It has been occurring to me lately that this blog is pretty grim. If you're following it, I'm sorry about that. There are things in my life that are good, the best one being my canary, Lofty, who is singing as I type. He has made me a member of his flock. Having him living here with me brings me a great deal of joy.
Now, on to today's story.
I started BHRT 5 days ago. I was concerned about starting on estrogen right away -- my estrogen is indeed extremely low, but my progesterone is even lower, so I’m also extremely estrogen dominant. But my pharmacist wanted to stick as closely as possible to a natural schedule, so I agreed.
Turns out that my fears were well-founded. Even though my internist increased my dose of sleeping medication by 50% last week to try to get me out of the exhaustion trough I’ve been stuck in, with each passing day of estrogen it has had less and less effect. I got 9 hours of sleep the first night (blissful), then 8 1/2 the next night, then 8, then 7 1/2, then 7. I’ve been waking up with the sleeping meds still active, totally wired and unable to go back to sleep, and staggering around like a zombie. As long as the sleeping pill is still working, I have no short term memory at all, so it has made for some interesting situations. By the way, it still hurts to breathe all the time, so the combo has been extra delightful.
Yesterday I had a full-blown meltdown with huge anxiety and sobbing that required more Xanax. I realized that if this was happening on day 5 of my cycle, my mid-cycle mood swing this month might be a serious problem. I called the pharmacist today and told her what had happened, and she took me off the estrogen right away. She’s also going to start me on progesterone 2 days earlier than she had originally planned -- I explained the pattern of my mood swings again, and she agreed that it wouldn’t help a day 12 mood swing to start progesterone that evening. We’re going to try adding the estrogen back in next cycle, but at a lower dose.
So -- if I have seemed flaky, cranky, psychotic, large and green, or otherwise not myself, please hang in there for a couple more days till I can start progesterone.
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