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WE HAVE MOVED TO www.lifewpmdd.com  PLEASE

UPDATE BOOKMARKS AND POST THERE.

CLICK HERE TO GET THERE: www.lifewpmdd.com

Grrr… NOT AGAIN!

Well, I don’t know why this is happening. This should be my good week to week and a half, yet I have the major migraines, crampy off and on, and just that feeling of not wanting to do anything. Walking, talking, living the way the ‘real’ me likes to live has become a pain once again. This time I am just angry inside even more because it has interrupted my small window of ‘good’ time.

I have switched over to my girlfriends schedule which has happened before (Why me I always tease her), but even worse, I then get to have my regular schedule too. Double whammy time… Oh Yippee…

Who knows. Maybe this time I won’t get hit twice.

Like I mentioned before, I am very thankful for my meds, at least I don’t have any raging. I am blessed for that. And like anyone else knows with PMDD, it’s hard during the tough times to count our blessings, but I am trying to remember too.

Weird Month

It’s strange, you would think living with PMDD for this many years, you would have seen/felt it all. NOPE!

This month was very weird, or should I say last month since we have now hit Oct- Holy cow!

My 2 wk time I felt, but it wasn’t bad at all, as a matter of fact, I considered it very smooth sailing and was so thankful for that because the month before had been a bit tougher. What was so weird was, after I started, my 2 wk time sorta kicked in. I wasn’t sad or mad or anything like that though, I was sarcastic.

LOL, I know you are thinking, sarcastic. Okay, I am sarcastic to some degree just as a personality trait, but this was weird enough that at one point my husband giggled and said, “I haven’t ever seen this PMDD one yet, you are strange, LOL.”

I could feel it too. It wasn’t sarcastic as it to hurt someone’s feelings but it was like everything someone said, even if I didn’t say the words out loud, in my head, I was saying some smart a** comment back. Not overly rude/hurtful, but definitely enough to stop whoever would have heard if (if they could read minds) in their tracks. :)

I don’t even think this post describes it well enough, it was just strange. And you know it’s really strange if the husband mentions it with a grin.

You talkin’ to me!?!  LOL

My 10 yr old and I are Walking the Walk for Breast Cancer

My daughter and I will be walking the 3 mile walk on October 20th to help raise money to fight breast cancer. We are super excited. When I moved to SC from TX I met a Mom that I have become really great friends with. Her Mom, unfortunately, lost her battle with breast cancer last November at the young age of 46. I am going to show my support by walking along side her in October, my daughter and I. I think it will be a good experience for my daughter as much as for myself. If you would like to donate even just $1 towards the fight for Breast Cancer, please click on my link, I am working hard to surpass my goal of raising more than $125.

Donate to fighting Breast Cancer

Thanks in advance to all of you for reading and passing this link on to anyone you know that would be interested in donating.

Stef (and my daughter, Chloe)

Technorati Tags: breast cancer , lowcountry race , 3 mile walk , 5k

Windows Live Writer for blogging

I just started using Windows Live Writer for blogging, I LOVE it.

If you haven’t tried it, you should give it a go. It is so nice and convenient to use with wordpress.

I am also super excited, I have started a PMDD book. LOL, I don’t know if anyone will be overly excited to read it, but anyone who has PMDD knows it is super hard to find anything online about PMDD.

It is also going to have a section for spouses/partners, mine has definitely dealt with it for a long time.

It will have my personal story, even more detailed than my blog, because with a book it’s easier, or so I think. Like I said before, it will have a spouses’ section.

I am including a section on taking care of ourselves and a ton of other important things anyone with PMDD needs to know.

I am excited, I have a lot of work to do, but am trying to stay very focused. For me, that takes a lot. :)

What do you think? I would love to know what you guys think about a PMDD book. Is it something that you would find important, helpful, interesting?

I suppose it’s also going to be a big learning experience too, going through PMDD step by step from the beginning again… We shall see…

Anyway, again, try Windows Live Writer if you haven’t. The great thing is if you aren’t online you can do your blog for as long as you would like and then when you go online you can just publish all of them to your blog site.

I have wireless so I am always online, but I have found that some of the other ‘tools’ are more convenient too.

