How many bad days until we demand better?

We tell a raw, clear story about early perimenopause, the “dark cloud” weeks that shook our home, and the decision to push for medical help after lifestyle changes weren’t enough. We share how cycle tracking, food choices, and advocacy led to a progesterone-only plan and a commitment to speak up.

• early signs and confusion with anemia
• food triggers, whole foods, and energy stability
• cycle tracking to predict mood shifts
• the breaking-point weekend and recovery
• deciding not to accept only 23 good days
• advocating at the appointment and pressing for care
• starting SLYND (progesterone-only) and supportive steps
• naming hard symptoms: dryness, libido changes, nausea
• inviting partners and kids into the plan
• ending stigma and refusing silent suffering

Make time, prioritize. I will continue to let you know how things are going on my side. I would love for you guys to be with me on this part of the journey because it is something that is so poorly documented and is just not talked about enough.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting the Stage: Perimenopause
• 1:52 Diet, Anemia, and Body Signals
• 4:12 Cycle Tracking and Dark-Cloud Weeks
• 6:20 The Breaking Point Weekend
• 8:50 Refusing Only 23 Good Days
• 10:24 Doctor Visit and Pushing for Care

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is Still Roses Podcast. This podcast is created for women by women to elevate women's voices. I hope you are all having a great week. Um, I had some pretty exciting news to share with you guys. Um, so I I think I've been sharing with you sort of like the whole perimenopause journey, right, that I've been on and like how when symptoms started and like kind of where I'm at. And I can't remember if I talked about these other pieces before, but I'm gonna just reiterate for the sake of like giving you the full background if you're listening to for the first time to this. So I have started to feel what I suspect was perimenopause symptoms, probably about 39, right? I don't have a lot of patience. I'm only 41 at this point, but I don't have a lot of patience. And getting symptoms that I couldn't really predict and having things happen that were totally out of my control is not an energy that I really ever lean into, ever. So I've done a lot of, I mean, complaining and talking about it. But beyond complaining and talking about it, I also really wanted to seek out help. Now, for the most part, I was trying pretty much every possible over-the-counter medicine that I could find. In the in the trajectory of all this and through the road of like figuring out the perimenopause stuff, I also happened to find out that I was anemic. So once I got the anemia semi-under control, I started focusing more on like perimenopause because the anemia symptoms, this is the joy of being a woman. Anemia symptoms, the fatigue and like low energy and all that is also perimenopause symptoms. And thus it was confusing for me. Anemia is under control. I'm making sure that I'm eating really clean as much as I can, low starch as much as I can. Well, not a ton of starchy carbs. Um, I think the most carbs that I consume at this point are potatoes. The reason why I'm talking about diet in relation to perimenopause is actually because there are some significant through lines to what you're consuming in your body, and not just perimenopause, but in general, as you get older, the things you're consuming in your body start to build up. And if you're not having a whole food healthy diet, predominant amount of the time, then your body will start to react. And that's where like a lot of like waking and just, you know, joint pain and heart problems and liver problems, stomach issues. I mean, if you really go down the rabbit hole of research of like what our current foods do to us today, it's horrible. Like I will never eat a plate of pasta ever, like ever. I just won't do it. I'll eat gluten-free pasta for sure, and I'll eat protein pasta that has a little bit of the like wheat semolina in it, but I won't be able to do full pasta ever. Okay. Interruptions. What am I gonna do? Again, like the reason for that being is because I don't like how I feel after I eat certain foods. My body doesn't like it, and thus I won't do it to myself. Now, again, when I was younger, like I didn't care and I eat whatever, but now that I'm older because of the paramenopause, I'm incredibly mindful. So there's that thing to know. Now, the other part of this that I started to get really like nervous about was the um the mental health part when you go through menopause. Now, everyone's different. Some people remember significant shifts, others don't remember anything. Again, I'm still in the very, very early stages of all of this. But again, little patients that I have, I can't wait for it to become full force and then be living through pretty much a nightmare. So my goal here was to get some relief because it was getting, it was freaking me out. To be per honestly, lack of a better term, it was really freaking me out. So, what was starting to happen was I was becoming really careful about sinking my cycles. I still get my period every single month, right? So every month I started looking. Okay, this week I'm in this phase of my cycle, the luteal phase or the follicular phase or whatever. So I'm going through each phase of my cycle, making sure I'm paying attention. How am I feeling in this moment? What am I supposed to be feeling? Am I matching feelings to what I'm supposed to be feeling hormonally? And then going from there. So I was tracking it. And I think I've talked to you guys before about oh, I would have these dark cloud weeks where it was really, I was struggling and I was really snapping at the kids and I was crying all the time. And it got like to the point where I was just like, all right, I know what these days are coming. So part of my resolve to to find solution and peace for myself was like I was telling my family about it, including the kids, making sure they understood, like, this isn't mommy. Like mommy's going through something and this is kind of what it is. I sort of semi-explained it to them. And, you know, that way they knew like if they saw mommy really getting upset or frustrated or getting really angry really fast, it's not really mommy because I don't want them to grow up being like mommy's a maniac because you know she ran out of spaghetti and started screaming about it, which, you know, if you guys are going through this too, you know, is kind of likely. So I didn't want to have to deal with the mood swings. And then last month was very difficult. I had two really, really bad days. Like very bad. For me to say this and say this out loud. If you knew me personally, you would know. If I'm saying it was really bad, it was it was literally like life-wrenching for my body. It was bad. So the sadness dark cloud started. I think it was a Saturday, really light, but it was just there. And I was really fighting, like mentally fighting to keep it away. And then, cause I self-talk, I'm like, Jenny, you know, this