By My Uterus Betrayed!

[crowdog66]

The short of it: Perimenopause bites.


Perimenopause, for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, is the number of years leading up to menopause when the periods start to become irregular and PMS sometimes becomes more severe. In my case, both have been occuring. I'm 39, and my mother hit menopause at 42, so this doesn't exactly come as a surprise.

However, what happened today certainly did.

Picture little ole me at the bank, in the lineup to get to a teller. Picture me, having put on a clean pad only an hour or so before, anticipating continued full coverage for at least the next 45 minutes, by which time I'd be safely home.

Picture me feeling a thick, balloon-like mass slowly squeezing its way out of my vagina.

Me, internally: "What the...? I've never felt anything quite like THAT before. Must just be a large clot -- there's been more and more clotting these past few months. Oh, well."

Squeeeeeeeeeeezzzzze.

*POP!*

Me, internally: "Pop?"

My pad: *a silent scream of protest*

Blood: "Gush!" (flowing down my legs in runnels I can actually as I stand in line... in public... in khaki pants.)

Me, internally: "Oh, fuck!"

So I cut out of the line, trying to pull my top as far down my back as I can (the one day I don't wear a long shirt over top, of course!) and scuttle across the street to the restaurant on the corner, where a quick check in the bathroom reveals the worst: the maxi-pad with wings is soaked from one end to the other, so completely saturated that the plastic bottom is weeping blood. The inside and back of my thighs look like I've just been to visit an abattoir, and --

Ready for it?

I had no extra pad. After all, I was only going to be out for a couple of hours, right? And I NEVER flow that heavily. Right?

GNRSH!

I cleaned up the toilet seat, which had taken a couple of more splatters from the continuing uterine bleed-out as well as the excess on my legs, and considered my options. Fortunately, the back of my pants only showed a couple of streaks of blood -- but naturally that was still too much for my tastes. I HAD to finish my business at the bank. I could have called George to bring me a clean pair of pants and change of underwear (you can only imagine the state that was in), but George was busy pencilling the next Captain Canuck and I really didn't want to pull him away from it.

So I waited until the flood appeared to have stopped, then used the stand-by that every girl has used at some point in their lives: good old toilet paper. By keeping my low-slung, large leather purse shifted around back, and keeping my back against things as much as possible, I was able to go to the bank, get on the bus (which thankfully was empty) and get home without anyone noticing that anything was wrong. Well, that's what I tell myself, anyway, for the sake of my own pride.

And yesterday I spent many hours in bed, cramping and weeping. Missed an excellent chat with MR that I was really looking forward to because of it.

I hate my uterus right now.

Thanks for listening.

Comments

You mean it gets better?? ((grimace)).

[metisbutterfly.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a scary experience, hun..I agree with a comedian i once heard who said a uterus and other "female organs" should just come in a box that you keep under your bed, then if you decide you need them you just pop em in then..LOL. Someone ought to market a pad just for these situations, or for peri-menopausal women. They have teen ones so why not?
Hope you feel better soon...

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Yick! And I thought it was bad the night my monthly started when I was taking a bath and I wasn't aware of it until I noticed blood in the bathwater... There again, I started youngish (age 12) and while my mom had given me "the Talk" earlier that year, I wasn't expecting to start for another year or two... and then suddenly I had what I thought was really bad gas pains (I get those quite a bit) followed by bloody diarrhea!)

::Sends Julien, one of her characters in the "A.I." RP, a feisty but cuddly male secretary/lover Mecha to comfort Laurie, along with a nice box of chocolates, hoping Julien doesn't mooch them on the way...::

[eastpath.livejournal.com]

Oh, my goodness. I'd have just died right there.... *HUGS* Our bodies are always out to get us when we get older.... they are punishing us for the years of abuse we put them through when we were in our early 20's.

*thinks* I'm in a whole lotta trouble in the next several years.... o_O

I hope you feel better now.... at least you had a bathroom to run too... I'd have just burst into tears or something.... gahhh

Love to you!

[lefemme.livejournal.com]

Perimenopause. So that's what it's called.

I remember having similiar discussion about 12 years ago at work with an lady at work older than me by more than 10 years.

I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me at 26.

The other lady offered up the suggestion, besides "change of life", in her case, it was due to obesity. Her doctor recommended losing weight. A year later, after she lost weight, I asked her about it again, and she reported her doctor's suggestion and the weight loss DID reduce the quantity of flow.

[crowdog66.livejournal.com]

Heylo. :-)

That possibility -- about the weight -- had never occurred to me.

In my case, fortunately, I'm pretty sure it's not obesity. I'm 39, and my mother hit full menopause at 42, so it's probably just the hormonal cycles starting to stutter as they power down. I do appreciate the suggestion, though... and I'll ask my doctor about it next time I see him, since I'm a bit overweight and it might be a factor.

[metisbutterfly.livejournal.com]

Laurie, you could ask your doc, but i highly doubt it's a weight issue..you look to be at a healthy weight to me and a lot of the "doctor recommended" weights on charts are BS..ie most women are about 5 or ten pounds over what is recommended and that is normally not at all a problem. From what ive read, you have to either be very underweight or obese or have had a significant weight loss/gain in a short period of time (read=an unhealthy one like crash dieting) for weight to have that much of an effect on your period.
My mom is just barely hitting perimenopause now (she is 53) and she has suffered the same symptoms.
Her doctor prescribed progestrin and it seems to be working well.

**Shakes hands with crow-joe**

[cockatiel-art.livejournal.com]

Welcome to ma world, darlin! **shakes crow's hand again**

Messy details below.. LOL!

Heavy periods run on my dad's side of the family, complete with agonizing pains and PMS. The pain was so severe when I was a kid that I had to take prescription medications. It's not so bad now, but the pain can be unberable!

My periods are sporadic and weird, too. You know. The mess **Sighs**. I have to wear an ultra absorbant (re: one up from Super Plus and produced by OB) and a nighttime pad to control the flow. At its worst, I'm changing both every 3 hours. I have to sleep with pants on and a towel under me at night. **UGH** Then sometimes I have a very weak flow and by next month it hits with a vengence. Weeeeee. **twirls finger in air**

I REALLY like sleeping with a towel under me cuz you don't have to change the sheets if ya have an accident!I prefer dark towels. Not as embarassing if ya can't do laundry right away ;-)

Good Luck, Crow-Joe! Hopefully things will be okay next time! Ghah. The Red Baron must be shot!!