A Honest Month-One Check-In On Slynd

We share a car-recorded throwback, a trunk-or-treat line that tested patience, and a candid month-one update on Slynd: headaches, breakthrough bleeding, and why we’re staying the course for hormonal stability. The goal is a steadier baseline for moods, more presence with our kids, and practical steps when symptoms test resolve.

• car recording as a nod to early seasons
• small parenting wins that shift perspective
• handling irritation and edge days with grace
• week-by-week Slind adjustment and headaches
• breakthrough bleeding and longer cycles explained
• doctor guidance on sticking through the first months
• coping tools for PMS rage, anxiety and dark days
• defining safety lines and tracking trends over days
• commitment to updates and honest testimony

Chapters

• 0:00 Throwback Car Recording
• 0:52 Parenting Lines And Small Wins
• 2:16 It Could Be Worse Perspective
• 2:55 Irritability And Edge Days
• 3:36 Starting Slind And Early Headaches
• 4:07 Managing Migraines And Cautions
• 4:07 Breakthrough Bleeding And Cycle Shifts
• 5:23 Calling The Doctor And Sticking With It
• 5:50 Why Slind: PMS, Rage, And Dark Days
• 7:00 Choosing Stability And Looking Ahead
• 7:56 Ongoing Updates And Encouragement

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Good morning, everybody. This is Steel Roses Podcast. This podcast was created for women by women to elevate women's voices. A little um bit of a throwback. I'm recording from my car, so I hope the audio is coming through okay. I used to do this quite a bit in season one because of time and silence needed for this. And in the earlier seasons, I always recorded episodes at like five o'clock in the morning because of the kids. And trying to fit something in that I really, really wanted to do when my kids were young was something sort of an nothing short of a miracle because they were like a tiny tornado. So this is a bit of a throwback to that for me. I'm laughing as I do this because I I haven't had to do this in a while. You know, moments like this makes you appreciate things like that that you may not really realize um in a daily, regular basis. For example, yesterday we took our kids to the trunk or tree in our town. And when we got there, we had to wait in this long line, and it was a little annoying, but like obviously it really wasn't that bad. They they kept it moving really nicely. And the annoying part was like one of my one of the kids was begging for my phone. She wanted to check her video game because something was happening and and whatnot. So we kept saying no because we're like, no, like you're on it all the time. You could take a break. It's okay, you're gonna survive this. And that was the only annoying part. The kids were actually pretty well behaved in line. Now, when they were little, that wasn't the case. And my husband and I would get to a point where we'd get be trying not to scream at them in front of people because they would get so rowdy and out of hand and be pushing with each other and fighting with each other. That didn't happen yesterday. So I said to Chris at one point, I turned to him, I was like, well, it could be worse. And then almost on cue, a baby started screaming, a little kid was whining, had thrown up on itself, and they had to change the costume. So I I like looked at him and I was like, it could, it could be worse. It could be, it could be worse. Isn't that bad? And that was really more a reminder for myself because I was like slightly on edge. And that happens to me now and again where I have an unexplainable, as you all know, slightly on edge moment with my kids and my husband. And I try not to do that. But yesterday was one of those days where I was just like consistently getting irritated. On that note, I really wanted to give you guys an update on how I'm doing on SLInd. Um, so at this point, I'm very close to hitting the one month mark. I'm about, I think I'm about a week out from it. So the early symptoms for me, not symptoms, the early um, you know, this is why I don't record this early in the morning because I lose my words. The early, not symptoms. The early, the early uh reaction for me from you'd think I would know this off the top of my head because I work in pharma. The early reaction for me that I had to the medicine was I did have headaches. So that was something that my doctor had talked to me about. She asked me, are you prone to headaches? Are you prone to migraines? I told her I do get them, but it's not all the time. And it's not, you know, every week, it's not consistent like in that nature. For this particular situation, though, it actually did cause headaches almost every single day for me. So that was a little bit annoying, but manageable. It wasn't anything that I couldn't handle. So that was fine. I didn't have as much of an issue there. For I did have to take migraine