isn't you. Keep your head up, go get some sunshine on your face. You can do this, it'd be handle this. And then came Sunday. And I was like, 'cause this it was just draining me. It was dragging me. And you know, I just didn't feel like myself. And I've had depression and anxiety before. I know how deep and scary that goes. And this is how this felt. Now, logically, I have the ability to step out of my body and think to myself, Jenny, like, you know, this isn't you, and this isn't really happening to you right now because this is your hormones. There's a shift. You have to wait for the shift to end, and then you'll feel like yourself again. So I talked myself through it on Sunday. Monday morning comes and I'm a wreck. I'm sobbing at five o'clock in the morning, trying to get a hold of myself, freak the hell out of my husband, because for him to see me fall is probably the most frightening thing because I never fall. Not like that. Not like that. So it's scary to see from the other side. And he didn't even really know what it was. He didn't understand what was going on. He thought I was just over overwhelmed because that happens. Sometimes that happens, and he does have to like help calm me down a little bit because I do get overwhelmed. I have a lot of plate on my plate. I have a lot of things that I'm working towards and whatnot. But this was different. And I tried to explain it to him, but it was a little beyond what his scope of understanding would be for that. But he tried his best to be like supportive and help me out just to get me through the morning. By midday, I had shaken a lot of it off and I was okay. Right at the end of the day, I had shaken almost entirely off. By Tuesday, I was fine. But then I started to think to myself, well, is that it for this month? This month it was really tough. Is it gonna be tough next month? How am I supposed to prepare for this? Do I really want to be walking around like waiting for a time bomb to go off in my body because my hormones are gonna shift and it's gonna happen every month? And what if next month is longer? You know, what if it's more days? Like, I don't want to walk around not knowing and I don't want to walk around like that, and I don't want to live my life like that. And I started, I've done this a lot over the past year, even where I think about the amount of days in the month, it's 30 days in the month, and I'm feeling crappy for seven days out of the month, let's call it, right? That's only 23 days that I'm feeling okay. That's not a lot. And why am I okay to accept that? I'm not okay accepting that. I will not accept 23 days a month that I feel good. Like that sucks. That's shitty. And on the flip, in my mind, I always say to myself, if I was a man, would I accept this? Would I just lay down and be like, ah, I'm like crapped, you know, 25% of the month? Absolutely friggin' not. I'm not gonna accept that shit. So why should I accept that shit? Like, I have a lot of things to do. I'm very busy. I don't want to accept that seven days out of the month, I'm gonna be depressed, or I'm gonna have anxiety so bad that I can't like, I can't handle anything, or I don't want to feel horrible that many days in the month. So I bit the bullet. I went to the doctor and I said, this is what's happening. I want to talk to somebody about hormone um uh hormone replacement therapy. Now, I'm only 41. HRT is probably indicated for a slightly older crowd. I'm gonna Google it while I'm reporting. Yeah, it's 45 to 55 years old. I'm fairly I'm on the young, younger, younger end of the spectrum. Now, the nurse practitioner I was talking with, you know, she comes in, she's like, you know, 41, that's pretty young. Why do you want to talk about that now? And I was like, explain what was going on out of the gate, the initial initial feedback. Well, have you tried to talk to somebody about this? And I was like, I'm talking to you right now. She said, No, no, no, have you talked to a professional like a therapist? And I was like, I don't need a therapist. I'm all set. What I need is some medication. And so she kind of circled around again and was like, you know, are you sure like this is what it is? And I was like, look, I'm like, I exactly how I explained it to you all. I said, I tracked my cycle. I know this is what's going on, I know it happens every month around this time, know what it is. I can't do this anymore. You have to put me on something. It took three tries and one appointment to get the NP to agree. Now she's very kind and she was very, she helped me, she did eventually like help me get what I wanted. She in four, I asked questions, we had exchanged. It was definitely a shared decision-making moment. However, I had to press three times to be able to get a prescription. I am not on HRT because I am on the younger end of the spectrum. So they did give me a product called SLIND. It's S-L Y-N-D, in case anybody is interested in it. It is an estrogen-free progesterone-only birth control. So it's really just progesterone. I've been, I think I'm about a week now, a little less than a week in. I have very high hopes for what's going to be coming. Because let me tell you, like, I really hope this works. But I did want to share with you guys, it took three tries. It took three bangs on the door to get the nurse practitioner on board with helping me out with something. Now, that was just the mental health part of it. Other things that come along with perimenopause, menopause, there was the mental health element to it. I think nausea, you get vaginal dryness is a really big one. A lack of low libido is really big for women who are going through menopause, perimenopause. All these things, like, yes, it's a little uncomfortable to address it and bring it up. But if you don't address it, if you don't raise your hand and ask, like, hey, I've been trying every over-the-counter thing I could get my hands on. Nothing is working. I need to go medical. So that's what I did. So I got my progesterone pill, I got some cream. I'm like working my way through this because at the end of the day, are you willing to accept only feeling good a certain amount of time a month? Are you willing to accept that you're not in control of the situation? That's a big one for me, to be perfectly honest. And I am not willing to accept that. So I do want to encourage all of you to have the conversations with your doctors. Make time, prioritize. I will continue to let you know how things are going on my side. I would love for you guys to be with me on this part of the journey because it is something that is so poorly documented and is just not talked about enough. And I think we really need to start pulling the layers back and making this common conversation for people to talk about. It is not fair to us that we have to suffer in silence. And I'm not doing that anymore. I appreciate being with me on this episode. I hope you found it informative, maybe slightly entertaining because it's a little sad, s sad funny, if you will. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. And I will catch you on the next one. Take care.