TGIF

TGIF! I get to start progesterone again tonight! Woot!

The eight days without weren't as bad as it was last time. Thank God. Last time was horrible.

Now I'm afraid I won't feel good on progesterone. It's silly, but I keep waiting for the misery to start.

I feel superstitious about it. Like I should be throwing salt over my shoulder, knocking on wood, dancing naked around an oak tree under a full moon etc...

Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Lower

Still chugging along over here. Energy is lower, but I'm hanging in. It probably doesn't help that we've been staying up late watching True Blood and then the toddler has been getting up waaaaay earlier than normal. The bookends of bad sleep.

Saw Doctor Alternative and we're pretty much done. It's just a matter of letting my body 'settle' into its new normal. Doc says the acne should improve which would be nice because cystic acne in your ear canal? Doesn't feel so good.

Actually everything is supposed to keep improving. I'm looking forward to it.

Three for One

As of today I am undergoing...

Sugar withdrawal aka cherry pie withdrawal (it's big in Michigan).

Caffeine withdrawal aka Coke Zero withdrawal (again).

Progesterone withdrawal.

Wheeee! Isn't this fun?

We went to the grocery store and the woozies hit me like a tsunami of stupid. The hubby found me putting tea in the cart and taking it back out over and over again. When he asked me what I was doing, I could only look at him blankly. He gave me the car keys with instructions to "go sit in the car"

Only I couldn't find the car.

So I went back into the store and stood in the checkout line with him, giggling maniacally.

Because I had this movie going in my head of me taking off my clothes and streaking through the grocery store. When the cops arrested me I would blame the complete and total lack of drugs.

Oh yeah, completely unhinged over here.

I kept my clothes on (cellulite came in handy for once) and went home to crash into bed instead. I didn't sleep though, my head is screwed on too weird for that.

Now I'm drinking Green Ass-ade.

That's when you buy a juicer off Craig's List and concoct things to drink. Like lemonade with ginger and Romaine lettuce.

You would think that the sourness of the lemon and the zip of the ginger tempered with the sweetness of Stevia would overcome the flavor of Romaine juice.

You would be wrong.

Ass-ade people. And not just any ass-ade, it's green, yo.

Yo, yo, yo.

I think I'm still tripping a bit. I have no idea why. I am not on anything!

Anyway, I thought I could maybe do something useful with juicing. I make a mean blueberry spinach smoothie (hint: add cinnamon and stevia). I've made a primitive juice with a blender, straining the liquid form a spinach, apples, stevia and ginger puree. It was delicious.

I thought I was ready for this juicing thing. I wanted to 'flood my cells with nutrients.'

And what do I get? Green ass-ade.

Turns out my original opinion was right: The reason why juice recipes are 99% fruit and 1% vegetables is because veggies don't taste better in liquid form, they taste worse.

Much much worse.

Anaphylaxing asked me on my last post:

"Hang in there. I'd be interested to know in the low progesterone symptoms vs AI symptoms or are they the same for you?

What's your current view for steroids?"

Progesterone and AI symptoms are pretty much the same in terms of fatigue with weakness. My unedumacated theory is that I didn't have enough substrate to make what I needed and taking progesterone improves that situation. However, I can still outpace my stress response as last week's biking episode showed, so I would imagine I still have to be careful with illness and exercise--no extremes is probably best for me. Overall, progesterone is a HUGE improvement. I think it will eventually give me my life back.

And believe it or not, there are a lot of people who get 'sick' after exercise. Some of them have AI. Some of them fall under chronic fatigue syndrome or celiac's disease. I am actually not alone. Also not the only one who finds that vitamins turn things around.

As for steroids, haven't been on any since late May/early June. Haven't needed them. The bike incident was the closest I've come to it. Although I haven't been pushing exercise like I have in the past, I've been focusing more on the demands of daily life.

I can't and won't rule steroids out until I've gone a year without them. I can always get a few good weeks or months here and there. I need more time to pass before I declare the cycle broken. Way too soon to claim a victory.

Off the Cliff

So the deal-io with progesterone is I take it for 20 days and then have 8 days off to induce a cycle.

As I've mentioned previously, not being on progesterone is horrible. It's the horror of going to a Halloween haunted house and finding out the serial killers are real as opposed to paid actors.

I am not exaggerating.

Tonight I'm due to stop taking progesterone until next Friday.

