Catching Up With You

Part of the reason I'm not posting here with the delicious regularity I was previously posting is that I got a warning type note at work. Could have been for the professional association blog I administrate, but also could have been from here. Which means that I can't access this blog from work, from fear of being found out...or fired. So, thanks for being patient while I try to work computer time into personal time... (shouldn't be a challenge, but somehow, it is!)

Things are going fine here. I had lunch with J and her precious ones this week and she immediately said that she could see a difference in my face. I call this, "losing my moon face." It was one of the things I've hated most about the condition I now know is excess estrogen. In addition, since going off the Pill, I don't feel anxious, don't feel depressed, have only had one spell of pain (previously, the endometriosis gave me pain about four of seven days a week), haven't taken a single prescription strength naproxen, haven't had a headache, and...embarassingly (but I'm putting it all out here) a fine layer of white "fuzzy face" on my jawline (thank G*d I'm blonde), which I was in constant maintenance to eliminate, has completely disappeared.

So, no pain, no nutso feelings, no fat face and no micro beard. Sounds like going off the Pill is a winning decision. So far, so good. I am taking a supplement that is all vegetable derived and is supposed to help detoxify the body of excess estrogen. I plan to keep taking it for at least these first three months...the approximation of time it takes to get normal after extended Pill use.

The challenge now will be to find a doctor who isn't prescription happy, who won't get weirded out by my desire to actively manage and research my health (though trust me...I'm not going to become a fanatic. I just feel smarter now...) and who will help me navigate my way through pre menopause.

I know this post is long and winding through the fields of estrogen, and I promise that this isn't what this blog will become. But it's heavy on my mind. I feel a responsibility to inform my obviously naive OBGYN to the downfalls of prescribing estrogen heavy birth control pills to patients with stage four endometriosis. I had surgery for that, dammit, and no wonder the symptoms came back...the very thing I had surgery for is fueled by estrogen. In a word, duh.

So...I guess...three weeks out, I'm better than I've been in a long time. I don't think it's all in my head. I think that I was headed for a bad spot in my wellness...the weight was packing on, the energy was zapped, the migraines frequent. I was becoming less and less me, and more and more the list of symptoms you hear at the end of a commercial.

I hope that wherever you are and whatever you're doing, you feel the best you can. If you don't, empower yourself. I'm by no means a know it all on this business...there are legitimate reasons to take the Pill! And I am not anti medicine. But I am pro knowledge, and that is a pretty comfortable place to be...