# Menopausal Flare?



## BQ (May 22, 2000)

oh help me..........Ok I'm 42. (Ack







I said it! LOL) I began menses at age 10Most of the gals I know are experiencing the start of menopause. However, they get a period and just keep on bleeding and bleeding..... so they are having their periods more days out of the month than not. They have heavy flows etc. Some of their Docs are thinking of doing D&C's or even oblations. Me??? Well the cycle, which up until late last year you could set your watch by, has been shortening a bit. One month it was only 21 days. However, the flow is lighter and shorter. Like heavy for maybe a day and a half only and done by 3 days. (It used to be twice that.) So I am kinda the opposite of my friends. I'm not complaining,







......really. But I also have been in a profuse D flare for about 6 weeks now and I cannot correlate anything that is keeping this flare going, except the changes in my cycle. Which are weird. I just about finish bleeding and I feel like I am going into the fertile phase and ovulating already and then my body goes into the "waiting for the curse" phase.Has anyone else gone through this and if so, when did your IBS flare quit? I mean this is bad, just watery D after every meal. (And that is ON the calcium!) I initially thought it was just the heat, cause heat can be a trigger for me. But I made a concerted effort to try to stay in the AC as much as possible and the darn D got worse!Any ideas??? Help.Thanks.BQ


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Well I'm doing the shorter cycle (about 24 days) heavier bleeding but same length of time thing at the moment..... oh and I've started the night sweats.....have you gotten those yet??Ain't perimenopause grand










































http://www.med.unc.edu/wrkunits/2depts/med...sand%20ibs.html has some information about hormones, but not a whole lot about menopause other than once it is over things tend to get better which may not help in the mean time. http://www.ic-network.com/iclifestyles/march02.html is much more about IC rather than IBS, but talks a bit about things (like perimenopause how the period is affect varies.Here is a digestive changes during change of life...don't know if it'll help you much but here goes http://menopausediet.com/News/digestion.htm K.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

K. Thanks! I'll be reading the above.I am having trouble referring to _myself_ and menopause or peri-menopause. LOL Man, when did this happen??? OMG!!Funny story re: night sweats... talk about denial...There I am blissfully sleeping about 3 weeks ago, hubby also in the same condition, under a sheet and light blanket. BING!!! I wake up, like eyes snapping open type of wake up. I wonder why I am awake. I must need to go potty. I get up and get half way to the bathroom in my stupor before I realize that A) I don't hafta go and







I am dripping wet with sweat. "Hot damn, it's hot in here" thought occurs to me. GD! AC is probably set to high. I go down to thermostat to check. Nope, it is set on 75 like always. Well, I AM puzzled now. 'Maybe I am sick' I'm thinking. But then I thought, doesn't sweating mean a fever has passed? LOL I popped the AC down a few degrees and planted myself right in front of a vent and cooled off. Went back to bed. Cut to the morning. Hubby says hey, it was cool in here this am. "Yup" I said I felt exceptionally warm during the night and popped the AC down. "I was dripping with sweat, couldn't figure it out." ,I tell him. Hubby's eyebrows just go up. He utters nothing. I say, "What?" he just giggles.







"OH!" I say. LOLI was in complete denial.Thanks for the articles........ Do ya know if there is a way to fast forward thru this ya think?







BQ


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Ok, The first article I have read numerous times,







and yeah I get it. The only thing I would say to it is that I thought I read something posted on the BB very recently about IBS not necessarily calming down post menopause. A new study or something... oh joy.The second article........ "constipation"???? What am I "Opposite Annie" here? The third article....... "delayed gastric emptying"???? I am just "special" in that mine seems to speed up??? spare me.......