You can imagine my lack of enthusiasm, yes?

As far as I know, there's no information out there that talks about how to manage this (dose change, low dose during my cycle etc...) or if it will go away. I can only hope that, with time, my body will build up enough reserves to make it for eight days without completely losing its shit.

Until then, I am resigned to being completely useless for the next week.

Ugh.

Amazeballs

I feel fabulous on progesterone.

Fucking amazing.

I have no idea what will happen next. If this is the end of the sick that has plagued me for over two years or if there's some other cliff for me to trip and fall over.

Too many times I've been optimistic only to have things go breathtakingly backwards.

But OMG I hope this never ends.

It's not without some problems. First, life without progesterone sucks. It's horrible when I have to stop it. I hope that evens out with time, otherwise I'm going to be incapacitated by fatigue one week out of every month.

I also have acne everywhere. I am not sure if it's the progesterone or something else. I've taken progesterone before to maintain my pregnancy (also felt fabulous then, hmmmm a clue!) and did not have acne so why it's acting up now, I have no idea. Maybe it's because I'm not on the pill anymore?

Or maybe the progesterone has enabled a hormonal shift that allows the PCOS to be more of a PITA than it ever was? I don't know.

I do know I'm doing more than I ever have.

Yesterday, I grocery shopped, cleaned the house, hosted a large party and went for a 2.5 mile walk. At no time did I feel weak or faded. That's a new personal best for me.

Please don't let it end.

The Tiredest

Had a crappy couple of days, starting Friday. The tired to end all tireds. Some of it could be that I think I just need more rest and to be more aware of pacing myself than normal people. But I haven't allowed much down time in my schedule of late.

Remember when I complained about the toddler getting up at the crack of dawn? Well, now I'm going to complain about her wanting to sleep until 9am.

It's not that I'm never happy, it's that her schedule shifted from one where nothing happened until after noon to one where we need to be out of the house well before 9am.

So both of us are getting up much earlier than we would like. Truncated sleep for everyone!

FYI not a recipe for much rest.

Worse, the toddler is a not a morning person. Compound that with the fact that I'm generally not fully awake until about noon and we are a horrible pair in the morning. She's a screaming mess. She stomps through the house, crossing her arms and going 'humph' alternated with ear shattering shrieks which are the toddler version of 'eff you.' No she will not brush her teeth or put on her shoes or eat her breakfast. No no no! Meanwhile I'm blinking at her blearily, ready to just go back to bed and hide.

We launch practically every day like this.

It's a miracle we arrive anywhere on time, but somehow I pull it off without losing what's left of my sanity.

By Friday I was ready to lie down and never get up again. I felt horrid. I fantasized about steroids even, followed by dreams of progesterone.

It's way too soon to tell if progesterone is going to be helpful, but I am interested to see what happens when I start it again.

When I was on it last, I deep cleaned a room which involved lifting a couch with one hand and removing carpet. The effort did not ruin the rest of the day--I went on to do everything else I wanted. I can't even contemplate that right now.

This weekend has been busy but I've also made sure to rest more than I've been, including sleeping in as much as possible. Yesterday we went blackberry picking again (the hubby was impressed with how little I screamed about the bugs this time). I rested for a bit after that and then we took the toddler to a small carnival followed by a trip to the grocery store.

I tried to stay up and watch the Olympics but ended up passing out on the couch--I just never amassed any good energy yesterday, the whole day I was pushing through jello, faking it but never making it.

Today is an even lazier day, with nothing planned. I think my energy is better today, but ask me again after I've had to actually get off the couch.

Loose Ends

In no particular order, the status on a few things I've mentioned in the last few weeks.

1.Food allergies/sensitivities. They seem to have resolved. I haven't tried cucumbers yet and there's a threshold with chocolate at which I get heartburn, but no more nose swelling shut with tomatoes! Woot! I can eat salsa again!

2.Bio-identical Hormone Replacement. Well, I started progesterone. Then, I stopped progesterone. Currently the doc and I are tinkering with the dose, trying to get it right. I had a really great day right before I had to stop it, so I remain optimistic.

I am deficient, my levels are pretty much zero, so replacing it has to have some positive effect. I just need to get the dose right and be on it long enough to see it in action. I should be starting up again next week.

