Hot sweats

My sister in law sent me this piece, written by Lonnie Schlein in The New York Times.

Having a husband on hormone treatment for prostate cancer, and going through the menopause myself, this rang more than a few bells....

As my wife and I sat on the couch one night this past winter, reading and half-watching the inevitable HGTV, I started sweating hard and my face got so fevered and flushed that I felt as if I were peering into an oven.
I turned to Deb and said, “Man, I’m having a wicked hot flash.” And she said, “Me, too.” Then we laughed. You laugh a lot — unless your hormones are making you cry — when you’re having menopause with your wife.

"I was in the middle of treatment for an aggressive case of prostate cancer last winter, and it included a six-month course of hormone therapy. My Lupron shots suppressed testosterone, which is the fuel for prostate cancer.

When your testosterone is being throttled, there are bound to be side effects. So, with the help of Lupron, I spent a few months aboard the Good Ship Menopause with all the physical baggage that entails. It’s a trip that most men don’t expect to take.

The side effect that surprised me most were the hot flashes — not that I got them, I was expecting that, but by how intense they were. They often woke me in the middle of the night and made me sweat so much that I drenched the sheets. In midwinter I’d walk our miniature poodle, Bijou, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I sometimes felt as if Deb could fry eggs on my chest. (It’s also a bit disconcerting when your hot flashes are fiercer than your wife’s.)

When it comes to hot flashes, ladies, I salute you. After my brief dalliance with that hormonal phenomenon, it seems to me it’s an under-reported condition. And it’s certainly under-represented in the arts. Where are the great hot flash novels or movies? How come there’s not a Web site or magazine called “Hot Flash Monthly”?
Hand in hand with the hot flashes came the food cravings. I lusted after Cheetos and Peanut Butter M&M’s, maple-walnut milkshakes, and spaghetti and meatballs buried in a blizzard of Parmesan. Isn’t it funny how cravings very rarely involve tofu, bean curd or omega-3 oils?

Then there was the weight issue. During the six months I was on Lupron I gained about 25 pounds. That was partly a byproduct of the cravings, but it also stemmed from the hormonal changes triggered in my body.

And I hated it, hated it, hated it. I had never had to worry about my weight, and I began to understand why media aimed at women and girls obsess over weight so much. It was strange and unsettling not to be able to tell my body, “No,” when it wanted to wolf down a fistful of Doritos slathered with scallion cream cheese.

When I wasn’t devouring a king-size Italian sub or smoldering from a hot flash, it seemed that I was crying. The tears would usually pour down when I got ambushed by some old tune: “Sweet Baby James” and “Fire and Rain” by James Taylor, “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” by Carly Simon and, yes, “It’s My Party” by Lesley Gore. Not only was I temporarily menopausal, but it appeared that I was also turning into a teenage girl from the early 1970s.

There were other side effects, too, like headaches and fatigue. But when I started drinking Diet Coke for the first time in my life, my son Owen couldn’t take it anymore. He said, “Dad, are you turning into a chick?”

So, what else did I learn during my six months of hormone therapy?

Even though I only got to spend a brief time on the outer precincts of menopause, it did confirm my lifelong sense that the world of women is hormonal and mysterious, and that we men don’t have the semblance of a clue.

And, guys, when your significant female other bursts into tears at the drop of a dinner plate or turns on you like a rabid pit bull — whether she’s pregnant, having her period or in the throes of menopause — believe her when she blames it on the hormones.

One more thing. I don’t really know whether menopause likes company — you’d have to ask my wife that — but I do know that it really, really likes HGTV and Peanut Butter M&M’s."


 

An epistle on hormones

Last night I celebrated the menopause.

Yes, I say ‘celebrate’ because for the last two or three months I have been having trouble sleeping. I thought this was due to stress. Which in part it was. The writing business is incredibly competitive, and in journalism trying to break into a new market isn’t easy. So I felt under tremendous pressure to prove myself.

I succeeded, but the price to pay was increased anxiety and sleepless nights.

Soon I began to realise that sleeping had become a Problem. And once you start worrying about something as basic as sleeping, it becomes much more difficult to sleep. Having a very active brain, the only time I do switch off is when I’m asleep, so sleep is crucial. And when I couldn’t I was lying there worrying because I wasn’t sleeping and knew I’d be tired the next day – and so on it goes.

I tried everything. With a sleeping pill I could get 5 or 6 hours kip a night. Without I got 2 or 3 hours, and I really don't function on 3 hours sleep. But I worried because I didn't want to get addicted to them. I tried heavier lined curtains, milky drinks – you name it. And no, I’m afraid any herbal remedies had absolutely no effect.

I started getting more worried, thinking I couldn’t cope. Why couldn’t I cope? I always had done before.