I felt like "Opposite Annie" with the severe flare I had during pregnancy. I had so much D I only gained 10 lbs. I guess my body is just doing things backwards??? This better NOT take 10 years...... I'll be dead by then. LOLI DO notice more upper GI symptoms like heartburn etc. I can usually handle it with just a Zantac though, so it is not all that bothersome. I am eating smaller meals more often. But I gotta tell ya, right now it is a modified BRAT diet with just a wee bit of protein thrown in. (I tried the binding type of fiber sup. but that made things real bad) Yeah the weight is dropping here only a few lbs. which surprised me cause I thought it would have been up. So I guess my girth is mostly bloat??Lawdy...... save us from hormones! is all I can say, besides, this s###cks.







BQ


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Um...the only fast forward I know of is to go to the friendly neighborhood vet and get spayed (oops mean Gyn doc and get a hysterectomy).But then you just get a lot of symptoms fast until it settles in. So I don't know if it helps much....and then you can't wear a string bikini without everyone seeing your scar







Like the story about the night sweats.I usually wake up about an hour before the alarm wondering why the backs of my knees are all wet.Why there...I dunno...I think Black Cohosh is supposed to help that...but I haven't researched it enough to try it, yet.Might try some progesterone cream to see if that makes the too fast to be called monthly bleeding less...but I don't know if I trust it to work/be safe...Hard to be sure about any of this stuff these days.K.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Hmmmm, spaying.....Well heck, if they can _FIND_ my scar amongst the stretch marks and GB surgery scars, they oughtta get a medal. Well a medal may be in order for just looking at me in a string bikini! LOL Now if I can get enuf medals to dispense, I just might get spayed.







Your knees???? Wow! You are unique K, but we knew that...lol I was dripping all over. I guess you can cut back on the leg moisturizing though then, huh? See??? There is a bright side I guess.







BQ


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## lflower (Jun 23, 2003)

I remember waking up after a night sweat and while going potty saw my ankles were beaded with sweat!! Didn't know I had sweat glands there. Now it's mostly around the waist. Loved the third article. Need to send that to my menopause teacher, she never told us that! Night sweats are nicer in the summer. In the winter I've usually got 5 comfortors piled on top of me and I'm like a sauna under there when I wake up.


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## lflower (Jun 23, 2003)

I've been having night sweats for about a year. My periods have been 2-3 days, but every 28 days, waltzes in IBS this summer, bingity boom, no nightsweats, no period. IBS waltzes away, bingity boom, back comes period, nightsweats.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Flower, Isn't this amazing how different we all are? I like the "bingity boom" by the way.







LOLI would like to use it if you don't mind? I plan on using it to describe this phase of life.... "I'm just bingity booming along here.."







I'm glad you seem to be doing only one thing at a time. I guess managing one thing might be easier than doing both. But, ya never know.... that grass always seems greener....Well, I really hope I don't take all 10 years to get through this. I just have to be a bit more flexible I guess. Respond to what my body is telling me as best I can. Whadya gonna do?BQ


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2003)

