This morning I noticed the pull date on the gallon of milk in our fridge was two days ago. Being the practical, not liking to waste me, and because it’s organic milk which is quite a lot more expensive, I decided I needed to be proactive. I knew we’d never drink the milk before it spoiled, so I set out to freeze it into one cup portions for future use in recipes.
Well, as I was pouring the milk into a measuring cup, I noticed how much my left hand was shaking. Flashback here….about 8 years ago I first began to notice my hands (especially my left) shaking. Well, if that isn’t a way to terrify a 20 something year old, I can’t think of much more. My brain immediately went to “parkinsons?” Pause. I was terrified.
Please keep in mind, I am not a doctor, nor do I have any medical training. I was actually pretty foolish in not seeking medical attention for some of my symptoms. Please do not use this information to diagnose yourself. Seek medical care (I would highly recommend a respected nautropath).
I knew something wasn’t right with my body. Along with the shaking, I had fatigue. I had all the symptoms of PMDD we talked about in my last post. But for some reason, this one really grabbed my attention. I had never heard of PMDD and had never thought this could be hormonally related, but it was still enough to make me pause and say “what is going on with my body!?”
At the time, I had only one child. He was a few months old. My life was so focused on taking care of a baby and trying to take care of my husband and household (which I was doing a poor job of), I couldn’t think it through much farther. The shaking would come and go, so I just ignored it.
Then about a year later I became pregnant with my second child. Both of my pregnancies were difficult. I had extreme morning sickness with my first pregnancy and could barely eat for the first half of my pregnancy. Morning sickness didn’t go away at 12 weeks like they say it should. Nope, it was well into my 20th week before it finally let up, if not longer. With my second pregnancy I wasn’t quite as sick. Or maybe I was, but I had an 18 month old to keep me preoccupied. However, I was extremely fatigued and was in pretty excruciating pain nearly the entire pregnancy. Some ladies say pregnancy is easy. I was certainly not one of those. While I wasn’t ever in danger of losing my babies (thank God – my heart breaks for the ladies and couples who have gone through that heart wrenching journey), being pregnant was very difficult.
Finally, my daughter was born, but then to my unknowingness, the journey was just beginning. She was an incredibly needy child. There was nothing wrong with her, she just wanted to be held constantly and she didn’t sleep. She was nine months old before she slept more than 75 minutes consecutively. I had tried everything. I was at my witts end.
Of course, it doesn’t help that when she was just a few weeks old, we sold our house to build a house of our own. We lived 6 months in a travel trailer, some of it with no power, with a 2 year old and a newborn, all while running our own business and building a house, doing nearly all the work completely on our own. Honestly, looking back, I don’t know how we survived that year.
Throughout all this time, my PMDD symptoms continued to increase. Each month, it became more intense. At one point, I was having chest pains and felt like my heart was racing so bad I almost went to the ER. But goodness, I was still only in my mid-20s, I couldn’t possibly be having a heart attack! Could I? I was too terrified to find out. I again ignored it and focused on my family.
After what I’ve been through, I now can look back and see that it was anxiety. I was having an anxiety attack.
This continued for several months. For nearly the entire spring of 2007, my husband had constant care of our then two year old simply so everyone stayed alive. I was a complete mess. Keep in mind, this was while he was running a business and building our home. I honestly don’t know how he did it or how we survived. I thank God for my wonderful husband.
We finally called the doctor and they had me come in. They said I had post-partum depression. Sure, okay. I knew the source of it was from sleep depravation, but I went along with it. What could I do? They wanted to put me on an anti-depressant, but because I was breast feeding wouldn’t/couldn’t. We decided to keep chugging along until finally my daughter was 9 months old and I would consider weaning her. In my ideal world, I would have like to wait another three months, but the truth of the matter was, we couldn’t. We needed help. I needed to get the additional hormones from breast feeding out of my body.
After weaning her, my daughter did sleep a little bit better. She went from being up every hour to sleeping several hours in a row. It was quite a shock for me (still) because my son was the easiest baby ever! He slept beautifully. He was a noisy sleeper (still is), but he slept.
By this time we had finished our home and had moved in. It was so wonderful to have 1,300 sq ft after living in a travel trailer for months.
We had been hoping that having the major project of a house off our plate and having space I would improve. I didn’t.
I continued to have so many symptoms. I wasn’t wise enough to address them and deal with them. Rather I took my insecurity and poured myself into many things, none of which gave any relief. At many times I felt like I was on speed. My heart would race, I would have this weird anxious energy and my brain would function much faster than was possible for me to accomplish anything. I felt like the Tasmanian Devil.
One day when my daughter was about 16 months old, there was a situation of bad timing. I had been involved in a local charity. One of the board members wasn’t particularly nice and sent an e-mail to all involved persons in operating the charity saying some pretty belittling things about me. Well, it was the wrong time! I had too many hormones going through me, too much anxiety and I spewed words I wish I could take back. I quit. My husband was relieved because I had poured too much of myself into the charity to find help for myself, but it didn’t bring any satisfaction.
