Darkoshi

I am nearly 52 years old and haven't had a period featuring significant red blood in over two years. I consider myself to be out of peri-menopause and in menopause now.

Since that last "real" period, I've had about 6 instances of minor spotting - yellowish brown or small amounts of dried blood; even a few pinkish chunks. The last instance was 3 months ago.

My hot flashes haven't bothered me. In the very beginning they were sudden pleasant strikingly warm sensations. Since then they've been like "Ho, I'm feeling warm again". So off goes the sweater (or jacket) for twenty or so minutes till I start feeling chilly again, and then I put it back on. It doesn't happen every day. That may be normal temperature fluctuations rather than hot flashes.

Night sweats are sporadic. I keep a small towel by the bed to dry myself and the sheets with when it happens. Again, this may just be from piling on too many blankets, not from menopause.

Otherwise, my sleep is fine. Except that I still don't go to bed early enough to get as much sleep as I should.

I am quite glad to be without the bloody bloody bloody freaking leaking blood. It feels very normal now to be without it. I don't even have to wear panty liners most days anymore; I used to wear them nearly every day because even if I wasn't bleeding, clear discharge could and would happen most any day of the month.

I had one (thankfully only one) instance which gave me the horrible thought that maybe I'd been freed of leaking blood only to have it be replaced by old-age urinary incontinence.

Barring that, joint problems (mostly the hands) are possibly the worst potential symptom. That started many years ago for me though, 2008 if not earlier. So again I'm not sure if it is at all related to menopause or not. The joint problems have been quite sporadic. They flare up for a while, and then get better for a long time. Lately my wrists have been fine or only mildly achy. My trigger thumb that I had last year finally got better on its own (I want to post a better update on that sometime).

The skin on my hands tends to get dry and rough, mostly during the winter. To ameliorate this, I apply a certain lotion on them (and on my lips & nose, which also get dry) before going to bed. In the last few years, the skin at the edge of my fingernails and toenails has gotten noticeably thicker and dryer. I often find myself picking at it. I use glass nail files to file away the worst spots - that works better on my fingers than my toes. The thick skin makes it harder to clip my toenails, and I hope it doesn't someday cause ingrown nails.

Sometimes, the skin around the edge of my heels gets dry and rough too, catching on my socks. Glass files work well on that.

The following symptoms I have had are more likely related to menopause, yet were more unexpected to me.

Several times, my vulva got inflamed and felt itchy and sensitive for a few weeks to a month at a time.
I also had instances (many days in a row) with a lot of clear or yellowish vaginal discharge. These tended to coincide with the inflamed vulva, though not always.

A few times, my labia felt very weird; loose and thin, floppy maybe. I'd especially notice it while using the exercise/elliptical bike, with them rubbing or flapping against each other which they don't normally do.

I like the short Exercise with Smart Cat segments on PBS that are shown between some children's programs.
I can do that! It's fun, easy, *and* good for me, yay! It gets me up from my chair whenever it comes on.
I have the TV on to drown out the sound of the neighbor dog who is barking.

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I've got a headache but no fever, which isn't unusual for me.
I worked in my yard for several hours today.
The back of my neck is achy. It may be exacerbated by stooping down to pull weeds, which I did Wednesday and today. It was bad enough yesterday that I started considering getting one of those neck braces like the pharmicist lady on the Doc Martin TV series was always wearing. Maybe those things support the head, taking stress off of the neck? Or maybe they prevent you from turning your head... I'll have to read up on it.

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Heard on TV: "The moose is on the loose!" hahah

I tried something out, using dandelions as an artistic tool. Coming soon to a universe near you! Maybe.

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I'm trying to clean off my table. It is taking very long and I'm only making small inroads.
Oh that's right, I wanted to try out the new Wyze sensors that are sitting there in that box.
And I also wanted to buy a raspberry PI to see if that makes the old sensors work more reliably especially as I wasn't able to get their bridge to reconnect after it had a problem last week.

There's the folder with my tax docs. I can put that away now; I've already gotten my tax refunds by direct deposit, as well as this year's stimulus payment too.
There, that is done.

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You know how in some commercials they have the legal stuff spoken very quickly at the end?
You know how, to a native English speaker, Spanish sounds like it is spoken very quickly?

Well, I saw a commercial on a Spanish-language TV channel, and the legal stuff that was spoken at the end of it sounded even more blisteringly fast than the English-language ones.

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A note I wrote on a paper on the table:

"My hands look old.
My skin is dry and textured."

They don't look quite as old to me today as they did then.

Starting in December I went 4 months without any significant menstruation, only minor spotting. It was great. Last month I got a period again. Maybe the note was from the dry period, an unwelcome side effect.

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On Thursday, I had saved a short audio recording... it was after my laptop microphone hadn't been working, but then it worked again. In it, I said:

"Testing One Two Three... NOW why is it working!!??.. But fine, it's working, right?"

I was idly playing around with that recording. I selected short clips of it and played them back several times in a row. Then I reversed one of those selections ("NOW why...") to see what it sounded like backwards. I did NOT expect it to same the same backwards as it did forwards, but it DID, which blew my mind.

forwards
backwards

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I saw this beginning clip of the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" on TV the other night, and it made me laugh so good! I happened to be laying on the floor while watching it to begin with, so it was really a ROTFLOL moment.



