The Rub: Power Surges & HRT

Posted on | April 2, 2007 |

Meno Flasher’s Soliloquy

To flash, or not to flash — that is the dilemma:

Whether ‘tis more masochistic to my mind to suffer

The sweats and chills of a malicious night’s sleep

Or to take aim against a sea of HRT warnings

And by opposing, squash them. To stick, to unstick —

No more — and by a sleep to say we end

The flashing, and the bezillion beads of sweat

That this menobabe has been heir to.

To stick: perchance to not flash: ay, there’s the rub…

I’ve made my decision and will no longer subject my abdomen to the humiliation of rectangles of residual adhesive from weeks of estrogen patches. The absolute only thing that these semi squarish and fuzz laden marks are good for is helping me know where to apply the next patch. The box cautions against putting the patch in the same place for more than a week, but it doesn’t tell you whether hair will grow in your ears or not. Or on your tongue. The box cautions about a lot of other things though, and to be fair, they are probably the real reason I’m going to have to deal with my developing relationship with hot flashes differently from now on.

The purple “Vivelledot” box that contains my twice weekly .5 dose of hormones promises that the patch is “so small you’ll hardly notice it” and that’s true, but they don’t state you’ll completely notice all the sticky stuff after you remove the patch. Truly lovely. And they’ve missed the marketing boat by not including a free bottle of Goo-Gone with every purple box. So much for the bikini incision then, because, like, everyone will so notice the grey goo marks above my bikini.

The box does tell me that side effects are headache, breast tenderness, and back pain. Aren’t these side effects the result of just being a female? Oh, wait. No. That’s neck pain, heart ache, laundry, dirty toilets, and repressed control anxiety…

Other cautions for those of us who have been slammed into menopause by the complete removal of all of our internal female organs without a lot of notice and who are on Hormone Replacement Therapy or HRT, are: heart attacks, blood clots, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and breast cancer. Hmmm…But the little plastic drug patches are supposed to help cool down the hot flashes. I say liar, liar, pants on fire — or my ass on fire — and swear that this lingering “cold” or stuffy nose, head achy thing I’ve had for weeks is really the result of being set on broil at night, sweating, throwing off the covers, and then drying off in the chilly night air before it starts all over again. About twelve times a night from what I can figure out. And this is supposed to be less than if I didn’t apply the sticky patches?

So what to do instead? Well…according to many sources, I can avoid hot food, spicy food, white sugar, caffeine, and alcohol. (Chocolate comes through with redeeming qualities once again). And exercise at least 30 minutes a day. I’m noticing that the advice says “avoid” and not “give up.” Actually, I’m doing pretty well with this because of the Phoodplan I started three weeks ago. But I’m still flashing, so what else?

Aroma Therapy: I can drop essential oils into my bath water to allievate a variety of meno symtoms. Bath? What’s that? Sounds relaxing, but our bathtub is used so infrequently, our cats know that’s where to snag spiders for an easy afternoon snack.

Or I could engage in Art Therapy to help me “express my inner needs and desires,” and come to terms “creatively and powerfully” during this new phase of my life.

Or Color Therapy. “Honey, I’m going shopping today. I have to buy silky magenta and turquoise underwear to ‘balance myself’ instead of wearing the purple box sticky dots. Can I have some money, please?”

I won’t even go into Bach Flower remedies because they are just seriously freaking weird.

So the decision has been made to “Not Stick” because not flashing is not sounding like an option. They just want us to think it might be, or to think positively about flashing and consider them “power surges” instead. Has anyone made a connection that power surges royally screw up your technology, so I’m thinking that they probably screw up our bodies, too? Maybe I should just buy an industrial sized power surge protector and plug myself in.

The only good thing about all of this is knowing that “thinner women may experience more hot flashes since fat cells convert hormones secreted by the adrenals into estrogen [in other words, it’s wise to retain a little extra weight during meno.]” WOO-HOOOOOO. What about 40 lbs.?

How am I going to get the sticky stuff off? It looks like it’s a toss up between peanut butter and vinegar. Hopefully I’m more successful at this than getting hairball stains off my carpet.

Comments

3 Responses to “The Rub: Power Surges & HRT”

Lisa
April 3rd, 2007 @ 3:08 am

So when I woke this morning (2 hours ago) I had ever intention of posting on my blog.. and then noticed your nice comment and decided to check out your blog.

It’s now too late to post on mine (work - gah.) and all I want to do is stay home this morning and read all of your posts! You crack me up!!

I had a hysterectomy in 2005 - but kept my ovaries so I didn’t go through what you are going through.. but many feelings are the same - especially the “one day I’m fine and the next day they are ripping out my plumbing” feelings.. what a trip. God.

I look forward to reading your archives and future posts! And take a picture of that red cake - I wanna see! =)
Lori AKA Arnold
April 3rd, 2007 @ 4:52 am

Hey, I think I may have been checking out the same website you were, becuase I was thinking, “am I starting the change?” because I haven’t had a real period in months and now I have had one for a solid month. I like the panel of doctors that you could click on and get advice. I tried to get a “well women” check up at my local place but the ONE DOCTOR they have on staff is too busy so I could keep calling back “EVERYDAY” or I could go to Walter Reed. Hummmm haven’t they had a lot of bad press lately, not to mention it’s way too difficult to get there. I don’t have the hot flash thing, but if I did, how would I live without spicy food?
kellypea
April 3rd, 2007 @ 7:13 am

Lisa, I have a goofy smile on my face this morning knowing I could get your day off to a funny start — even though you didn’t get your own post done. And you’d better believe I’ll be taking a picture of That Red Cake when I’m done. I may even take some pictures of the people who will be eating it this coming Saturday and publish a few reviews! I’ll be looking for the next baking challenge!

Halooooooo Lori and ahhhhh — — Yep. You’re there. Check out a couple of my links. The Mayo Clinic has a lot of info. And then you and Elaine can discuss it :0} Bah snort! No, you cannot live without spicy food. It’s bad enough having to live in VA instead of CA on that one, huh? Do they even know what habaneros are? Does cilantro grow in the snow or do the squirrels eat it before you can. Is there such a thing as a salsa garden? I know! You can have one in a pot on your poo-tee-o where your ferocious jungle kitty will protect it.