All I have to add is: http://www.johnleemd.com/ What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About PREmenopauseHow to balance your hormones and your life from thirty to fifty.by John R. Lee, M.D., Jesse Hanley, M.D. and Virginia Hopkins Premenopause As a Life CycleYou're only in your mid-thirties and you absolutely do not want to hear the word "menopause" applied to you, even if it is "pre" menopause. You're not there yet. You're still young, you haven't even had kids yet for heaven's sake, or your kids aren't even out of grade school. And yet, you know something in your body isn't quite right. You haven't changed your eating or exercise habits but you're gaining weight. Your breasts are sore and lumpy, especially premenstrually, and you've started to have irregular periods. Maybe you've lost some of your sex drive or your skin is dry or isn't as smooth as it used to be. You used to think of yourself as very even tempered, but lately you're irritable and snappish, and you can't seem to get out of bed in the morning. You have friends your age who are struggling with infertility, uterine fibroids, and PMS when they've never had it before. What's going on? It's premenopause syndrome, which is not a natural or inevitable part of life, but one created by our culture, lifestyles and environment. Premenopause is a phenomenon that all women know about, but very few have a name for. Some 50 million women are going through premenopause right now, and most of them have experienced some form of premenopause syndrome, a collection of symptoms experienced by women for ten to twenty years before menopause. We call this pre-menopause rather than using the medical term peri-menopause, because premenopause syndrome can begin as early as the mid-thirties, while peri-menopause technically means "right around menopause," meaning the year or two before, during and after menstrual cycles end. If you're a woman between the ages of thirty and fifty, you know a woman, maybe yourself, who has fibroids, tender or lumpy breasts, endometriosis, PMS, difficulty conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term, sudden weight gain, fatigue, irritability and depression, foggy thinking, memory loss, migraine headaches, very heavy or light periods, bleeding in-between periods, or cold hands and feet. These symptoms are part of premenopause for a majority of today's women, and are the result of hormone imbalances, most of them caused by an excess of the hormone estrogen, and a deficiency of the hormone progesterone. ***As you'll discover as you read on, natural progesterone is essential for maintaining hormone balance, and yet it has been largely overlooked by conventional medicine because of medical politics and pharmaceutical company profits. However, premenopause symptoms are not just about biochemistry. They are also about women who are out of touch with the cycles and rhythms of their bodies, their feelings, and their souls. These are women who struggle to balance families and work; women who forget to take care of themselves, and women who aren't getting the help they need at their HMO. There was a time when a woman's mother, grandmother and aunts would quietly let her know what to expect during each phase of her life, and help her through the rough patches with herbs and homespun, time-tested wisdom. These days the medical profession has taken over the role of a woman's extended family, but sadly, the advice they have to give out has more to do with dispensing drugs and scheduling surgery than with solutions that are healing -- or that even work! When women have premenopausal symptoms, estrogen is commonly prescribed. When that causes irregular bleeding, cervical dysplasia, or doesn't help their symptoms, their doctors often then resort to surgically induced menopause in the form of a hysterectomy, or they try personality-altering drugs such as Prozac and Zoloft to medicate them until they get through this particular phase of their life. Or they are given more synthetic hormones -- and the wrong hormones at that. None of these approaches really improve the quality of a woman's life, and they all have grave potential to cause illness and even to be life-threatening. In spite of what a conventional doctor will tell you, you can do something about the symptoms of premenopause besides antidepressant drugs, synthetic hormones, and surgery. We're not trying to say you will never have any symptoms as your hormones wind down, or that you can live forever, or that your skin will stay smooth and unwrinkled until you're 90. But you definitely do not have to suffer from lumpy breasts, fibroids and many of the other symptoms that show up anywhere from five to twenty years before menopause. One of the reasons that premenopausal women don't want to talk about menopause is that they dread the prospect of this hallmark of aging. This attitude is sad, and contributes heavily to the emotional causes of premenopause symptoms. This attitude is particularly true of the many women who have postponed having children and who wonder if they're going to be able to have children before their biological alarm clock goes off. Women have been taught in countless ways that their value lies in their ability to be sexually attractive to and unconditionally supportive of men, as well as being unselfishly maternal and unconditionally loving of their children. While these are truly positive feminine traits, they are also one-sided. A woman who has only developed these traits without developing her sense of herself, will be terrified at the prospect of aging. When her children have left the house, her breasts are sagging and her skin is wrinkling, what does she have left? Women who only develop this side of themselves also tend not to have good boundaries. They have spent so many years making themselves totally and selflessly available to their husbands and children that they don't know where their families end and they begin. They have trouble saying no, and would be hard pressed to tell you when they last had an hour to themselves -- or what they'd most like to do with an hour if they had one. It's no wonder that the process of becoming a more individualized and free woman can be a frightening one. These women are craving self definition: Who am I? What's important to me? What really matters? What am I teaching my kids? What values do I stand for in my work? What are my personal creative gifts? They have to relearn their right to say, "No, I won't do that." "No, I don't have time." "No, I'm not available right now." Once a woman passes over the threshold of menopause and begins to redefine herself, she has the potential to discover the richest time of her life. She can look back on the energy and enthusiasm of youth as a thrilling and exciting time. Childbirth and parenting were magical and rewarding. A career was creative and empowering. Now her first fifty years life are digested and integrated into wisdom and freedom. If you talk to menopausal women you will find that once a woman comes across the 50 threshold and gets a year or two over it, very few would go back for anything other than a tight butt and fewer wrinkles. Menopause was once called the "dangerous age" because so many woman begin speaking their minds at that time of life. What the world needs more than anything is for a woman to have the courage to speak her mind. Menopause is a life cycle to be respected and looked forward to. In the future, menopausal women will once again be cherished and appreciated for the experience they bring to the rest of us, and looked upon as role models by younger women for their sense of individuality. E*


