She-Groks Only.......... cuz it works different for us page 142

[primal me]

A friend of mine had the ablation done and while she barely bleeds now it did nothing for the cramping.

I have noticed my first day or so which has really strong cramps is often when the flow is the heaviest. Big ugly clots and all, then after that it calms down to a steady trickle for the next 5 days. I'll take naproxen for the cramping when I get to the point of wanting to yank my uterus out by hand but otherwise I try to get by with just watching my salt and caffeine intake and using some aromatherapy. Chocolate makes me feel better too and I think that's the most important thing for the safety of others (especially my male family members) on those days.

There are natural forms of hormone therapy that may be helpful and some herbs that help to balance out hormone imbalances. A good naturopath or health food store may be able to point you in the right direction as well.

[RitaRose]

Regarding perimenopausal clotty periods..... Did any of you have excessive bleeding, more than a pad an hour? If so did you do anything about it? My doctor prescribed progesterone for temporary relief, but said I need to do one of three things: 1) get a Mirena IUD (costs $800 and my insurance will not pay for it...

That's actually why I haven't had a period in 6 years. I was totally wasting a Super Plus tampon in 20 or 30 minutes, and it's hard to stay employed when you spend all day in the bathroom. My periods went from 3 or 4 days, tapering on and off, to a sudden flashflood that would last 7 or 8 days.

I had seen my mom go through the same thing when she was about my age, and there was no way I was repeating it. She actually ended up having a hysterectomy, mostly because she had a doc that was a fan of just removing whatever organ was bugging you. Same reason why she has no gall bladder and is missing a huge chunk of one boob.

The doc I saw was thinking the endometrial ablation might work, and while I was waiting for my next appointment, I did my own research and tried Kokoro Cream, which is a really good quality progesterone cream. They're definitely NOT all alike. It helped within just a few days, and so I told my doc about it when I saw him. He said one of the other doctors in his practice had also had a lot of success with progesterone, so we decided on the Mirena IUD. It's good for 5 years, and I just had it replaced a year ago. I absolutely love it, though I do know it doesn't work as well for some.

In my case, the insurance wasn't billed as "birth control" but something more along the lines of "hormone therapy" associated with menopause. I'm not sure if that makes a difference in the coverage.

2)Endometrial Ablation (probably would be even more expensive than the IUD)...

My friend had almost the same symptoms that I did, and that's what she ended up choosing. For her (because everyone is different), it kind of worked for a few months, and within a year she was back to just a little less bleeding than before she had the procedure. She's the only one I personally know that has actually had it done, so others may have had more luck.

3) birth control pills which the doc says has risk factors for women my age. Any thoughts?

I'm in between periods and dreading the next potential flood.

I would see this as the last choice. They just scare the crap out of me. I was on them for probably 6 or 7 years, then went off them to conceive my oldest son. I was amazed that I had no problems when I went off the pill. Until 4 months later, when all hell broke loose - acne, mood swings, PMS - because it took that long for the hormones to actually leave my system. That's a little scary. Admittedly, they were super high dose back in those days (my son is 21 now) but they still left me a little leery of them.

Personally, I would try the Kokoro Balance Creme for Women BUT make sure you do your research first because you can really screw yourself up hormonally if you use too much or without knowing what you're doing.

There are a couple of book by John Lee, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause and What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause that you can get on the same website, but I got the first one from the library back when I was trying to figure all of this out.

[Urban Forager]

Pamsc thanks so much for sharing your story. I will check with my insurance about billing the Mirena under medical rather than pharmaceutic. A friend of mine has a similar situation and her doc prescribed progesterone; I'm not sure why my doc didn't present that as an option. I've already had an ultrasound and endometrial biopsy and everything checked out fine.

Rita, I will look into that cream I really would like to take a less invasive approach to this transition. When possible I prefer to take care of things myself. At this point the medical bills are already starting to pile up and the funny thing is I feel healthy and strong except for when the bleeding starts.

[Luce]

Cramps and cloths got better since primal -and as long as primal- and pain is more manageable -oxy morphine and codeine were best friends during bad times- but nerve compression due to ovarian/rectum inflammation with my kidney right on top of it is still a bad thing to live through. Right now I feel my right leg go up in flames and just hope it will stop as soon as possible.
For me NSAIDs are not a choice because of their renal clearance and opioids and their agonist are out of question because of their liver metabolism, that cytochrome is fully devoted to other and more important processes right now (things like keeping the adrenals going and the like).
I wouldn't go back on HRT no matter what, I was forced to take hormone replacement when my period stopped because doctors thought it would be the best thing for my skeleton but it was one of the most terrible things I've ever went through and resulted in deep shit (huge cloths and enormous blood loss being the nicest of them). Progesterone was less problematic but for some reason coagulation went bad and I really don't know what kept me from a clogged artery somewhere (brain, leg, lung, heart: there are no good choices there). Protein C was awful too and testosterone levels plummeted, in the end with a blood work from hell I was able to convince them to let me go through menopause as many women do even if I wasn't of age (I was thirty and then thirty something).
For dryness I would use topical non hormonal stuff daily and dose controlled topical caps with minimal estrogen release to keep tissue health and elasticity (which is important both for sexual intercourse and genital health). Dryness wasn't funny but tissue getting thinner was truly disgraceful so I really made a point of avoiding it.