I didn't end up watching the whole episode, as I had to finish up my work, but I need to watch the full thing (again? not sure if I've seen it before) one of these days.

I prefer menstrual pads that have wings. But nowadays most companies make the wings long and narrow. Those kind of wings tend to come unstuck* and then they start sticking to my skin instead. Ouch. This hack prevents that: cut a notch in each end of the wing to make it shorter on the part that folds over.



*You have to fold a long narrow flap onto a curved surface; of course it's not going to stick well that way. What are the people who design these things thinking?

This year, I've been having more of a problem with crickets in the house than I've had with cockroaches. I prefer the crickets, but *why* would crickets keep coming into the house?

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Menstrual humor...

"In a fantasy world where men menstruate, there would be bragging rights for men about ‘how much and for how long’. Champion sportsmen would be used to brand tampons with their names. Phrases like ‘he is a three-pad man’ would be common." From here.

"Blackbeard Brand Rugged Tampons... Fer pluggin' the bloody hole afore th'sharks smell ye!"
Amusing advertisement found here.

Looking for Discreet Protection? Try the Tampon Stun Gun

Great. I called Aetna, and the customer representative confirmed that there's only 3 psychiatrists in my city (not even technically *my* city, but the locale across the river) who are covered by my insurance, and all 3 are at the same address.

Whereas in Augusta, I found 23. In Charlotte, about 30. In Charleston, 6.

I feel a ridiculous urge to kill myself just to spite them.

Eh. I guess at least it makes choosing a psych simpler than if there were any choices. The thing is, I still don't believe it's true that only those 3 people are covered by Aetna.

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And I can't understand why they don't sell any better disposable menstrual pads than they do. I've bought 3 different kinds, and 2 of them are those frickin plastic-covered things that stick to the skin on my butt and smell nauseating. Stupidly designed "wings" which are so narrow that they don't stay stuck to the underwear, and are more likely to come loose and attach to my skin. I may end up having to take my cloth pads on my trip after all, even though washing them will be a pain.

I think I was able to feel my cervix with my finger today, while in the shower. I'm not completely sure if that is what I was feeling, as it wasn't a very prominent bump like my nose is, but I would guess that must have been the cervix.
Oddly, when I used the finger on one hand (I can't remember which was which now), I only felt a small bumpy thing on the left side (not sure what that was) and nothing in the middle. Whereas with the other hand, I instead felt a larger bump in the middle, which I'm assuming was the cervix. I tried twice with both fingers, and had the same results.

After the shower, I tried inserting my diva-cup, and I actually got it in, for the first time ever. These pages showing different folds that can be used, helped a lot:
http://community.livejournal.com/menstrual_cups/453392.html
http://community.livejournal.com/menstrual_cups/1063119.html
http://community.livejournal.com/menstrual_cups/769444.html

I used the 7-fold. But I did not feel the cup pop open, and I was not able to grasp the base and twist the cup like the instructions say. I can't fit my thumb and forefinger in far enough to do that. So I am not sure if it is in right, or positioned correctly. But it's in, and it isn't uncomfortable so far. I am worried that I will have difficulty removing it, but I'll deal with that later.

I am a bit worried that my Essure implants have come out, or that something has changed with them. After getting the implants, my period changed noticeably almost from the start. No cramps, more regular, slower onset, less heavy but longer duration. It stayed that way for over 2 years. But for the last couple of months, my period has been more like it used to be, before the Essure. Although still not as bad; I haven't felt the need for Tylenol yet.

I tried finding out whether any more long-term studies have been done on Essure's effectiveness... all I can find are mention of the initial couple of studies that were done. But I did find a discussion board where several women had recently posted about various problems with their implants. I don't know if it is very uncommon to have problems, and it's just that those very few people with problems are very likely to post about them, or if the problems are more common than the initial studies suggested. Perhaps the company that makes the implants is even aware of the problems, but doesn't want them to be publicized, as then they would lose business.

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I also have other physical things bothering me. My back; the chiropractor wasn't able to get it to crack, and the massage didn't seem to help much either. My neck; I think the chiropractor helped somewhat with the stiffness, but it still doesn't feel quite right. And most of all, my right thigh. For almost 2 months now, I have not been able to cross my leg like normal. Every workday at lunch, I would go outside and cross my legs in a certain way while eating lunch, and then suddenly one day I could no longer do it. My leg hurts and complains. It's even gotten to the point where I sit differently from the outset without even thinking about it at first... I don't want that to happen. I don't want to lose my flexibility and just... stop moving, as if that's just the way things are. I don't know what to do. Should I go to a doctor? What kind of doctor? Should I wait till it's been at least 3 months? But don't even broken bones heal in just 6 weeks; why would it take 3 months for a painful/strained/sprained/whatever to heal?

I felt like crying at work this afternoon. It was all too much. All 4 of our areas had problems. The single sign-on server was down. The SQL server had been brought down (to see who would scream / to find out who was using it). The one server wasn't responding, and I only had the IP #, which was dynamic, so I couldn't even figure out which server name it was, in order to try to connect to it. The other server started having a weird problem where you could log in, but then couldn't navigate to any other pages. It just kept clocking and clocking and didn't even return a time-out error. It was awful. Maybe it was a nightmare. And of course, there was all this other work that I had actually planned to do that afternoon, but didn't get around to doing.