Ep 1: The Curse's Wicked Stepsister

Did you know you could experience your period AND hot flashes at the same time? That my friends, is perimenopause. That stage between "The Curse" and "The Change" where you straddle between irregular periods, mood swings, and more which can take 2-10 years to get through! I don't know about you but, I feel hoodwinked! Where was the ABC After School Special, or the School House Rock song for Perimenopause?

Whether you're in your 20's and not really thinking about menopause, or you're in your 30's and 40's and not really sure what's happening to your body and mind, this podcast is for you!

We'd love to hear from you! Email us if you'd like to share your perimenopause story on a future episode at thestalwartkitten@gmail.com.

*The Perimenopause Symptom Tracking Log and Journal with Mood Chart can be purchased at Amazon, here.
**You can track and journal your medical appointments in this Medical Journal and Log for Women or gift the man in your life with this Medical Journal and Log for Men.

View all Journals for sale, here.

Transcript

Before we reached our preteen years, we learned about …THE CURSE

Then we heard the adults around us talk about … THE CHANGE...oh Aunt Jackie is going through...THE CHANGE.

BUT, there’s a wicked stepsister, a middle sibling if you will and her name is Perimenopause, 

Hello and thanks for listening! 

My name is Chris, I’m 49 years old and I am perimenopausal. 

So what does that mean? Well I’m straddling symptoms of the Curse (a euphemism for your period and all of the symptoms that come along with it) and the Change (another euphemism for those menopause symptoms associated with hormonal imbalance like mood swings and hot flashes). Did you know you can be on your period AND have hot flashes… at the same time?! How the Harry and the Hendersons was this not mentioned in my womanhood syllabus? What happened to the after school special or the schoolhouse rock song for perimenopause??

It was always my understanding that you’d have a period for a few decades and when it stops, bam! You’re in menopause. I didn’t learn until my early 40s there’s an additional assignment to womanhood behind Curtain #2, that stage BEFORE reaching menopause, and it looks like you may not be able to graduate to menopause until you’ve completed it …oh, and it could take anywhere from 2 to 10 years!

The Golden Girls is one of my favorite sitcoms to this day because there are so many women issues addressed in those classic episodes. There was one episode where Blanche thought she was pregnant because she missed a few periods (and wasn’t even sure who the father would be…girl), but when she goes in for her doctor’s appt, he informs her that she’s not pregnant she’s going through menopause. She has a fit about being old because she’s menopausal which she equates to getting old. Rose talks about how “The Curse” and how it wasn’t really discussed growing up because it was such a taboo topic, hence the vailed label…the change and the curse, So Sophia chimes in, as only Sophia can and says 

“Whats the big deal, I got it…nobody told, I didn’t get it…nobody told me. I figured, this is life and went back to my meatballs.”

Now she wrapped it all in a nice little bow, but no matter if you’re 25 or 55, you know the difficulties associated with women’s reproductive and post reproductive years from heavy periods, menstrual cramps, back aches in your teens… to brain fog and night sweats as you transition into menopause. This transition is called perimenopause…peri meaning around menopause, again could take 2-10 years to get through. You’re technically not in menopause until you’ve missed 12 consecutive periods, but don’t hang your hat on that…I know a few people who thought it was over after a year of no period and it decided to pay a surprise visit. Also, if you’ve had a partial hysterectomy, like I have, and you still have your ovaries, you can’t really judge by the missed period right? Because your ovaries could still be releasing eggs but they just get absorbed in your body. Your doctor will have to test your hormone levels to let you know if you’re truly in menopause, but that can be challenging as well since your hormones are in flux at any given time of the month!

So, I want to share my experiences and what I’ve found through research and those, “oh my gosh, me too” conversations with friends and colleagues…as well as what my women’s health doc did not prepare me for…this thing that may impact a good chunk of our adult lives.  I want to destigmatize talking about women’s health …why is it taboo just because it’s a female issue? Let’s normalize talking about it openly just like they’ve normalized commercial ads for erectile dysfunction every 5 minutes! Why aren’t we seeing commercials with doctors encouraging women to inquire about the symptoms they are experiencing… I didn’t even hear about perimenopause until I was in my 40’s, but I should have been preparing for it not just hearing about it mid-life crisis.

I’ll discuss those perimenopause symptoms like…irregular periods, hot flashes (and whoever coined this term flash never experienced them), brain fog, mood swings, weight gain (although im told this is more age related, rather than hormonal, skin changes, hair loss, vaginal dryness, low libido, low motivation.

Today let’s start with Hot flashes – A flash of lightening occurs in a split second, the light flashed red…all done in seconds…no, a hot flash, or what I heard one doctor call it, a power surge, can last several minutes, it’s intense, and there’s no knob on the thermostat u can use to turn it down. Someone told a friend it’s like the Sun now lives inside you.

