TFI Friday!

Yay - weekend!  Hopefulness is in the air....weather is set to be fine and with any luck, warm;  it's Mother's Day on Sunday and the family is convening round at mine for lunch.  I expect I'll cook but I don't mind that much. It will just be wonderful for us all to be in the same room again.  It seems like ages since that happened.

All of that is giving me something to look forward to because I've had a rough couple of days with discomfort and stiffness.  My hip has been bordering on painful and on the scale of 1-10, I'd say it's been hovering around the 7 mark.  My foot which I thought had settled down temporarily has resumed its 'bastard!' status with a vengeance.  As a result, the penguin waddle has been more pronounced than ever.

Grumpy Trousers and I had a little trip out to Tesco in Chesterfield on my way to work this morning, and even though I'd taken 3 strong painkillers I still wobbled into displays of newspapers and flowers like a drunkard.  I'm aware people give me funny looks, and I can imagine they are wondering to themselves 'What is WRONG with that woman?!'  My balance is bad on days like today, yet another day it's not a problem.  I truly bamboozle myself.

Excuse me for a few minutes - there's a bit of excitement outside my window.  I happened to spot a fire crew with two engines and ladders rising up and down .  Must go and observe.  For health and safety purposes you understand.  Not gawping at all.  Or perving.

Well if it was the window cleaners I'd be saying "cue Diet Coke!", but as it was, the team of hunky firefighters  are all uniformed up while performing an exercise. No fire. Nothing to see.  I've lost interest now so here I am back to writing.  

And they did NOT look like this!

Where was I?  Oh yes wobbling into displays.  To help with the balance issue I've been attending a yoga class each Thursday after work, and I have to say in class I can balance pretty well.  If I close my eyes I wobble but apparently everyone does so I'm not unique with that.  I find it helps to hold on to the back of a chair while standing on one leg.  That way it prevents me from keeling right over.  At the start of the session I am pretty unbalanced, but the more I do the better it becomes.  Clearly I need to practice some yoga poses each morning before I let myself loose on the world.  I'd hate to see pensioners, children and small furry animals fleeing for cover!

I will be seeing the doctor on Monday about my hip problem.  A Sports Therapist friend has suggested that it might be a form of Bursitis which is  inflammation in a small sac near my hip joint.  It seems to have been hanging around a long time to be Bursitis, but I'm clinging to any suggestions and possibilities.  She told me if he actually confirmed it as this then she can help me with some physiotherapy.  I also may need to see the Acupuncturist again.  I will know these things better after Monday.

I recently did a post titled Menopause Crap in which I moaned about my night sweats and itchy skin etc.  Well, that seems to have abated due to stopping using some HRT cream that  I had to use  for, ahem - ladies personal stuff.   I only used it one or twice a week anyway but even such small doses can leach into the bloodstream causing symptoms like I was getting. I'm glad I got to the bottom of that as it was starting to worry the bloody socks off me.  I shall resume using the cream as and when I need it, and maybe not use the full dose.

A few more appointments in the offing as well.  MRI scan on my foot in a couple of weeks, then back to see the foot specialist for the results.  I do hope he can do something for me, whatever it may take.  If my foot is corrected, there will be less strain on my hip.  Result being I can walk a straight line and there will be no more trashed displays in shops, or freaked out people running for cover!

If you're in the UK, I hope you have a Happy Mother's Day.  Sorry if you're elsewhere, but your Mother's Day is different to ours.  But whoever, and wherever you are, kids or no kids here's a cute bouquet from me to let you know I'm thinking of you.

Menopause crap

Despite it being International Happiness Day I woke up distinctly grumpy this morning.  I hoped it would wear off but there's no sign of it abating just yet.  This blog address isn't called 'grumpydrawers' for nothing, so I guess I'd better tell you what's causing it. Menopause crap that's what.

I'm on 'Round 2' can you believe!  I started my first menopause at the early age of 39, avoided HRT and got through the whole caboodle by age 48.  I was well happy about that, I can tell you.  For the last few months however, I seem to be having some kind of resurgence of symptoms that I escaped first time round.

Listed in order of the annoyance factor, there's....

1.  Night sweats (hot flashes) - some nights I'm burning up the moment my back touches the mattress!
2.  Itchy skin - mostly on my legs.  I shed flakes of skin on the inside of my black work trousers - eek!
3.  Aching joints - my wrists are hurting a lot today.  Lifting books are a problem.
4.  Extreme lethargy - may be due to not sleeping because of the night sweats.
5.  Head pains - similar to the electric shock type pains I had first time round.  Not as intense this time.

How I think I look.....

