(My original post about my fibroid tumor is here.)
So I decided to go with the Lupron treatment for my uterine fibroid tumor symptoms, but in the two weeks since my doctor appointment, their office has been having a hard time getting the paperwork through. The cogs of the insurance company move aggravatingly slowly, and in the meantime, I’m getting another period. F&#%!
It makes me hate being a woman, hate having a uterus, hate being young enough to still be menstruating. If getting my period had been this painful when I was in my 20s, I don’t know what I would have done. I’m sure suicide would have been even more attractive to me, and much more often. Fortunately, my period didn’t cause me much discomfort for most of my life. The real pain didn’t start until I was in my late 30’s, which is when I went on the pill. I went off the pill just last summer, tired of its side effects and determined to get my hormones in balance naturally. Even though being on the pill took care of my cramps, I don’t want to go back on it. I hear too much about serious side effects (including death) with the pill, plus at the age of 49, I’m not a good candidate for it. Few gynecologists put women over the age of 40 on the pill because the side effects become more dangerous with age.
Since menstruation became a long-term health crisis for me, I’ve become more drawn to things like BuzzFeed articles about the ordeal of menstrual cramps and illustrations that express what having a period feels like (one Buzzfeed article quotes a woman referring to “Lucifer’s waterfall.” Yup.). It seems that menstruation is extremely painful these days for many young women. Has it always been that way? I don’t remember my peers being in agony when I was a teenager, college student or young adult. Getting our periods was a drag, but it didn’t cause us to miss class or work.
Have fibroids gotten worse for the current generation of menstruating girls and women? Is this an American thing? Is it our crappy high-sugar/high-starch diet again? I know, I know: no studies have found a link between blood sugar/insulin levels and cancerous cells or fibroid tissue, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It means no long-term studies have been done on a possible sugar-cancer link (although a link has been found between insulin resistance and PCOS). And no such studies are going to be done because the American food industry is too heavily invested in keeping Americans hooked on sugar and starch.
All I know is that my cramps are much better when I stick 100% to no sugar, no grains, no dairy and no caffeine, but who the hell can live that way indefinitely? One hundred percent? Especially when even that doesn’t make the pain go away completely? I can imagine maintaining this diet most days of the week for the next 20 or 30 years, but 100% every single damn day? I can’t do it, even though my failure means that every month I swallow about 50 ibuprofen pills over two or three days and still don’t stay ahead of the pain.
The Lupron injection should stop my period, which I was really looking forward to, but the insurance company is as constipated as Congress, so yesterday I ordered another remedy I haven’t tried yet: Menastil. Dr. Christiane Northrup mentions it in her book The Wisdom of Menopause and I’m back to trying any non-prescription remedy that might reduce my cramps. (Please let this be my last period without medical treatment!) So here I go, back into slippery goddamn madness (damned insurance company!).