If you’re experiencing power surges, what do you call them?

o   You will know when you’re having a hot flash…its intense, sudden, radiating heat that ignites in your body. For me, it radiates from my core throughout my body and throughout the day, not just at night. 

o   For some people its severe, where they are dripping in sweat for several minutes, several times throughout the day. 

o   For some it’s just a little perspiration but annoying nonetheless

o   For some it just happens at night, for some all times of the day. By the way, a hot flash and night sweats are basically the same, just one occurs at night.

o   I noticed mine were coming at night when I first started, then I started tracking they would start 7 days before my cycle started. I used one of those period tracking apps that allowed you to input your symptoms. I would wake up drenched in sweat, from my neck down between my thighs…and let me tell you now, vaginal sweat is the worst, moist annoying kind of sweat to wake you up in the middle of the night. Because of this self-igniting furnace inside my body that turns on at will, I would have to throw off my sheets and comforter and allow whatever air was circulating the room to try to cool me down. I actually have one of those standing tower fans with a remote control my mother gave me, because she knew I was going to need it one day. The gifts you start getting for your birthdays and other holidays revolving around perimenopause issues you will really appreciate.  I like my room cold when I go to bed so I can snuggle into my sheets and comforter and a blanket on top of that, but when that sweat hits you and wakes you up in the middle of the night and you have to throw everything off, all you feel is this cold sweat because your body is perspiring or sweating and the cool air from the room falls on you but your body is still radiating heat for several more minutes  …and  nights of disrupted sleep like that is bound to make anyone a little cranky by morning and fatigued before midday. This is all because the estrogen levels in your body are in flux. There are natural supplements you can take or your doctor can prescribe HRT or Hormone Replacement Therapy we’ll discuss in the next podcast. 

·        Skin changes, like acne…I’ve been breaking out like a teenager, and I didn’t even break out like a teenager as a teenager! I was even getting cysts, which lie deeper under the surface of your skin that take forever to dissolve quickly but would just hang out for the longest time. I was getting acne scars were becoming more prevalent and not fading away like they used to…you’re aging, so some areas of your skin is becoming crepe all of a sudden and you’re trying to figure out a new skin care regimen…listen, don’t let anyone fool you, black does crack! The saying was “good black don’t crack” so I don’t know who took out the “good” part, but it’s needed to complete the saying! If you are a person of color, yes you’ll have more melanin so your skin wont age as much as our sisters with less melanin, but it WILL crack! So, find moisturizing products that work for you!  People used to ask me what products I used on my face and I would just shrug and say oh I just use ivory soap…that was probably 5 or 6 years ago, I wouldn’t dare use ivory on my face now unless I wanted to look like Freddy Krueger for Halloween or something…and new issues like this alone can affect your self-esteem and your mood and I highly recommend self-help, finding a therapist as you try to navigate these changes that are happening to you while everyone is expecting you to continue to operate as normal. Sometimes these changes just creep up on you because you’re working constantly or adulting constantly and one day you look down at your leg and wonder who’s leg is that because you’re now seeing broken veins and crepe skin. There’s sunken eyes, dark circles, dermal collapse where your cheeks and your jaw line just give up and go the way of gravity…so you scramble to find ways to improve what nature is trying to take away. Its stressful. I mean typically if you’re in your 20’s and early 30’s maybe you’re not thinking about menopause and you’re like ok that’s for women in their 50s who’ve already had their last egg released and their going through a little something something…nooooooooooo there’s a pre-stage called perimenopause that I knew NOTHING about until my 40’s. Even my OBGYN said it so casually during a routine visit that I had to stop her to ask what the heck she was talking about… I think I mentioned I was waking up sweating at night, I’m in my early 40s at the time mind you, and she just casually mumbled something about oh your just going through perimenopause…I remember thinking, wait, let me check my vocabulary store because I feel like I should know what this means since she glossed over it so casually, but I asked her to clarify and she, again casually, went over some of the symptoms I might experience. Again, not prepared, unawares…why didn’t we learn this in sex education class or get some type of pamphlet in the mail around 30??

While these changes are happening, you may be going through changes with your fertility, issues with fibroids, hysterectomies, endometriosis.  I’ll tell you about my experience dealing with fibroids and the procedures I’ve had…Fibroids affect more black women than any other race so make sure you have a doctor who has studied fertility issues in black women. If your doctor recommends a hysterectomy as your first option and you’re just in your 30’s or early 40’s, you need to see another gynecologist for a second opinion. And know the difference between an OBGYN and a GYN specialist, and we’ll talk about that in a future podcast when I talk about some of the procedures I’ve had for fibroids, but basically your OBGYN is the one you go to for your fertility health, you want to have children but having some issues. A GYN specialist really wants to just fix whatever is wrong, so they are gonna snatch out whatever is causing the problem, they’re not really focused on your fertility health. Also, please consider freezing your eggs. There are so many options for women who want to have children, but it may not feel like the right time for you or you just haven’t found a mate who’s not a narcissist or sociopath. A few years back I checked into this but wasn’t proactive about it, but I do know that some insurance carriers, depending on where you live, like in Maryland, will cover a good portion of your fertility costs like invitro fertilization.  

Now with all this going on in your body, your mind, your life, BEFORE you actually enter menopause, shouldn’t we have received the updated syllabus by now? There’s a lot to unpack and in the next podcast I will talk about what’s really happening to your hormones during this time and another symptom of perimenopause… mood swings and how it relates to but is really worse than PMS, and we will also talk about HRT and natural supplements. 

Until next time, thanks for joining me, and remember…

The CURSE, has a wicked step sister, and her name is Perimenopause.