medication, not medication, migraine, um, etc. migraine every single day, basically, just to keep it under control. But for the most part, it was manageable. Now, the reason why I'm sharing that particular detail is because if you do have intense headaches and migraines, then this lend might not be a solution for you because then it's it's gonna make those even worse. So that's actually why I wanted to mention that. But for me, I was able to manage it. And now that I'm going into my fourth week, um, the headaches have pretty, for the most part, stopped altogether. Um, it's not daily like it was. I'm still taking the Exeteran proactively in the mornings, just uh in case, but I really haven't had an issue like I did the first two weeks. The other thing that took me by a little bit surprise with Slind was that I made the assumption that Slind was gonna be just like every other birth control I have ever taken before, in the sense that if you take a birth control pill and you start the pack, your cycle basically adjusts to the pack. So if you start the pack, a new pack of birth control pills and it's about a week out from your period, you're not gonna get your next period. You're gonna keep going. And then your that new pack is really gonna dictate when your periods come. So it's gonna dictate your cycle. For Slind, one of the one of the things upfront that they tell you is that it could cause breakthrough, bleeding, like, and then it is going to cause your cycle to be longer within the first three months because your body is adjusting to Slind. Eventually, your cycle will stop altogether. That's really the goal here. But for the interim, you just have while your body adjusts, you have to accept the fact that you are gonna have cycles that are longer than normal. I knew the science, I knew the science, but then I quickly turned into an annoying patient. And I was really frustrated when my cycle was longer than normal. And it came when I wasn't expecting it to come. Again, I made this assumption that I was gonna take it and that was gonna be it altogether. So I called my doctor on the eighth day of my cycle and said, look, I haven't had a cycle like this since high school. I don't like it. Please tell me there's an end in sight. What do I do? Is it safe to continue taking this medicine? And she confirmed everybody pretty much loves being on this. If I could just gut out the symptoms for the first couple of months, I'm probably gonna love it too. But I just have to, you know, be okay with it and just deal with it. So I hung up with her and I'm like, all right, I will deal with it. And so now I'm going into my fourth week. Now, the whole reason I started taking Slind wasn't even because of, oh, I want to stop my period. I started taking Slind because I wanted to be able to get a handle on my hormones and those really bad dark days that I was getting. So I had explained to you guys previously that along with my cycle, now at the age that I'm at, I was getting really bad, I guess you would call it, I was getting really bad PMS symptoms, basically. But it was like completely exacerbated. That all it is is PMS, but totally exacerbated. So I was getting these really bad rages. I was getting really bad, very sad days, days where it was full and full of anxiety and I couldn't really function and I had to really work to maintain control of myself. For the days that were the dark days for me, um I was crying and just really depressed and felt like my life wasn't going anywhere. Really horrible stuff. Because if you hear me on a regular basis here, you know that that's not how I feel at all. But I would have these days where it was an overwhelming sense of like despair. Logically, I knew it's not right and I know that it's gonna go away. So I would have to talk to myself the whole time, being like, Jenny, this isn't real. You're gonna get through this as soon as your hormones shift back into place, you'll be okay. But what scared me into action was I had this stretch of three days of really deep sadness. And I was like, I cannot play Russian roulette with this particular situation because I can't have my kids growing up with a mother that has no control over how she's feeling in any given day. So that's where I'm at now. Now that I'm pressing ahead and I'm getting through the first month, I'm starting to get on board here too. I also think that this is gonna be a really good thing for me in the long run. And I just have to let my body adjust. I'll continue to keep you guys updated, let you know like how things are going. I do want this testimony testimonial to live out there because testing out all these medicines and trying to figure out what works best for you is really hard and it's scary. And I'm in it with you guys. So I appreciate you listening. I hope you're all having a wonderful day and I will catch you on the next one. Take care.