Bless her she's probably drunk, and NOT menopausal - it's another Grace Robertson image from the book, Grace Robertson Photojournalist of the 1950's.

I need chocolate!

Early menopause and Electric Shocks!

In effect, at 63 I've outgrown the menopause.  Mine began at the age of 39 with some mild symptoms such as a fuzzy head, grumpiness and a change in my flows together with different levels of pain.  I had no idea what was happening and neither had the GP.  "You're far too young to be starting the menopause" he tried to reassure me.  "But tell me about your mother.  What age did she begin hers?  It may have some bearing".

I cried then, with grief and frustration.  This was just another question about my genetics that I couldn't answer.  You see my mum died at the age of 58 when I was 28 with a young baby.  As neither of us had foreseen her premature death, we hadn't talked about menopausal stuff like that.   There should have been plenty of time for a natural progression into such conversations, and at that time she was just thrilled to be a grandmother.

I'll talk about mum in a separate post.  She deserves one of her own.

So, no knowledge of the female family history of the menopause meant I was out on a limb.  The doctor was so convinced nothing was happening with my hormones he didn't see it necessary to send me for a blood test.  Despite my tears, he sent me off and suggested I come back if I noticed further changes in my periods.

Not to be outdone, I left it a few weeks, went back and saw a different GP.  A lady this time.  She too, was sure it wasn't menopause but did agree to a blood test.  It came back showing I was in the early stages.  She called it perimenopause.

We talked through a general list of symptoms and I confirmed I had at least 10 of those including bloating, weight gain, rather disturbing memory lapses and irregular periods.  The positive thing that came out of it was at the ripe young age of 48 it was all done and dusted!

Carol E Wyer has published a great book titled Grumpy Old Menopause.  Here's a synopsis from the Safket, the publisher's website -

Grumpy Old Menopause
To be administered in one large dose for maximum effect

Have you started to write post-it notes with your kids' names on them? Do you need to change your underwear after every sneeze? Guess it's time to read this book then. It'll help you get through "that" time in your life with a spring in your step and a smile on your face.
With numerous suggestions, sensible advice and amusing anecdotes, Grumpy Old Menopause will help you sail through that tricky part of a woman's life with ease and humour. It should prevent you from turning into Mrs Crabby or worse still, a demonic monster.

"An excellent mix of humour and sound advice. This book is a must-read for all women ... I highly recommend Grumpy Old Menopause. It is the perfect blend of humour and excellent advice to help all women sail through the menopause." - Nicky Snazell, Fi STOP Consultant Physiotherapist in Spinal Pain, Fellow of Institute for the Study and Treatment of Pain. International Lecturer in Pain and Health.

I enjoyed reading Carol's book for not only it's humour, but her empathy together with hints and tips about how to cope. 

Electric Shocks
Carol touched on an area of the menopause that doesn't often get recognised or spoken about.  Electric shocks, folks.  Not the kind that you get when you touch bare wires - well come on, you just wouldn't.  Would you??  No?  Good lass!  The electric shocks she refers to are of the hormonal kind.

I have very vivid memories of my own personal experience with them and they seem to baffle everyone including the GP.  (Do I have duff GP's at my practice?  Seems like it upon reflection!) 
Anyway, I'm digressing again - let's get back on track.  About 5 years into the menopause, I found myself one day getting jabbing pains on the top of my head, just to one side.  They lasted a matter of seconds but were so intense they upset my vision a little.  A short while later on the same day, I had a massive stabbing sensation in my upper left arm, quickly followed by a similar feeling in my abdomen.  I was worried enough to chuck a sickie from work that day and hurtled straight round to the GP's thinking I was having a stroke or something!  He told me I was suffering from stress and wrote me a sick note for 2 weeks off work.  I don't recall that I was particularly stressed, at least no more than usual, but hey, who was I to argue about having a fortnight off? 

However, the pains continued sporadically, always with some intensity and I found that I was also getting them at my cervix, in the roof of my mouth and in my tongue as well!  A further visit to the GP to get the new pains checked out resulted in him telling me to change my job as it was obviously stressing me out.  I'm glad I ignored that piece of advice as I liked my job.  My colleagues were wonderful, if a little baffled themselves about my bizarre symptoms.   One lady in particular said to me that daft as it seems, this could be hormonal.  I thanked her and followed up her suggestion.  Sure enough, a little research unearthed a website that indicated all my symptoms as hormonal electric shocks! 

It was such a relief that someone, somewhere had written about it and I felt reassured that the pains would eventually  run their course, along with most of the other menopause symptoms.  I apologise here as I have lost sight of that website, but here's one for you to consult if you wish to read in more detail.

For anyone out there who is suffering from these shocks, I hope the writing of my own experience helps to reassure you.