3.Yoga is hard. It makes me sweat. It makes my knees and wrists hurt, but relieves my neck pain, so hopefully the other joints will get used to it. To my surprise, I'm kind of flexible. The big downer is I took off my medical id bracelet in the middle of the class and left it behind. So far, no one has found it.

4.Mean mommies. One of the moms felt really guilty for standing by and saying nothing and came clean to everyone else. Almost everyone knows now. So all of a sudden, my in-box is full of apologies. Except for the mean mommy, who, I'm now told, has always been like this and I grossly misjudged her character.

Social dynamics among girls/women kind of interest me now that I've had to navigate mean girl territory with my daughter. I've read several books on the topic even. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

The mean mommy has one friend left--the two of them make up what remains of the group and are close friends. With the rest of us gone and avoiding the one mom, will mean mommy then target the other mom? (That may sound strange, but many times I've seen bullies who've been isolated turn on their friends because there's no one else to kick.)

Will the other mom clue in to the fact that she's now socially isolated because of mean mom? Or is she on the same page and in agreement with mean mommy?

Or will mean mommmy surprise everyone and apologize?

As to what my future will be with the mommies now? I am not sure. I still don't drink (they do) and am often too tired to attend the events necessary to bond with everyone. So who knows?

Like a Double Jointed Duck

I had my first yoga class.

Understand that I know nothing about yoga.

Well, I do know Sting likes to mix sex and tantric yoga. Because he talks about it in interviews and we've seen him in concert.

Everything (else) I learned came from P90X's interpretation of yoga.

Which is intense enough I've been 'practicing' for my yoga class for fear of not keeping up.

I've done the downward facing dog pose as if my life depended on it, shoving my ass into the air like a double jointed duck trying to develop some semblance of yoga skillz.

So the day comes and basically we laid on the floor for an hour and half. In the dark. I couldn't really see anyone so who knows what yoga--tantric or otherwise--was going on?

There was not one downward facing dog. I felt gypped. I'd done all this self-assigned homework for nothing!

Now, I realize that it's a mistake to think you know anything about anything from watching P90X. Their yoga? Is on steroids and has a bad case of 'roid rage to boot.

My yoga? Is a lot of breathing in the dark with some gentle movements that I may or may not be performing correctly. I'm not even sure the instructor can see me!

As for everything else: Still kind of tired. I have those good days and think 'I'm free!' I'm not free, but I'm not in prison either. I'm in a seedy halfway house.

Still lots of muscle pain, which yoga highlighted nicely. Things are just really inflamed and I'm not sure why. Drinking lots of 'gingerade' (ginger, lemon, stevia, water and ice--delicious and anti-inflammatory) to try and feel better. Also Advil. And Tylenol. It's similar to steroid withdrawal muscle pain but I haven't had any steroids in a while.

Went for a 2.5 mile walk. It was painful, but I did it.

Waiting to start bioidentical hormone replacement for low progesterone. My level is below normal so I'm really hoping bringing that back into balance will help me.

Acceleration

Last week after I did so poorly despite alternative medicine's "best treatment" I freaked. Things like "I'm never going to get better" were uttered.

So I contacted Dr. Alternative and begged for hormones.

Which were originally on the agenda for next month.

Today I had another office visit as a result of my begging and here's the scoop...

1. They looked at the chemistry and I may be on to something with the 'low progesterone is bad for cortisol levels' thing, but I need to be steroid free before they'll do any bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).

For at least a week.

Which, I'm almost there.

Possible confounding factor: The hubby and the toddler are sick. If the hubby is sick, that's bad because he never gets sick. When's he's got a bug, I have about 90% odds of getting it too. So I'm all up in arms and running in circles like a chicken looking for its head over here.

2. I also need to rest more and to not tax my system so much. Sounds great, but I'm not sure how that's going to happen. I feel like I'm pretty slowed down to begin with and now I need to go even slower? Am I supposed to move in slow motion? Oh wait, that happens and it doesn't help.

My need for rest outpaces the number of hours in the day. It's insatiable. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage this, but I'll try.

Here's an anecdote that illustrates the edge my body keeps falling over: We went for a walk last night. A glorious, post-thunderstorm walk. Half way through, I heard an animal in the bushes in the same area where I was attacked by a dog while I was pregnant.

We never saw any animal, but I got all uptight, flashing back to the attack and feeling like some mean dog was going to come at me. (By the way, WHAT is with the animal theme lately?)

