[health] the good, the not so good
Sep. 6th, 2009 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glasmalereiSome of you have followed the chronicles of "omg my body HATES me", mostly to the tune of being in so much pain every time my body decides to remind me that it's female that my doctor prescribed me vicodin for the pain levels, and being dragged out dead exhausted all the rest of the time. My "I feel fine and normal" days could be measured in less than a handful a month.
The latest round of my doctors trying to fix this was my obgyn going "huh... you might be low on progesterone. Let's try some hormone pills." (Did I mention they're small and perfectly round little globes that are candy coated pink? They're kind of adorable, actually.)
I'm scheduled to go back and do a check in with the doc on the 15th. They already poked me for blood on the first so that they could check my progesterone levels. I started on 100mg a day the first month and am holding steady on 200mg a day right now.
The Good:
OMG THE PAIN LEVELS. When I started this I was, I kid you the fuck not, taking a whole vicodin pill every four hours all day long throughout the 1-3 days I had cramps every period, just to be able to function. And popping the odd ibuprofen pills (3 at a time) inbetween. Just to be able to get up and move around and not be curled in a ball panting through the pain. Just... yeah. Try to imagine that level of pain occurring routinely every damned month and you'll have an idea how a good 50% of my adult life has been, more or less.
On the progesterone pills I started like that. Then, the next cycle, it was down to half a vicodin every four hours. The cycle after that, I took one vicodin in the morning and then was fine with just a few doses of ibuprofen the rest of the day. The cycle after that, I took some midol twice a day with ibuprofen inbetween. The cycle after THAT, I popped two midol in the morning and was good to go for the rest of the day.
TWO freaking over-the-counter midol. For an entire day. OMGhallelujia! That? That is unbelievable. That is sensational. That is totally rock-my-world AWESOME.
The Not So Good:
It's been... what? Three-ish months? [points at cycle-of-pill-use sequence above] And that was five cycles, and oh, yeah, I just started another one today [takes obligatory midol before back muscles can think about cramping] so make that six. Six periods, three months, every two freaking weeks like clockwork. Really accurate Swiss fucking clockwork set to go off every 14 days. Apparently, when my body has sufficient levels of estrogen and progesterone to work with, it thinks it ought to be doing this all the damned time. The pain reduction factor is awesome, but the annoyance factor is rising rather sharply.
Dear body, please stop being DIFFICULT. v____v
Ultimately, if it's an either/or, I will take obnoxious frequency over pain any day and just start taking routine iron supplements to cope. Just, y'know, really... why can't this ever be easy? =P
In other news, I acquired another bookcase yesterday (I don't put the backs on them when I put them together, so they're 3x3 cube shelves that are open on both sides) and went on a furniture rearranging spree. I now have a sort of nook in the living room (ie, the shelf is sticking out from the wall instead of smack up against it, so that it blocks off my sitting area from being in direct line to the front door) and then attacked my bedroom this morning to make a similar nook (two of the shelves now at right angles to each other, making an L shape that also blocks off my usual sitting spot from being directly viewable from the door.) This relieves a lot of my "omg ARGH there's a DOOR at my BACK" itch, and also incidentally gives me the ability to doublestack my paperbacks on the shelves and still be able to see them all - one row faces out one direction, the other row faces out the other direction on the back. Double sided book shelves FTW! All of my books are now accessible! I even have five whole cubes that aren't being used! W00T!
(To give you some reference, I have five of those shelves. Two of them are being used as double-sided room dividers, so make it 7 total 3x3 shelf surfaces. All of which - excepting those five spare shelves - are jam packed full. I might have a wee small bibliophile addiction.)
My art and school and writing reference books are all now in my bedroom, which makes me happy. Organizing the paperbacks is going to be a monumental task of insanity for some OTHER three day holiday weekend. =P
The latest round of my doctors trying to fix this was my obgyn going "huh... you might be low on progesterone. Let's try some hormone pills." (Did I mention they're small and perfectly round little globes that are candy coated pink? They're kind of adorable, actually.)
I'm scheduled to go back and do a check in with the doc on the 15th. They already poked me for blood on the first so that they could check my progesterone levels. I started on 100mg a day the first month and am holding steady on 200mg a day right now.
The Good:
OMG THE PAIN LEVELS. When I started this I was, I kid you the fuck not, taking a whole vicodin pill every four hours all day long throughout the 1-3 days I had cramps every period, just to be able to function. And popping the odd ibuprofen pills (3 at a time) inbetween. Just to be able to get up and move around and not be curled in a ball panting through the pain. Just... yeah. Try to imagine that level of pain occurring routinely every damned month and you'll have an idea how a good 50% of my adult life has been, more or less.
On the progesterone pills I started like that. Then, the next cycle, it was down to half a vicodin every four hours. The cycle after that, I took one vicodin in the morning and then was fine with just a few doses of ibuprofen the rest of the day. The cycle after that, I took some midol twice a day with ibuprofen inbetween. The cycle after THAT, I popped two midol in the morning and was good to go for the rest of the day.
TWO freaking over-the-counter midol. For an entire day. OMGhallelujia! That? That is unbelievable. That is sensational. That is totally rock-my-world AWESOME.
The Not So Good:
It's been... what? Three-ish months? [points at cycle-of-pill-use sequence above] And that was five cycles, and oh, yeah, I just started another one today [takes obligatory midol before back muscles can think about cramping] so make that six. Six periods, three months, every two freaking weeks like clockwork. Really accurate Swiss fucking clockwork set to go off every 14 days. Apparently, when my body has sufficient levels of estrogen and progesterone to work with, it thinks it ought to be doing this all the damned time. The pain reduction factor is awesome, but the annoyance factor is rising rather sharply.
Dear body, please stop being DIFFICULT. v____v
Ultimately, if it's an either/or, I will take obnoxious frequency over pain any day and just start taking routine iron supplements to cope. Just, y'know, really... why can't this ever be easy? =P
In other news, I acquired another bookcase yesterday (I don't put the backs on them when I put them together, so they're 3x3 cube shelves that are open on both sides) and went on a furniture rearranging spree. I now have a sort of nook in the living room (ie, the shelf is sticking out from the wall instead of smack up against it, so that it blocks off my sitting area from being in direct line to the front door) and then attacked my bedroom this morning to make a similar nook (two of the shelves now at right angles to each other, making an L shape that also blocks off my usual sitting spot from being directly viewable from the door.) This relieves a lot of my "omg ARGH there's a DOOR at my BACK" itch, and also incidentally gives me the ability to doublestack my paperbacks on the shelves and still be able to see them all - one row faces out one direction, the other row faces out the other direction on the back. Double sided book shelves FTW! All of my books are now accessible! I even have five whole cubes that aren't being used! W00T!
(To give you some reference, I have five of those shelves. Two of them are being used as double-sided room dividers, so make it 7 total 3x3 shelf surfaces. All of which - excepting those five spare shelves - are jam packed full. I might have a wee small bibliophile addiction.)
My art and school and writing reference books are all now in my bedroom, which makes me happy. Organizing the paperbacks is going to be a monumental task of insanity for some OTHER three day holiday weekend. =P