Tuesday 13 March 2012

Hormones and Ovens ..

Is it just like being permanently pissed off ?

This is my darling other half trying to understand what it feels like to have your hormones de-rail. For your normal peaceful life, with a bout of PMS thrown in here and there. Not that we ever admit it, we just blame our men for being particularly irritating at the same times every month, you would think they would learn, to go totally off track. Here however I have to give him a huge barrel full of credit because he really does want to understand, and he really is a great support. Thankfully.

I tried to explain it, but it’s difficult, it’s hard to explain how your body can do one thing, and your brain another. How you can look down on yourself sitting on the floor in front of your new oven in tears and think ‘WOAH Maxine what on earth is your deal ?’.  The same way as when I have decided that a romantic meal, the night before my darling has surgery is the correct time to have a massive rant at him about things that aren’t exactly important at that moment. Whilst again, there is a small part of me tugging on my shoulder and telling me this is a) really not very nice and b) totally out of character. Back to the kitchen floor……

Oven in, shiny, working, marble intact and everything I needed and wanted, aside from 1 tiny tile. Easily fixable, and yet my usual go get them attitude totally deserted me, and my mother’s suggestion of popping to the shops to get a replacement was met with a rapid of tears so big you would have thought someone had told me that I could never cook again and that I could never eat chocolate ever. It was tremendous. My mother took one look at me, popped me on the sofa and called in for back up. An appointment with our GP, a woman who has the heart of a lion, the patience of a saint and the humour of Billy Connolly. Thankfully she is a whizz and I am now fully back on track and will not be crying over ovens in the near future, fear not those of you who have been invited for dinner.

Hormones are quite the things. They are so much in control of you and yet most people know little to nothing about them, they also know little to nothing about how they can be knocked off track, what affects you and how you can put them right. For me its progesterone, me and it have a shaky relationship, and when it builds up to high, added to my insomnia, a 3 hour commute, and 6 weeks of visitors and a house move, it means that all the walls come down and Maxines hormones have a party. The boss is gone, no one is in charge and they are willy nilly doing whatever they like. So therefore inappropriate responses become standard, new tiles = tears, end of a book = end of the world, no cable for a TV that I barely watch = rage equal to that of a wwe wrestler. However this hormone imbalance can affect more than whether I am a nightmare to live with or not. It can affect fertility, sexual drive, ovulation, headaches and can go on to other things. It’s something to note, something to watch for and then equally something that you need to fix. I caught it early, thanks to my family and my man having the ability to say to me, you are not yourself. This is not you, what’s wrong ? Albeit having to have a couple of goes at getting me to listen whilst dodging left hooks and proffering tissues. In all my long travels with my health, and my many issues and revelations, I have learned that the most important thing you can do for yourself is to listen to your body. Sounds easy ? It’s not. You have to learn to hear what its telling you, and why, and how you can placate it, or ease its pain. It’s difficult, but once you learn the language your body can tell you things you never dreamed it would say. I have learned, and it’s been the best thing I ever did. I talk about it with friends, or here in my blog because if I help just one person to get to where I am quicker than it took me, then it’s worth sharing my internal life struggles.

If your body is tired, and tells you so, then it is, listen to it, slow down. Don’t tell me you can’t, because I am the queen of the excuses. My job, my life, my world, I need too, I must, I have too. You don’t. You don’t HAVE to do things. You can change the things you are in control of. Take the right vitamins, ensure you eat the right way, feed your body right and it will help you out when you need it too. 4 hours sleep ? Come on body you owe me one, you need to man up and get me through til its home time. If you have been good to yourself most times your body steps up and helps you out. Me ? it took my body totally shutting down on me and refusing to work until I listened to get its message across. I am much better now. I stop sometimes, pop the ear plugs in and do what I want to do. My body just reacts by doing one of many and varied things to spite me. Bloating, migraines, restless legs, rashes. Just a little taster of what it could really do should you choose to continue to ignore the signs and notes it is leaving for you.

A busy few weeks, with not enough sleep and a fairly laisez faire attitude to the vitamins meant that my body was knocking on the door for me to sort myself out. So my hormones decided to fall out of sync. Major league. So for now its good food, sleep and a multitude of different vitamins and exercise to get me back into listening mode. Helped out with a few well-placed drugs along the way. What ? You thought I was a do gooder ? No way, I am never against some artificial help to beat the buggers back into submission.

Listen to your body though, most of the time you don’t end up needing to fight, you can get along perfectly well. Otherwise it’s just like being permanently pissed off !!

M