Enjoy,

 

Hard lesson learned… eating badly

It has probably 5 years since I had fried okra, LOL. We don’t eat fried food, but when I was at the store yesterday I got this craving for fried okra. Just completely out of the blue.

Even worse than the fact that it’s fried, I am in my 2 wk time so anything fried is WAY OFF LIMITS!

Oh man! It was SO yummy. I had to pay the price. I was sick all night long.

I am sure that my body wasn’t used to all of the grease first off, but PMDD and fried food don’t mix… You know when you get in one of those moods to just do it anyway.

Let this be a warning to you. Don’t do it!

Save yourself. I admit, even today I was thinking how yummy it was, but uggg… just don’t do it!

moved from ifuknew site to life w/ PMDD, (posted by Candy)

Candy | canliz@bellsouth.net | IP: 68.154.36.234

I also SUFFER from PMDD, and also Depression lately on what is suppose to be my ONE good week. My PMDD has worsened in the last six month, I didn’t think it was possible but it is, my muscle pain is severe and fatigue debilitating. What has me really down is that I am being laid off from my current job, which is a blessing for everyone involved , my issue is WHO is going to hire someone who is only effective, one week a month! I get by at my current job, because my doctor submitted FMLA.

Sep 19, 11:04 PM — [ Edit | Delete ] — View post “About Me”

PMS predicts problem Menopause

I knew this from my doctor, this was one of the main reasons I am working so hard to get my PMDD controlled now so that my Menopause years won’t be spent spinning my wheels too.

I refuse to spend the rest of my days ‘figuring’ out life with PMDD or life with Menopause, LOL… I laugh, but I am NOT joking!

Here is another article from womenlivingnaturally.com

PMS Predicts Problem Menopause

More Hot Flashes, Mood Swings Reported Later in Life for PMS Sufferers Women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS) are likely to have a harder time later in life during the transition to menopause, new research shows. In a study published in the May issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, investigators found that PMS suffers were twice as likely to experience hot flashes and mood swings as they approached “the change” as women who did not have PMS. While it may seem unfair, the link does make sense, according to Pamela Boggs the North American Menopause Society director of Education and Development. She says women with PMS tend to be especially sensitive to fluctuating hormones, and fluctuating hormones are also the cause of the symptoms associated with the time prior menopause, known as perimenopause. “We have known for some time that if a woman has bad PMS in her younger years this is a fairly good predictor of a bad perimenopause,” she said. “During this period estrogen levels are high some days and low others, and this is especially troubling for women who are sensitive.” From PMS to Hot Flashes Most women reach menopause, defined as having a year without a period, in their early 50s. Perimenopause is the period lasting a decade or so before that when menstrual bleeding become erratic and many women experience hot flashes, depression, and other well-known symptoms associated with the end of the reproductive years. In the newly reported study, researchers followed 436 women approaching perimenopause for five years, in an effort to determine if PMS was predictive of these common symptoms. All the women were between the ages of 35 and 47 when enrolled in the study, and all reported normal menstrual cycles during the preceding three months. PMS symptoms declined significantly as menstrual bleeding became less frequent, with the likelihood of having PMS decreasing by 26% among the women considered to be in early perimenopause and by 80% among women who were late in the transition period. The women with PMS at enrollment were twice as likely to report hot flashes during the study period, and slightly more than twice as likely to report having symptoms of depression. Women with PMS were also 50% more likely to report problems with sexual desire and 72% more likely to report problems sleeping. Symptoms Similar Clinicians often have a hard time distinguishing between PMS and perimenopause because many of the symptoms are similar. This study showed that a main defining characteristic of menopausal symptoms is the fact that they can occur at anytime and are not, like PMS, cyclic in nature. We concluded that changes in cycle length may, in fact, signify the transition to menopause, and that symptoms occurring frequently throughout the cycle, and not just during the premenstrual period were also predictive,” author Ellen W. Freeman, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.

blogroll stuff

Now that I am looking over other blogs I see that their blogrolls are missing too. I had to go back and readd all of my blog rolls, even though they all still said that they were there.

If anyone else is having probs, it fixes if you go back and readd them though they already say added.