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Great info Evie, thanks. I had been to his site in my quest already and he does have many good things to say. I *do* wish he had some ideas on quelling the D though...







But the rest of it is good as are the articles K put up there.I feel like I am ready for this phase. It feels natural and I am actually looking forward to it being done already. It feels more like a beginning to me than an ending.Now, if I could get the D to take a break...







I guess I am gonna hafta be flexible here for a bit.BQ


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## HipJan (Apr 9, 1999)

I went from quite light, with shortened cycles, to suddenly bleeding to death. In between, I was almost "normal" for a little while, after I'd begun using natural pro. cream, which was refreshing. Then, ironically, the pendulum swung totally the other way. The "IBS" was comparatively manageable.


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2003)

B.Q. for me, Calcium Magnesium helped to quell the D. Right now, I am not having any IBS symptoms at all... except for occasional gas.Maybe when your estrogen begins to wane a bit, your D might also improve?Take care of yourself, Girlfriend Evie


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Well if the estrogen is causing this...........I will gladly donate some to anyone who might need any.







BQ


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## Guest (Jul 27, 2003)

No thanx, Sweetie... you can keep it all to yourself....


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## millicent (Jul 21, 2003)

Sorry to say that I'm hardly producing any estrogen and my D is as bad if not worse than ever.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Millicent, How maddening these changes all are! Huh? It is enuf to drive one batty.







If anything, this thread reinforces how very unique we all are. At least we can commiserate with each other and know, without doubt, we aren't alone.I am having a wee bit of success..... I think. Yesterday and today I had a "formed" BM. They would be the 3rd and 4th formed ones I have had over the course of the past 7 weeks now. Not sure yet what I can attribute this success to, or whether it will continue, but, today?, I am enjoying it none the less.







BQ


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## Guest (Jul 29, 2003)

Maybe some day they will have it all figured out?By then I'll probably be dead....


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## earthgarden (Jun 3, 2003)

I agree with this article, but apart from telling us what we basically already know, it doesn't give any advice on how to deal with it. I think improving our diet is crucial at this stage in our lives and has certainly benefited me personally. I make sure that I eat a balanced, healthy and portionately suitable diet now. I ensure that I eat dark fish at least once a week and red meat at least once a week. I had cut it out altogether for years, but feel better now I have introduced it again.Anyway........here's to us all, women of all ages, supporting one another throughout various struggles.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Yes, EarthGarden Here's to us all! And thanks Ladies...... I'm grateful.  BQ


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## Tlyon (Feb 20, 2001)

OMG!!!!! I just saw this thread. I am taking estrogen now for cysts (ovary) and my doctor is keeping me on it , because they are removing both of them in September, I am NOT looking forward to this, but the pain from the cysts is getting worse. Anyhoo, since I started taking it I have D every single day, 3 or 4 times a day, and now I know why. Gosh, sometimes being a woman really sucks.


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## HipJan (Apr 9, 1999)

could you not take some progesterone cream at the same time, perhaps? might help some, if you are allowed to take it.


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