In desperation, and after nearly 3 months of this, I started seeing a counsellor and it was an incredible relief to spill out all my worries to someone who was able to deal with them. I didn’t have to worry about worrying her. She understood. And that goes a long way.

I finished the first draft of my novel and thought – hooray! I can celebrate! Forget about it and have some time off.

Then an agent emailed saying she would like to see the entire manuscript of my previous novel. Normally I would have jumped in the air, celebrating, but as I knew it needed some revision, that prospect seemed more pressure than I could cope with.
I needed a holiday. Badly.

Then I got an abscess, and two lots of antibiotics had drastic effects so I had to stop taking them. Then my GP gave me something else to knock me out at night and the effect of that was my heart started banging so hard I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. I lay in bed, holding onto Himself for dear life, crying, “I’m frightened.”

After that I seemed to have palpitations on and off – like having an ongoing panic attack. For no reason. I despaired of ever sleeping again properly. I felt I was cracking up. And having done so, many years ago, I knew that dark tunnel is the most terrifying place you can imagine. Literally a living hell. Where you can’t relax, don’t feel safe, feel as if you are splintering into tiny fragments. Don’t go there.

We came back from our break and I managed to get some rest and sleep a bit better. But on Monday I woke up and my heart was racing – another day long panic attack. Oh no. What was I to do?

I met a dear friend for lunch which I couldn’t eat. Food wasn’t going down. Another bad sign for me. She listened thoughtfully and said, ‘do you think this might be the beginning of the menopause?’

I looked at her and a large question mark filled my mind. I raced back home and googled ‘menopause symptoms’. There I read –
“insomnia often due to anxiety. Racing heart – palpitations. Sore breasts. Irregular periods – or none at all.” In fact the only symptom I didn’t have was hot flushes.

I could have cried with relief. I wasn’t cracking up. It was The Change!

Suddenly everything fell into place. I looked up my file from Dr Gray and saw she had written, “if you start to feel low start taking half a patch (HRT) twice a week. If symptoms don’t improve, raise the dose.” The last time I’d seen her I was feeling fine, which was why I hadn’t remembered this significant gem of advice.

I rang her, just to make sure and she said, “you’ve done absolutely the right thing. But if you need me, you know where I am.” What sweet words of comfort.

So I opened a lovely bottle of wine and Pip and I toasted my hormones.

Since then I am now sleeping better, have cut down my sleeping pills and hope to be off them for good very soon.

Courtesy of our break I am more relaxed, enjoying editing my novel before I send it off to the agent, and have finished a piece on our wedding for a bridal magazine. Next in the pipeline is a piece on zerobalancing. But I am enjoying the variety and the challenge. Every day is different and while I must be careful not to overdo things, I love what I do. And I intend to get better.

My counsellor has signed me off, saying she’s there if I want her. But I seem “in a good place at the moment” and why rock the boat? Why indeed?

I walked Mollie round the castle this morning and enjoyed the sunshine, the sweet scent of the dog roses. I was incredibly grateful just to be alive and be happy. To love and be loved. To live in such a beautiful place. And to have the support when things go wrong.

So the motto of this epistle is – take breaks. Don’t work too hard. Enjoy life. Ask for help if you need it. And remember, if you’re of a certain age and start feeling you really can’t cope. Stop. Listen. It could well be your hormones.

Synchronising hot flushes?

This last week has heralded the onset of hot flushes. Still, I’d rather have hot ones than cold ones, though they do disrupt my sleep somewhat. I didn’t think about it much as I’ve always tended to overheat at night, but last weekend I was extremely down, which isn’t like me, convinced that I’d never ever get anything published again in the rest of my life – etc., and was so tired I kept having to go to bed in the afternoons. (I’m now completely hyperactive but we won’t go there.)
It was Himself who took me aside the other day and said, ‘I’ve been thinking, Pop, and I don’t think it’s the writing that’s getting you down. You’re experienced enough to know that you get bad times but you always bounce back. I think it might be to do with your body clock.’ Dear man – remember this is from someone who’s never been married before.

I nearly smote my forehead, like they do in films, and cried, ‘oh me!’ Instead I Googled ‘menopause and perimenopausal symptoms’. And guess what – they were all there. Including ‘loss of libido.’

This is something that has a touch of rather cruel irony to it. The hormone treatment that Himself had for prostate cancer meant that he had the equivalent of the menopause and had continual hot flushes. And because testosterone is responsible for producing prostate cancer, they have to knock that out, so he lost interest in sex.

You’d think that we could have synchronised a) our hot flushes and b) our loss of libido, wouldn’t you? And yet, just as he’s finished throwing off the duvet at 2am, I’m doing it, and all the while I was longing to get my leg over, he’s now going through the same thing.

I'd be most interested to hear others' experiences. What do you use for hot flushes? I'm reading up as I go and off to see the doc next week for more advice. Keep your pecker up, as they say.