Dysmenorrhea

If I have any men that read this blog, you might want to skip this entry.  It deals with that subject that most men find icky.  The monthly cycle that makes us women able to create a life…or as I call it since I am never going to have kids: “the completely unnecessary once a month painful bleeding session that makes me crave a hysterectomy.”

Ever since I “became a woman” and was blessed with the ability to create a life I want nothing to do with, I have had very painful cramps.  I’m not talking “take a midol and get over it” cramps, I’m talking “miss a day of school/work because I am throwing up uncontrollably due to pain” cramps.

At fifteen I was diagnosed with Dysmenorrhea and put on birth control pills.  Glory Be Hallelujah  they worked and I was able to resume a normal life.

Somewhere along the way I stopped taking them.  I don’t remember when or why…it might have been when I was too old to be on my mothers insurance.  Because the cramps were caused by a health condition the pills were covered by insurance so that might have been part of it.  At any rate I stopped taking them and the pain eventually came back.

As I gained more and more weight my periods became very irregular.  I would go for months without a period and then bleed for a couple of weeks and then go another three months with nothing.  After the initial pregnancy scare, I didn’t miss my period at all.  It was quite nice to go a long time without a period but when it finally showed up it was HEAVY and it HURT!  But being the kind of person I am, when the period disappeared I would put the pain to the back of my mind until it started up again so I didn’t go to the doctor about it.

Fast forward to me losing about 50 pounds and my periods regulated to once a month again.  Now that it was a regular occurrence again and at my husbands insisting I saw my doctor about getting on the pill again.  She said no.  See, I had this little nasty smoking habit and rightfully so, she did not feel right about putting me on the pill given the increased chance of blood clots in smokers at my age.  She told me if I quit smoking she would gladly write me a scrip but she had actually seen it happen to her patients that were smokers so she was gun shy.

So that was that.  I learned to live with it.  I have  system, and if it works correctly I don’t have that much trouble with the cramps.  If I catch it at the first twinge and preload with Advil, I can avoid major pain and function like a normal person.  Sometimes however, the cramps start while I am sleeping and I either don’t wake up or I am too tired to get out of bed to go get the advil and that is when the trouble starts.  I used to keep an advil on my bedside table until my dog decided it looked tasty and that was the end of that.

I have quit smoking for the most part but I will have an occasional cigarette(Vegas anyone???) and I’m so paranoid of blood clots that I never re approached the subject of birth control pills.  So I live with it.

If you haven’t guessed I am on my period this weekend.  And I have done nothing.

I had such plans for this weekend.  I was going to go to the track and try to walk/run a 10K and I was excited about it!  I was going to go dress shopping for our vow renewal.  I was going to go out to breakfast with Rob and his parents for Father’s Day.

I woke up on Saturday with cramps in full swing.  I took my advil and Rob put me back to bed.  He said I had an hour to sleep and let the advil work before I had to get up and get ready for the breakfast with my father in law.  I couldn’t get back to sleep but I tried.  Finally I got up and hauled myself in the shower and got dressed but I was miserable.  As we were about to head out the door I just couldn’t do it.  I knew I would be no kind of company and I wouldn’t be able to eat anything so tearfully I asked if Rob minded if I stayed home.  Of course he didn’t, he understood and put me back to bed before leaving for breakfast.

Part of the system I have when I get bad cramps is to sleep.  If I can get to sleep, even for a half an hour, the cramps and nausea are usually gone when I wake up.  No such luck yesterday.  I read in bed to try and get my eyes tired but I just couldn’t fall asleep because I had to keep running to the bathroom every fifteen minutes or so(yes, not only am I gifted with pain, heavy bleeding and nausea but I also get diarrhea.  Nice.)  Finally I got up and got a bucket to bring to bed with me, the throwing up portion was inevitable.  After one round with the bucket, Rob came home and I was starting to feel a bit better but since I never fell asleep I was still left with an overall sense of ickiness.

I was starving but the thought of food repulsed me.  Rob had brought home some food for me so I chose the least offensive thing(a biscuit) and ate a tiny portion of it before laying back down.  A few minutes later my stomach woke up and demanded more food so I had a little more and some diet sprite to settle the stomach.

To make a very long story short (too late!), I have not counted my food this weekend and I have certainly not walked or run.  While I think being in pain like I get is a legitimate excuse for taking the weekend off, I still feel horrible about it.

My 10 K is in two weeks and while I know I can easily walk it I was hoping to be more prepared with the running and this was a wasted weekend.  I feel useless and guilty and just blah.

Tomorrow I will start anew and all that but today?  Today I feel like a failure.