March 10, 2004
A girl’s tides

OK, boys, stop reading now before you get squeamish. This is more than you really want to know about me. Keep on at your own risk. You have been warned.

WTF is up with my body? I do not enjoy being a girl.

My periods, never regular because of ovarian cysts, are completely off the scale. Every 7 to 14 days, I bleed for a day or two. Sometimes it’s just a little, sometimes it’s quite a bit. Every six-to-eight weeks I bleed heavily for four or five days before it stops.

In between the bleeding, I’m either suffering migraines or experiencing surges of euphoria. I overflow with love and feel superhuman. I’m not sure it’s reasonable to complain about being so happy, but it isn’t “right” and I don’t like it.

My thought is that I’m not ovulating at all, which could lead to twice-monthly bleeding. But weekly? I don’t get it. No doubt hormone pills would sort me out, but I have no desire for them. I don’t need the birth control (see cystic ovaries, above) and prefer not to take daily medications of any sort.

I saw a gynecologist last year when I was bleeding every two weeks. Since I don’t intend to have children, she wasn’t concerned and offered me some Chinese herbal medicine. I declined. Maybe I should rethink that…

All that said, I’m not worried. But I do like to understand what’s going on with my body and so I’m curious. I’m not quite 38 yet. That’s too young to be experiencing pre-menopausal weirdness. Right? I just don’t know.

Posted by kuri at March 10, 2004 10:08 PM

Comments

Many moons in your calendar!

Why not try the herbal remedy? Read up on it, then give it a try if you’re comfortable with what you’ve read.

I too, am leery about medicines of any sort. I’d rather sleep through a headache than take a Tylenol. However, sometimes you need the help that the doctor provides. I was really relieved when I didn’t have to take the heart stuff anymore, but I know that it helped to regulate the rhythm when I needed it most.

P.S. I hope the boys read your post.

Posted by: Jenny on March 10, 2004 11:50 PM

peace…if you are interested in some regularity, herbal medication might be the way to go. i think that reading up on it would be beneficial so you can make an informed decision. herbs like raspberry leaves (infusion/douche) help regulate flow. i have also read that vitamin C, Vitamin T, bioflavinoids, and alfalfa help reduce excessive flow.

not a herbalist/homeopath/doctor…just into herbal treatments

Posted by: queen t on March 11, 2004 12:56 AM

Yes, I read it. Mostly because I should know more about these things now that I’m married. My wife (wow that still sounds weird after over a month) has become very irregular of late. Last month it happened within about 2 weeks of the previous one and the one after that took just over a month.

Posted by: Sajjad on March 11, 2004 03:21 AM

Hey maybe we are going to the same Gyno. Mine recommended Chinese herbal medecine (the office is in Roppongi), and in the end i took it. But i still have the dosage as I am not big on medecines either and this one really tasted awful!! :-(
Please keep us posted if the problem goes away with some of your neat recepies.

Posted by: KC on March 11, 2004 12:51 PM

Find a good Chinese herbalist.. when my mother was living in China a few years ago she had terrible trouble but I think that hers was menopause related. She was taken to a good herbalist who suggested she drink a foul smelling, foul tasting mystery drink - eye of newt type of conncoction. After a few weeks of this treatment it sorted her out completely and hasn’t looked back since.


There is something going on and you really need to address it. But give the hormones a huge swerve unless you absolutely have to.

Posted by: Tracey on March 11, 2004 01:44 PM

If you are interested in wholistic medicine and natural therapies, you might also want to consider that the womb is very much affected by hormones which are produced in other areas of the body, and that bodywork such as yoga does have an impact on hormone production… Im not saying that you should go out and do yoga, i guess im saying that we tend to compartmentalise our bodies when in fact no organ functions separately from the rest of the body, its a whole finely tuned machine and everything functions in tandem with the rest.
I can understand that you want to avoid drugs/hormones, having used them i can vouch for the fact that you never quite feel like ‘you’ when you are on them, but if you are at a point where you want to *do* something, there are many options…

Posted by: j-ster on March 11, 2004 05:26 PM

Actually…there is a phase they call “peri” pausal…which is “pre” premenopausal and can last up to 10 years before you begin the premenopausal stage…

I know this because my gyn told me that this is most likely what I have been going through for the past 4 years and I am 42 now.

My reply?

Great! I get to be peripausal for 10 years, then I get to be premenopausal for another 10 years and then I will finally go through menopause…so by those calculations I’ll be 70 or dead before I get through the damn change! How unfair is that?

Good luck!

Posted by: Susan on March 12, 2004 10:28 AM
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