Post #5

My patch hates me

The Crone Chaos Report · Filed under: Incidents Requiring Coffee and Strong Language

So let me tell you what’s bugging the crap out of me today. Maybe it’s easier to say what’s not. Let’s face it everything is irritating and annoying. I feel like a teenager going through puberty. Without all the great stuff that comes out of the other end like, hopes and dreams, adventure, sex and fun. FUCK THAT, my anti-puberty is just a drain flush and half the time it’s blocked and needs a plunger. Suffice to say this Crone feels CRAPPY every single second of the day.

Today is patch change day. I dread it. Why you cry when I’m getting topped up with all that delicious estrogen? The magical cure-all that will take me in a time machine back to pre-Crone days? Well that’s BULL because it doesn’t or in my case isn’t the answer to everything. Not yet anyway. I still have hope despite being crabby and gnarled and having no faith in anything but chaos and mayhem. At first many moons ago my patch was friendly, sat on my hip or my belly once a week, doing its thing. Being a BFF. Now and again it would un-stick, but most of the time it behaved and gave me a boost of what was low. I felt okay, not fabulous but okay - my symptoms lessened and I could chart it like clockwork. Patch on. Arm skin more baby soft, less crocodile, hairbrush filled with less hair (sorry birds and mice wanting some for nest building!), I slept through the night, made snake hip moves on Tatter Cloak etc.

But this past year having increased doses several times over the years, I discovered that my twice weekly former BFF is now my frenemy. This bitch is down-right stubborn and rebellious, she’s turning on me at any chance. Hrm even my patch is behaving like a teenager.

The day before, I have my mini-meltdown and by that I mean crying like I’m auditioning for Alice in Wonderland: The Musical, and feeling dread. Oh so much dread and anxiety that I have found myself having thoughts way too dark even for a Crone of my experience. That’s advanced stuff. So you’d expect I’d jump at the patch change? Nope. First of all the patch glue itches like crazy, I have a trick where I apply a swipe of Flonase (nasal spray) to the area just before, let it dry, then voila. Second, the rate at which it dispenses its benevolence is not consistent. So patch change day equals waiting for my levels to top up and that takes me a day. I’d like to say I can cope with most of my symptoms but the one that floors me is the anxiety. Ironically the patch makes me anxious, as does the weather, or my tea cup. Taking my progesterone pill does that too. Basically everyFUCKINGthing and anyFUCKINGthing can set me off. And guess what because I never know which level my hormones are at, at any given time, this anxiety can slap me in the face unexpectedly. Or it simply simmers in the background, gestating. Like I said, broody, moody and vindictive like a teenager.

Over the years I have come to realize that I always had anxiety. Low level, but there. I never got medicated for it but now as the hormonal balance is so wildly fluctuating I see that the beast has grown. It’s big and wild and out of control. Not unusual, many of us experience anxiety levels skyrocketing as the hormones we are used to, start playing up. The drop in estrogen particularly coincides with a drop in serotonin that feel-good neurotransmitter, that triggers anxiety and panic. Throw stress hormone cortisol into the mix and that spikes to make things even more chaotic. Estrogen is like the good big sister keeping little sis, cortisol in check, so when it drops mayhem ensues. Finally low progesterone the calming hormone also leaves the building.

What happens next is, in a word. CHAOS. Fight or flight and utter mayhem. Fucking marvelous! Don’t forget, those with diagnosed anxiety and in treatment, might not be affected by hormone shifts or they may also get worse symptoms. You just never know. But if I hear another medical professional try to push anti-anxiety or anti-depressants on me, I think I might throttle them. Not condoning violence (just imagining it in glorious Technicolor!)

So I suppose that’s what’s driving me nuts today. Not knowing. Not preparing. But as a wise old crone once said… being prepared for the unknown is predictability in itself. Not bad hey?

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