After that point, I kept having to stop and rest because I'd become too weak to walk continuously. That's how brittle my stress response is.

So I could take to my bed and do nothing and even that would not be enough. As I told Doctor Alternative, my body requires absolute perfection, anything less and it can't cope. This is the main problem. I can function, but nothing can go wrong and that's not real life.

I could go to bed, but if it catches on fire, I'm sol. (Don't laugh, that could happen. No, I don't smoke, you're just underestimating my karma. Don't do that lest it want to prove you wrong.)

I can't give my body what it needs. I'm not sure anything else can either.

3. Dr. Alternative increased the IV treatments to twice a week in an effort to accelerate whatever we can.

Alternative Medicine Check-Up

Saw the altnernative doc. They think I look much better, which I guess is true, since I'm no longer dying of bronchitis. I am more tentative. I've been in this place before, feeling like the worst is behind me only to realize that the 'new normal' comes with limitations. I'm afraid to be optimistic because that just gets me burned.

Their plan is 6 to 8 months of IV nutrition therapy and also bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

My plan is to sell a kidney to pay for all of that because this is getting seriously expensive. I wish the clinic had been more forthright about costs, because I was told it was $50 an IV session and it's not even close.

Waaaaay more money.

Add in the herbs and shit?

Even more money.

It's hard not to feel a little hoodwinked when they say one thing and then steal your wallet.

If you see the money fairy, send her my way, okay? Meanwhile I'll be writing as fast as I can (which is still slow as I'm a slow writer, totally the wrong speed for the output I need to achieve asap).

If I can get another release out this month, I'll be happy.

On the food allergy front, Dr. Alternative says it should be transient, a side effect of the IV therapy and its impact on my body. I hope that's true as I had some salsa the other night and my nose swelled shut. Chocolate, on the other hand, has been better, which gives me hope.

My big question, which remains unanswered by either. Dr. Google or Dr. Alternative is, if I have low progesterone (which I do) and progesterone is a precursor to cortisol production, how does that limit production capacity of cortisol? Or not? What fail-safes are built into the system and what impact does that have on health?

I've actually been researching this quite a bit and can't find anything. Apparently no one else in the webiverse has ever had this question. Sometimes I've stared at biochemistry charts hoping to intuit something, but, while I love Biochemistry, I never took more than the basic class in college, so it's beyond me.

Or maybe I just haven't found the right chart yet. Cue more googling and chart staring.

Dr. Alternative says it was a good question, but had no answer ready other than to move up the bioidentical hormone piece to sometime next month vs. waiting six months--which I was happy about because I think this is all connected. I don't know if it comes through on this blog, but it is clear to me that my whole body is shutting down. Nothing is working right and I think the answer lies in getting all my hormones balanced, not just cortisol.

I've been reading a lot about hormones and anti-aging (as this is the only area of medicine that seems dedicated to getting hormones right) and want to share a quote with you from a book I'm reading. T.S. Wiley is an "anthropologist focusing on evolutionary biology and environmental endocrinology in molecular medicine and genetics."

She was interviewed by Suzanne Somers (yes, from Three's Company fame) for the book Ageless. If you haven't read any of Somers' books, you are missing out because she interviews the thought leaders in alternative medicine and science. The ideas and information are very thought provoking, even if you don't agree with them.

So. The following stood out to me because it talks about hormones and the HPA axis, a topic near and dear to my heart.

T.S. Wiley says "So the pill's synthetic hormones and dosing regimen derange the original HPA axis, which is sort of a global positioning system, to tell your systems the time of day and year based upon your location to the planet. Unfortunately, whether or not the axis ever rights itself depends upon childbirth.

If you have babies after the pill, that's a start, that helps. Whether or not this axis can stay righted as you continue to reproduce depends upon lifestyle. How late you stay up, how much sugar you eat, how old you are inside.

But once the HPA axis is deranged you need a jolt, like cardiac paddles, you know, when they jump start your heart to get your hormones back in sync with the planet. You can use bioidenticals, if you use them in rhythm and use them the right way, to make peaks that feed back to the brain, and then the brain talks to the lower half.

You have to make up the part of the song that is missing."

Yeah, totally missing the melody and harmony over here. I think all I have is a slow drum beat left to my song.

The entire book is fascinating as is another book by Somers dealing with cancer, Knockout. Check them out if you have the chance. Everyone who has done so on my recommendation has been amazed.