ACK! Hormone Imbalance >.<

Due to heavy bleedings and irregular periods, my lady boss sent me to Damansara Specialist Hospital on the 2nd of July. After consultation, few Q&A sessions, urine test and ultrasound, I was medically declared as a hormone imbalance sufferer. Sounds funny? Well, FUNNY MY ASS! It’s NOT ok. Seriously its not at all :

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WHAT IS HORMONE IMBALANCE ACTUALLY? http://www.safemenopausesolutions.com/hormoneimbalance.html

“In the normal menstrual cycle, only estrogen is produced for the first 10-12 days. Ovulation then tells the female body to produce progesterone, and the hormones are in balance. Progesterone sustains the endometrium, so it can receive a fertilized egg if pregnancy occurs. If there's no pregnancy, then the body stops producing both hormones, and menstruation occurs.
BUT - let's say you have NO ovulation one month (a typical pre-menopause event). Then the estrogen already produced for that month is NEVER balanced by progesterone, which can only be produced with ovulation. Therefore, it produces estrogen, but LESS progesterone. THIS is hormone imbalance and is causing hormone imbalance symptoms, symptoms female hormone imbalance and fluctuations in hormone levels.

Estrogen is still produced in the monthly cycle (you'll have a monthly period), but a missed ovulation means no progesterone is made! And unbalanced estrogen is... TOXIC!”

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And yes, of course one thing leads to another. What actually happens when my silly progesterone is not being made by my body? Here’s a few of the symptoms, just in case you’re wondering…


Estrogen Effects • Weight gain • Depression, headaches • Fibrocystic breasts • Breast cancer risk • Increases risk of gall bladder • Increases endometrial cancer • Decreases sex drive • Increases blood clotting • Causes thyroid imbalance • Irregular menstrual flow • Elevated blood pressure • Risk of miscarriage • Depletes bone density (WHICH EXPLAINS WHY AM I GETTING SICKER ALL THE TIME : )

Progesterone Effects • Utilizes fat for energy • Natural antidepressant • Protects fibrocystic breasts • Decreases risk of breast cancer • Needed for embryo survival • Prevents endometrial cancer • Restores sex drive • Normalizes blood clotting • Causes thyroid balance • Normalizes periods • Regulates blood pressure • Prevents miscarriages • Stimulates bone density

Ok, you see that Progesterone thingy goes up and the Estrogen falls down? My Progesterone are not produce, hence the cycle of having a normal period does not occurs. And it left me with a LOT of Estrogen (read back above to see Estrogen Effects). And if there is a hormone imbalance, then the person would be UNABLE TO REPRODUCE!

Other than that, EXCESS Adrenalin seems to be another problem for me. These are intense, type A personalities - which can be described as impatient, excessively time-conscious, insecure about their status, highly competitive, hostile and aggressive, incapable of relaxation, often high achieving workaholics who multi-task, drive themselves with deadlines, and are unhappy about the smallest of delays. WOW, I seem to be all cranked up :P

Ouh and suddenly I know that my “Ape-like body hair” is not because of my parent’s genetic whatsoever. Yeah, I got all those hair at all those places. So, Miss Sexy Chewbacca, who’s hairier? Me or you? *ROFL*

And the most common symptoms are weight increase, fatigue and loss of short-term memory, pain and anxiety.

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ANXIETY AND PANIC ATTACKS http://www.onlineallergycenter.com/treatments/hormone_imbalance.htm

In instances of major fatigue and anxiety the patients have reached a state of adrenal exhaustion which results in low cortisol. When this occurs there is no choice but to use our backup emergency hormone, adrenalin, for all the things are regulated by cortisol: energy, allergy and stress. Whenever your body calls on your adrenal gland and says, "we need some energy, send us some cortisol," your adrenal gland replies, "sorry girl, you’ve been out of cortisol these last few months; but we'll send you what we've got plenty of…adrenalin."

Adrenalin is design for life-threatening EMERGENCIES. So, you end up with the effect of progesterone out of balance with estrogen... hair loss, etc., the typical perimenopausal or menopausal symptoms. Furthermore, you use adrenalin for all the things for which you usually use cortisol. Adrenalin will get it done, but it is a very uncomfortable form of energy. Hard, brittle energy. Very tense for an hour and a half or two, then the bottom drops out as your sugar drops precipitously.

So, then, we "drug" ourselves with some food or drink so we can feel better again. This is how we get into food allergy and addiction. If we drink something we are mildly allergic to (like a Coke or a cup of coffee) our body has a mild allergic reaction and releases a dose of adrenalin. In moments we begin to feel better. More energy. More alert. Less shaky. This gives us a couple of hours of energy. Then the bottom falls out all over again. This means we will have seven or eight of these two hour excursions each day. Each adrenalin excursion is a little lower than the previous one. By the end of the day we are absolutely exhausted. Out of gas. It's over.

Eventually you fall asleep in absolute exhaustion, but... YOU DON'T REST! You will sleep fitfully, perhaps awaken with any "click" or "pop" in the house. Most will awaken between 2 and 3 AM because mold sporulates (reproduces) at about 2 AM and, as it pours out of AC systems, our bodies react with yet another burst of adrenalin which wakes us up and often “scares the pee” out us as many will feel an urgent need to urinate. We fall back asleep, in continuing exhaustion, and awaken in the morning feeling like we haven't had enough "rest" and this is indeed the case.

