TMI!!

Yes, it's true, this summer I'll turn 40! I'm actually very much looking forward to it--really!--even though there is the small matter of menopause on the horizon. Now, it may seem strange that I'm already thinking of menopause at 39, but in fact, it's not out of the question considering that I started menstruating at the age of nine.

Yes, this is going to be one of those too-much-information blog entries.

So, most women have about thirty years worth of periods and most get their first periods at age 15 or so, so most women start menopause when they're around 45 years old. If you do the math using my numbers, however,  you get 9 + 30 = 39. And here I am, thirty-nine years old. (The Mayo Clinic website also suggests that women who have never had a baby may also go through menopause earlier than expected.)

Googling around, I came across a list on the internet (where I, uninsured, get most of my medical advice) of thirty-four signs of menopause. Have you seen it?

Here's the list (along with my own personal experience or lack thereof):

1. Hot flashes/flushes, cold flashes. Yes, I get mini-hot flashes. They're pretty mild at the moment (consisting of a flushed face and neck) and they happen with no rhyme or reason. I've always thought I was having an allergic reaction, but they happen even when I haven't ingested anything I'm allergic to.

2. Night sweats. No, thank god.

3. Irregular periods. Yep.

4. Loss of libido. Not really, no.

5. Vaginal dryness. No.

6. Mood swings, sudden tears. Yes, yes. I have always just associated this with depression, though. Lucky me, it might be both menopause and depression!

7. Fatigue. Fatigue here "is defined as an ongoing and persistent feeling of weakness, tiredness, and lowered energy level."

Oh, my god. Yes. Absolutely yes. Abso-fucking-lutely posi-fucking-tively Y-E-S. Yes. I feel, many days, like I've been hit by a damn truck.

Apparently fatigue is the second most commonly reported symptom of menopausal women. One website suggests that women may experience fatigue or they may experience something called "crashing fatigue" (which sounds like the double-secret probation type of fatigue).

[C]rashing fatigue is a normal symptom of menopause that is caused by temporary hormonal imbalance. This primary underlying cause can be made worse by complicating factors such as lack of sleep, stress, and irritability.

Why did no one tell me this?!

I have the kind of fatigue that laughs at naps, scoffs at vitamins and caffeine overdoses, and isn't deterred by whole days spent prostrate in bed.

8. Hair loss or thinning; increase in facial hair.  I haven't noticed this--but I do have very long hair so even normal hair loss seems like a ridiculous shedding problem. Plumbers exist to combat the kind of drain-clogging hair I have on my head. Seriously, one of the last plumbers who came out to snake our shower drain actually kept the rat's nest of long, dark hair he pulled out of there. (He carried it out to his truck anyway.) Heh. He probably used it to perform some voodoo ritual that turned me into a crashing fatigue-type zombie.

9. Menopause sleep disorders. Yes. (I am typing this at 2:28 in the a.m.) You can just add menopause-associated sleep disorders to the long list of sleep disorders that I already suffer from. Most of the time I get so little sleep that I'm convinced that there are really only two states of being: Mild Zombie and Full-On Zombie. I am a life-long insomniac, but even this statement from the article has the power to scare the hell out of me: "Typically, the frequency of insomnia doubles from the amount you may have had before you entered premature menopause."

10. Difficulty concentrating, disorientation, mental confusion. I don't even know what to say about this. I have always been really sharp, but suddenly I find myself sometimes struggling to put together a coherent sentence. Which I hate.

11. Disturbing memory lapses. Yes. It has mostly to do with time and timed events and timing of things. Sometimes it's words or phrases.

12. Dizziness, light-headedness, loss of balance. Yes. This often manifests itself in a dissociative feeling, like...I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it's kind of like when you're getting the flu and you feel really removed from everything? Like that. It happens to me a lot.

13. Weight gain. Ha. Try forty pounds within the last two years.

14. Incontinence. No, thank god.

15. Sudden bouts of bloating. Yes.

16. Increase in allergies. Yes. I've thought about keeping my benadryl tablets in a PEZ dispenser.

17. Changes in fingernails--bending, cracking, or breaking more easily. Yes. I've never been a chronic nail-biter, but you wouldn't know it from looking at my fingernails.

18. Changes in body odor. Yes.

19. Bouts of rapid heartbeats. No. This would scare me though.

20. Depression. Yes, for the last 30 years. How can I tell when the pre-menopausal depression ends and the menopausal depression begins?

21. Anxiety, feeling ill at ease. Yes.

22. Irritability. Ha. Yes. It's funny though, I was talking to a friend of mine who is in her 70s now and she was telling me that when she went through menopause she felt homicidal. Sometimes, she said, she felt as though she were going to attack her husband. She told me that it went away when she started hormone-replacement therapy. It was strange, but I had been feeling very irritated, too, to the point of losing it.

23. Panic disorder, feelings of dread, apprehension, doom. Yes. Panic attacks are the worst. They started about two years ago.

24. Breast pain. No.

25. Headaches. Strange, but this is one of the few things I would have said (before reading this list) was an absolutely positive menopausal symptom that I am experiencing. Why? Because before this past year, it was incredibly unusual for me to have one or two headaches a year. Seriously, over my lifetime there have been blocks of years where I could honestly say that I had no headaches. None. Zero. Zilch. Not a single headache. Didn't even own a bottle of aspirin. Now? I get headaches about once a week if not more.

26. Aching, sore muscles, joints and tendons. Yes.

27. Burning tongue or roof of mouth. Bad breath. No.

28. Electric shock sensation under the skin and in the head. Yes. For about the last two or three years, the top of my scalp sometimes feels like someone is holding a live wire to it. Sometimes I get similar shooting pains in my upper arms. The article says that it happens because falling estrogen levels affect nerve tissue. Would've been nice to know that before I thought I was going crazy or was getting blood clots or I had been poisoned. (I seriously couldn't figure out a cause for these sensations, so those were the explanations I came up with.)

29. Digestive problems, gastrointestinal distress. This is a normal part of getting my period, so I imagine it will be a normal part of ceasing to get my period.

30. Gum problems, bleeding, swelling. Yes, but mildly so.

31. Increased tension in muscles. Yes, my arm, shoulder, and leg muscles sometimes feel like they're made of steel, they're so tensed up.

32. Itchy, crawly skin. Yes, sometimes it's nearly unbearable. Before reading this list I had just assumed, as one might, that I was going insane.

33. Tingling extremities. Yes, especially my fingers. I had put it down to an overuse of artificial sweeteners. Seriously.

34. Osteoporosis. This only happens after several years of menopause, so I'm not there yet.

Isn't that an interesting list? I'm shocked at how unfamiliar I am with those symptoms, especially considering how generally aware I am of women's health issues. How can I not know that these things are common to women in menopause? That sucks, frankly.