Luce

[sbhikes]

I just learned about ultrasound fat removal. I guess it's not available in the US yet, or is it? I would totally go for it if it were available.

[Luce]

I just learned about ultrasound fat removal. I guess it's not available in the US yet, or is it? I would totally go for it if it were available.

It's available in Argentina, our family plastic surgeon replaced it though with a new laser technology last year.
I used ultrasound to remove fluids and avoid fibrocystic cellulitis but I wouldn't advise it if there was something better available.
I'm not a candidate for laser removal of residual fat accumulation because is would go hard on your kidneys anyway. You know, once adipocytes get emptied stuff must go somewhere and that wouldn't really be good for me.
For what I saw (I don't rely on second hand recensions) results are better than with liposuction BUT it does not work on everybody and discipline is required as with any other procedure, it's ok to refine a body you already worked on and leaned out as much as possible. Localized lumps just melt away, generalized subcutaneous fat does not make a good candidate.
I'll go and get a NYR lift in my belly when I travel home, it costs nearly nothing and it will help my skin look toned even if I have some residual fluid which refuses to go (lymph vessels got damaged during surgery but I could do a lot worse so be it).

Luce

[OutdoorAmy]

I think it's available here because I seem to remember hearing about it as a readily available therapy not to long ago myself.

Sounds interesting - but I just can't justify $1500+ for an elective cosmetic procedure . . .

The only plastic surgery I am actively planning to get (if I end up needing it) is skin removal surgery (or tummy tuck) and a breast lift . . . I'm hoping that my skin remains elastic enough to not need it - since I'm still young . . . but I can already notice bagging and sagging and I've only lost 20 of the 100 lbs. I want to lose.

[noodletoy]

Originally Posted by noodletoy View Post
about 3 weeks ago i started taking a chinese herb called dong quai, also known as the "female ginseng."

I can't stop thinking of this. I always had fine hair and not that much. Either age, stress, hypo-thyroidism, or weight loss causes me to shed for a while (weeks at a time). I'm talking Kerry-hair tumbleweeds.

kerry and lexie:

yes, i am still taking it. i haven't noticed hair sprouting in any witchy or weird old man places, thank goodness, lol. i did wonder about that! definitely on my head only and yes, it seems both like more hair and it's all thicker. i think softer too. somebody at work asked me what i've been "doing" to my hair. that it looks "different". i guess it's more noticeable than i realized!

i am very pleased with the cessation of my nasty peri-menopause symptoms that were causing just utter misery too. my uterus is still enlarged, but no longer hurts. i bought the giant bottle, lol, ( a giant size of dong!!) at the vitamin shoppe. each pill is 500 mg and i take 2 per day. am considering making it 3 to see if it causes more improvements to my angry innards.

[noodletoy]

Pamsc thanks so much for sharing your story. I will check with my insurance about billing the Mirena under medical rather than pharmaceutic. A friend of mine has a similar situation and her doc prescribed progesterone; I'm not sure why my doc didn't present that as an option. I've already had an ultrasound and endometrial biopsy and everything checked out fine.

Rita, I will look into that cream I really would like to take a less invasive approach to this transition. When possible I prefer to take care of things myself. At this point the medical bills are already starting to pile up and the funny thing is I feel healthy and strong except for when the bleeding starts.

although i have friends who are big fans of the mirena, it was a complete disaster for me. after several months of grapefruit-sized clots, incessant bleeding that made me anemic, etc. i caved out of desperation. it was 10 months of sheer hormonal hell. my already giant bewbies grew about 1000 sizes, my torso swelled and i sunk into abject depression. crying jags so sweeping i could not always collect my shit enough to leave the house. some days i even called out sick to work. insane cravings for sweets.

had the doc remove it in june and emotionally i felt better within a couple days and i have felt my old self pretty much since. some weight has come off, but i am still 5-7 pounds over where i was before all this and still 15 pounds from goal.

as far as the doc was concerned, the hormones would take 3 months to flush out and then we would discuss an ablation. since the dong quai has remedied almost everything, i don't really care what he thinks tbh.

i refuse to deal with synthetic hormones ever again.

each woman's body is so very different and hormones all play with each other in such a delicate balance. tread very carefully before succumbing to cw on this.

since committing more to primal, (until last summer, i was mostly just low-carbing things), i think my overall health has improved too, which in no small measure must be helping here. bone broth, pastured eggs and liver. in addition to the dong quai, i supplement with d3 and magnesium, both of which contribute to hormonal regulation. all of a piece, ya know?


good luck.

[Loretta]

Hello Ladies,

Read through this entire thread. Has anyone lost weight with the primal/paleo lifestyle?