If we are using adrenalin to run our daily lives, we are like someone who has had way too much coffee. They will eventually fall asleep, but they cannot sink deeply enough asleep to get REM (rapid eye movement) sleep or fourth level, restorative sleep. If we are over-adrenalized we cannot seem to catch up on our rest. In fact, the longer we sleep, the worse we feel.

Now we have a new problem... CHRONIC SLEEP DEPRIVATION. And you thought you were "jittery" before. So you get up feeling like you haven't had enough rest (and indeed you haven't) and what do you have to do? Put out a squirt of adrenalin to begin your day... And the pattern begins to repeat itself, day after day. Now we begin to feel frequent chest tightness, shortness of breath, tingling and numbness, difficulty swallowing, gastric acid reflux, stomach aches, joint pain and severe irritability.

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Haaa! So I think now you guys got the clear picture of why I’m not onlining that much, I’m not talking that much, I kept on saying I’m not feeling well – coz I AM NOT WELL *sobs* As for that, the doctor prescribed me this medication to be taken EVERYDAY, non-stop.


NORETHISTERONE

”It contains norethisterone, which is a synthetic form of the naturally occurring female sex hormone, progesterone. The progesterone-only pill acts by affecting the natural mucus at the neck of the womb. Norethisterone increases the thickness of this mucus making it more difficult for sperm to cross from the vagina into the womb. By preventing sperm entering the womb, successful fertilization of an egg, leading to pregnancy, is less likely. Norethisterone also acts to change the quality of the womb lining (endometrium). This prevents the successful implantation of a fertilized egg onto the wall of the womb, thereby preventing pregnancy. Norethisterone may also prevent the release of an egg from the ovary.”

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS
Rash
Depression
Irregular menstrual cycle
Breast tenderness/swelling
Nausea and vomiting
Weight changes
Headache/migraine
Changes in sex drive
Menstrual spotting between periods
Irregular brown patches on the skin of the face and elsewhere (chloasma)

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But the stubborn me stops after taking the pills for a few days because of few side effects they have on me. And I began to feel depress out of it. After I stop taking it, I feel I’m back to the normal me. But all of the sudden, my heavy flow bleeding starts again. So I called up the doctor instead on Tuesday morning, asking if there’s any other method that I could try or any other prescription that he could give me. A simple “NO” – there’s no other medicine than that pill; and another “NO” – for I could not stop the medication at all, if not the bleeding would occur over and over again.

And what if I don’t take the medication at all?
“Then I need to send you for a surgery to clean your vagina in which the bleeding occurs… That would cost you thousands and NO it won’t stop your bleeding. Just a clean up so that there won’t be any infection in your vagina caused by prolong bleeding.”

But at the moment, THIS is living!

I like what he does to me. Keeping my mind occupied all the time. Thinking, imagining, and my thoughts lingers everyway that it could. Is this what you called a “mind-stimulating conversation”? Whatever it is, indeed I am happy. Thankful, yeah… That’s the exact word I think.

I was born as a Muslim. Yes, it printed on my identification card – Islam. But who am I actually? How could they put everyone into a religion that is automatically taken from our birth parents? Why can’t we live, learn and choose what we wanted to believe in? Before you begin to curse me in what-so-ever way you could, please stop. I already received a lot of it and I’ve seen at least Chewbacca been shot by few people who thinks “we as mere human, can’t have doubts nor asking or wondering about our own religion.” Err, asking and wanting to know is not wrong at all. So please, let me be me.

It’s been a while I felt that warmth fuzzy feeling when I indulge into spiritual issues. God, good Lord. Yes, Allah. I remember the last time is when I’m studying at Perak after finishing my Maghrib and Isya’ prayers and reading few short Surah afterwards. Asking for His forgiveness, crying and felt asleep on the sajadah – woke up in the middle of the night with tons of miscalls from my roommate who’s involved in an accident and was in hospital. Last week, a day driving in the car, talking about God, the purpose of us living, I don’t know how he does it; somehow a door is opened for me to walk in. Is the “an-Nur” (the Light) finally coming to me? Alhamdulillah if it does. No, I’m not automatically turning into a pious all of the sudden. Just a thank you note to You. He remembers me indeed, still :) And I’m still searching for Him in my life. As for now, I can breathe out and give a warm sigh with a smile and looking things in life as a test from Him. His simple way of reminding us; why are we created in the first place? – To serve Him.

For me, I need to know first in what I believe in or going to believe later on. I don’t want to do something just because others doing it. I need to know why we do it, the real reason, the purpose of it, and NO, don’t say just because it’s in the Five Pillars of Islam and the Six Pillars of Faith so I freaking must do it without any questions asked. Wow, this is quite a long entry. Well, as for right now, there are few issues about my life other than this spiritual thingy. And my problem got worse by today. Called up my doctor, and he said this and that strictly or else… But I don’t wanna talk about it here… Perhaps, later.

All I need right now is a freaking someone to hug me to sleep and lie to me that everything’s gonna be alright when I open my eyes tomorrow.