Just though I’d save u the aggravation of figuring out why they were missing, or better yet how to fix it.

menstrual suppression article

I came across this article on menstrual suppression on womenlivingnaturally.com. I don’t know one way or another if it’s good or bad for you, however, I do know that some Women with PMDD are trying it. Personally, it’s not for me, I am not trying BC again. I do like to put out any articles and info I come across though to keep things helpful for other Moms that are looking for different options.

www.womenlivingnaturally.com

Menstrual Suppression

Menstrual suppression is continuous use of hormonal contraceptives for preventing the coming of menstruation.Health Care Professionals who care for women as patients should understand the interplay between sex hormones and well-being. The peer-reviewed literature, whether focused on metabolic bone diseases, cardiovascular health, atherosclerotic processes, immunology, sexual response cycles, or studies of cognition, continues to reveal complex associations among physiology, behavior, and sex hormones. Cyclic secretions of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, androstenedione, and DHEA(S) play significant roles in maintaining the cascade of physiological events that promote healthy bone metabolism, sexual interest and response, and cardiovascular function, as well as adequate sleep and energy cycles.Ovarian hormones influence diverse neuroendocrine pathways: Beta endorphins, melatonin, oxytocin, growth hormone, prostaglandins, and the adrenal androgens (including DHEA{S}) are all increasingly being identified as intimately dependent upon the cyclic secretions of ovarian hormones. Excessively high or low levels of the hormones are associated with many diseases. Estrogen has been shown to play a structural role in the central nervous system, interacting with progesterone to help maintain both nerves and myelinization. And now it seems that the cyclic progesterone of a fertile menstrual cycle is responsible for triggering other hormone secretions such as oxytocin which, in turn, enhances sexual sensation of uterine and breast tissue by enhancing contractility. Fertile cycles promote the excretion of sex-attractant pheromones. Oral contraceptives which are monophasic suppress (flatten) the cyclic rise and fall of sex hormones and have negative effects on sexual interest (libido), in contrast to the triphasics, which yield better sexual response in women. Bones represent another concern. The life history of a healthy woman’s bone shows the period of rapid pubescent growth of long bones to conclude when the end-plates close shortly after puberty. Thereafter, provided her calcium intake exceeds the obligatory daily calcium excretion (estimated at about 600 mgs per day), and her health habits are good, with regular monthly ovulatory menstrual cycles, her bones continue to accrete mineral by thickening instead of lengthening through her mid-thirties. The thicker the bone she is able to build, the less vulnerable to fracture she will be during her menopausal years. The regulation of bone remodeling involves a continual cycling of bone reobsorption and bone formation and is under the control of hormones and other factors that include: mechanical stress, inorganic phosphate levels, and plasma calcium levels. The rate of bone formation diminishes at the same time of life that the fertile rhythm of the menstrual cycle moves into the aging pattern of the perimenopausal transition years, usually around age 40. Once the dynamic process of bone reobsorption and bone formation are no longer closely linked (termed “uncoupled bone remodeling”) bone loss occurs. Experts suggest that bone remodeling is closely coupled to the ovarian cycle of the fertile years, and that a high (29%) rate of ovulatory disturbance, generally unappreciated by either the woman or her physician, occurs in 20-45 year old healthy women. The consequence of these hidden ovulatory disturbances is a dramatically declining spinal bone density in young women. Young women develop old women’s bones. Progesterone in cyclic opposition to estrogen is not yet universally appreciated for its essential role in bone metabolism. Hence it is an informed concern that menstrual suppression will have long term negative effects on bone remodeling. Traditional medical practices have long focused on disease treatment, which necessarily pays insufficient respect to the importance of learning how the exquisite female cycle, so rich and complex, may contribute to the increased life span women enjoy in comparison to their male counterparts. The natural fertility cycle is a great gift of nature. Until each of the above captioned physiologic systems has been carefully tested for adverse effects of “menstrual or cycle suppression”, we would remind all of us of the wisdom of the Hippocratic Oath. ABOVE ALL DO NO HARM. For now, we should caution women: Revel in the cycles of your youth. They are the key to your health, your sex attractant pheromones, your longevity, your very femininity. And model your HRT regimens to mimic the cyclic nature of a woman whether you do or do not still possess a uterus.