them when I got 2 months as a gift, because I didn't want them disappearing, and then I thought, wait, we use the heck out of lj, I want it to stick around, and we have $25. So there we are. My icons are all of me so far. Because me-being-playful looks a lot more like me-being-playful than, say, someone's-cat-being-playful. If it was my cat, perhaps another story. (A much sneezier story.) I've saved spots for a couple of necklace pictures and/or maybe a puppy-and-me picture when we have the puppy. In the meantime, new icons, yay. Including this one, "frustrated."

Back to the couch for awhile. I asked markgritter if he wouldn't be the girl for awhile instead, but he refused. He refuses every month. You'd think I'd learn.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Menstrual disobedience sounds like a very good cause. Luckily, my doctor didn't argue with me; she said, "Oh, that sucks," and went on discussing my reasons for wanting to switch formulations.

[zellandyne.livejournal.com]

I can't stand the triphasics either. My menstrual problems, however, are of a different sort. I don't ovulate on my own, unless I'm taking synthroid. So for years, I was on the pill having ok periods, then they put me on synthroid, and suddenly every period was like what you're describing. I told them I didn't want it. If it came to a point when I really wanted to be ovulating, I'd tell them, but they could keep the synthroid. For some reason, they didn't understand. In the meantime, if I don't take the pill, I don't have periods. And that scares me. I like the reassurance, too, even though I know I don't generally ovulate.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I can understand that. I would always think, well, but what if I did this time? So I think it would bother me, too.

[pameladean]

Ugh. I'm so sorry. I didn't get the throwing-up part until perimenopause, which was a lightning tour of every terrible kind of period one could possibly have. So I only had three of those. This was more than enough. I just had debilitating cramps and the kind of bleeding that makes one want to head for the ER, where they will tell you that unless your shoes are filling up with blood, please don't come back.

There's a dosage of calcium plus vitamin D that, statistically, makes for easier periods. If you should feel interested in trying it, let me know and I'll look up the studies for you. In the meantime, I hope the new pill helps.

Pamela

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, debilitating cramps, and yes, heavy bleeding. For the last...well, they didn't start out this bad, so probably only for the last 14 years or so. And my grandmother got to menopause within the time frame when I'd know about it, so...I have a good bit of this to look forward to. Everybody now: "I adoooore being a girrrrrl...."

I'm sorry you can sympathize. I don't want anybody I like to ever have bad periods and be able to sympathize. I want them all to blink cluelessly and say, "Oh, that sounds awful...I've never gotten more than a headache, myself." That would make me happy.

I don't think a lack of calcium is really a problem in my diet, but I should probably look at vitamin D stuff and see if that might help. Thanks.

[pameladean]

It doesn't work for everybody and you may find you don't need anything but the new pill, but it's a megadose thing, based on the idea that one's calcium requirements shift dramatically with shifting hormones, rather than an RDA thing.

Pamela

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Apparently massive doses of calcium, along the lines of 1200 M-whatevers, which usually is two calcium pills, can make a difference in periods. I'm also told fish oil helps with mood swings, and...evening primrose oil helps with something else along those lines. I've never tried any of these remedies. the only period time remedy I would like to experiment with would be codeine. Personally, I've had periods where I'd really like to be knocked unconscious for a week or so, and they weren't nearly as bad as what you're talking about so, ewwwww.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's not so much a mood swing as a submood swing. It's...hard to describe. It's a very physical thing, though, sometimes affecting my emotions but mostly just kind of acting like it might any minute now.

I am not good with being knocked on my butt by things. I had a medication for menstrual migraines that didn't make me hurt any less but made me care a heck of a lot less. I didn't like it and stopped taking it. It's a personality thing, I think: some people prefer pain to being knocked loopy and others vice versa.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Every body is different (gee, newsflash) but one thing that gradually began to help me with mega-periods (and ten dayers are the norm in my female line--ten days plus, some months) was soy. Not even that much--just soymilk in my oatmeal every day, plus the occasional soyburger--but the key seemed to be every day. Really did help not just with the, um, extra guk along with the forty-five gallons of blood, but with the industrial-strength cramps.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Oooh, my sympathies. Your lovely new frustration icon helps convey your menstrual anguish. I hope you find a way to a more comfortable cycle.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

It's difficult seeing that there are so many different things that have helped different people -- soymillk or exercise, cutting out caffeine, using a menstrual cup instead of tampons or pads (both of which contain bleach) ,,,, because that means there's no way to know what works for you other than trial and error. It's a bit depressing thinking you might spend half of your lifetime's periods trying to find something to make the rest of them more bearable.

Incidentally, the pill did help me, both Ortho-Novum triphasics and Loestrin, but then again my symptoms are much milder. I do find my workout times are close during my periods, it's just even more uncomfortable achieving those times.