18 Comments
author

Guess what showed up today. 🧙‍♀️ 🌝

Expand full comment
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

Of course you're closely analyzing whether your feelings are truly warranted or are exacerbated by what's going on inside your body. Of course you are. Meanwhile, every single man in my life is moody as hell on a semi-regular basis and as far as I can tell never asks whether this could be because they've eaten nothing but power bars and cheese curls for two days? Because they pride themselves on working too many hours? Not sleeping? Not having any kind of healthy outlets in life? No. Because everyone else. All the humans' emotions are chemically altered because emotions themselves are chemical. Only the female humans seem to take any responsibility for this.

Expand full comment
founding
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

honestly, it is unfathomable to me that I have been getting my period for DECADES and I have multiple apps and yet still I am like WHY AM I SO ANGRY? WHY DO I HATE EVERYTHING?. . .oh. EVERY. DAMN. MONTH.

Expand full comment
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

I had a hysterectomy earlier this year and while I no longer have periods, I still have my ovaries and therefore still have monthly insane PMS rages, and they manage to catch me off guard EVERY TIME. And my husband, too, infuriatingly responds knowingly every time... he really needs to be more careful because I might end up killing him.

Expand full comment

YES. I'm 44 (45 next month) and lately my PMS is just getting worse and worse. Not just the rage but the depression and the temperature imbalances. I see my gyno next week and am going to ask her to up my prozac to see if that helps at all. Otherwise I am going to have to actually build myself a menstrual cave to keep myself in for three weeks out of the month. For the safety of others.

Expand full comment
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

If you are annoyed by the every 5-7 month period in peri menopause, I’d suggest the following: rent an expensive beach house in Michigan City Bam! Period! Have a friend invite you to a lake house weekend. There you go. This went on for five (5) years until the 12 month mark moved me to actual menopause. I’ll just go put this bluebird of happiness back into its cage now.

Expand full comment
author

oh man! That's like the MUCH less cool version of lighting a cigarette to ensure a bus shows up.

Expand full comment
founding
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

My mom had a hysterectomy for fibroid tumor (the size of a volleyball!) in her mid 40s. But I had my kid at 40 and he killed my fibroid. So I’m entering into uncharted lady waters with no guidance except for a script for Wellbutrin in lieu of HBC for mood stabilization which seems to sort of work? It doesn’t cut out the lady rage, but I seem to have less brain fog than I do by nature. (The glorious nine months of pregnancy was pretty much the only time of my life where I could THINK every day. I’ve mostly come to terms with one and done for our family, but gods, I wish I could have had another pregnancy just to get shit done.)

Expand full comment
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

My enormous fibroid was described by my (very dryly funny) surgeon as "a football hanging off your uterus like a mickey mouse ear."

Expand full comment
founding
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

Uteri are so wild.

Expand full comment
author

a volleyball sized tumor!!!!!!!?

That is a fascinating premise for a Black Mirror type story--women who can only think when they're pg so they have to get pregnant to think but at what cost?

Expand full comment
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

OMG, this exact same thing just happened to me! I had my first 50-day stretch between periods (usually like 25). I have an IUD, I'm 42, I'm like, THERE IS NO WAY. I was one day away from buying a pregnancy test and it finally appeared. These next few years are probably going to be weird.

Expand full comment
author

My period this month was a single tiny red thread barely visible to the naked eye. A real Marie Kondo type of menses.

Expand full comment
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

After I had my daughter at 37, I know get a migraine a few days before the pre-period rage, so I usually am ready for it and recognize it. But only because I had to fight off a migraine for one to three days. But also, lately I have been getting all the PMS symptoms for a period but no period. And they all sort of hang around for a bit just as confused as I am that the main event is missing.

Expand full comment

I used to get these menstrual migraines! They are terrible! Once I got an IUD, they disappeared. Poof! Gone. Just a tweak of the hormones, I guess??

Expand full comment
author

That's fascinating. My cramps diminished when I switched from tampons to a cup. I tell myself the tampon's absorbency had something to do with it--I have no idea if this is true.

Expand full comment
Jun 10, 2022Liked by Claire Zulkey

Separate note: after the chat in the comments on Evil Witches earlier this week, I asked my doctor yesterday during my annual check up if there's anything I should be watching out for with regard to perimenopause, anything that I should be doing differently to prepare myself or take care of myself differently. He did not strike me as having loads of insights or curiosity into perimenopause (only using the word "menopause") but did list a bunch of signs that sound like what you're describing. He said with periods that they just become really temporally irregular, like maybe disappear for a few months and then come back, or you might have two periods in one month. "It's not pleasant." Thanks, doc! I wonder if at that point I'll just start wearing my beloved period underwear every day. They feel like regular underwear anyway. #Bambody.

Expand full comment

Last year I had the same thing for 7 months. I took a lot of pregnancy tests. In the end I discovered what was going on, because it wasn't just my period that went missing. I don't do any birth control, I track my cycle and have sex when I am not fertile and use a condom all the other days and it's been working perfectly. I was having an allergic reaction to the MRna ingredients in the covid-19 vaccines. At the time I traced my steps back and I had been around people who were newly vaccinated. I found a doctor who was tracking women's menstrual cycles during covid-19 and also after vaccination and the changes to their menstrual cycles, and I started tackling the issue. My period returned back to normal within a month after taking several vitamins/minerals and I haven't missed a period since. In the end I stopped with the vitamins, (because they were causing mood swings, and I never took vitamins in my life) and eventually stopped with the minerals too though I preferred the minerals (you drink it) over the vitamins and I haven't had any issues with my menstruation since. I'm 40 by the way. I felt exactly like you. I also thought it was early menopause but it wasn't. At the moment a lot of covid-19 vaccinated women (including my step daughters) are having a lot of menstrual issues because the ingredients of the covid-19 vaccines go straight to the ovaries or if you are not vaccinated you can still get impacted by it because MrNA vaccines transmit through the air by breath, liquid and sexually. Right now there are more things unexplained in the world then ever before and more toxins in our environment that is impacting our menstruation as women, so I would look to your environment for any clues. I have always had allergies/sensitivities to vaccines but it never crossed my mind I would experience it again. Radiation (EMF) and external stress can also impact your menstruation. Our bodies and environment are not how they used to be going back 100 years ago. There are far more toxins and stresses in our daily lives, environment, and towns and cities than ever, so if your menstruation is not working as regularly it's not your fault. Go explore and find out what is truly going on inside of you, because as I have discovered it was not what I had imagined.

Expand full comment