Shortly thereafter, I saw a commercial on tv for YAZ. It’s a birth control pill, with claims to help PMDD. I didn’t take birth control pills (for one thing, there is too much ethical debate about birth control, but primarily because I believe birth control pills are what started all of my hormone troubles. When I first started taking them, I immediately began battling depression. My husband and I both truly believe that I was forever changed after starting taking them – even the smallest dose mini-pill sent me completely spiraling into deep depression).
BUT, despite not being interested in taking a birth control, I learned something. This thing they called “PMDD.” I had never heard of it. My doctors had never mentioned that my symptoms could be related to severe PMS. I began doing some research on my own. I found a monthly chart to check the symptoms off as they occurred. To my extreme surprise, they all followed a pattern! ALL my symptoms were hormone related. ALL OF THEM. Headaches, anxiety, depression, shaking, fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, shortness of breath, insomnia, everything.
I filled out this chart, quite convinced that after only one month I went into the doctor not waiting the suggested two months. She was fully convinced as well. She immediately put me on an anti-depressant. The first one didn’t help. It amplified symptoms. She switched to another. It helped, I think. But it continued. Really, I’m not sure I can speak to the effectiveness. Honestly, my brain is still fogged up from this time. We tried various things, including cyclical treatment with anti-depressants. I could not do the two weeks on, two weeks off. I couldn’t even do the 5 mg dose two weeks, 20 mg dose two weeks. It had to stay constant for me, otherwise the down time was just as bad as the other time.
We continued on this battle for several years. Every six months or so, I’d have really really bad spells. I’d have a couple back to back months. I even had additional symptoms at these times like my hair falling out. Seriously scared me. Hair shouldn’t just fall out. I would go back into the doctor, request more blood work, always coming back “normal.”
I went through a few anti-depressant “failures”. I’m still not sure what to think about all of the failure validity and such. I’m not smart enough to wrap my brain around it all, and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure I believe the whole anti-depressant thing anyway. However, if you are on anti-depressants, do not make any changes without consent of your doctor. That, I believe is incredibly important. Too many of the mass-shootings and violent crimes are committed by people transitioning or getting off anti-depressants. Do not make any changes without the knowledge of your doctor and without some you trust near by to intercede if you become suicidal or violent.
In these bad spells, I began to research my own things. I had normally been able to keep my symptoms under control by regular exercise and my diet. I began preparing a lot of food from scratch. I loved to cook, so it wasn’t a big deal. Daily jogging kept most of my headaches and joint pain away. The fatigue, emotional problems, excessive weight fluctuations (6 pounds over 24 hours) and shaking continued.
I began to wonder if I was iodine deficient. I found some ways to self-test (I don’t know the accuracy of it, so I’m not going to mention what I did). According the the results, I was fine. But really!? What was causing me to lose my hair!!! I remember I was having girl time with a friend one night at a local restaurant. I was in deep despair when I told her that even my hair was falling out!
These really bad spells continued to intensify, and become more often. They were now from every six months to two months bad, one month normal, back to two months horrible.
I had become a recluse. I quit everything I was doing. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a job because I could not have held it. I barely left my house. When I did, I couldn’t do more than go to the grocery store without having to come home and take a nap.
And the trouble was that my PMDD symptoms changed from one week a month to two weeks. Then it eventually went to three weeks of the month. My hormones were a mess.
We began to do more research and my husband came across much information that PMDD worsens with age. And with each pregnancy.
Great.
It was certainly getting worse with age for me. Now in my early 30s, I was basically unable to function. My body was alive, but that was it. And barely at that.
By mid December 2011, I was spent. I had nothing left. My body and brain were shutting down. I was far past PMDD. It was a complete shut down. I was incredibly depressed. The doctors answer: more anti-depressants. That wasn’t working. It was so bad, in fact, I gave up seeking medical care. Their only answer was anti-depressants. I was SO frustrated and depressed.
I just wanted to be able to function like a normal person.
I remember one day we were going into town and my husband said “someday you’re going to feel good again.” I rolled my eyes. Yeah, right. Despite desperately wanting that, I didn’t believe it.
Living in a state of complete defeat, my friend gave me a copy of a book called “Rebuild from Depression” by Amanda Rose, PhD. I held onto it for a few weeks. Finally, one day I was sitting in our truck waiting for him to finish doing some work in a customers’ home, I opened the book. I figured “what do I have to lose…..” I opened to a part and oh goodness, her symptoms were just like mine!!!
I didn’t start reading at the start of the book, I’m still not sure that was good or bad. But I read about her corn allergy, and several tests, including amino acid.
I could completely relate to what she said about corn. So I decided to take my health into my own hands. I eliminated corn from our diet. I became a prolific label reader.
In some ways, I felt much better, for a while. But I still had major problems. In fact, it had progressed to become near constant. My brain and body was shutting down. The benefits I gained from going corn free had disappeared. Two months of somewhat relief was gone, replaced with even more trouble.
I was deeply depressed. I was suicidal. I don’t like to say that aloud, but I was. I had even thought of painless ways to go about it (I’m afraid of pain). I had become violent. Thank God I never touched my children.
Finally, after four months of rock bottom, I went even farther. My world fell apart the night before my birthday. I left my husband, I was done. I had to get away. I figured, it was the only way I could get any better.
He didn’t give up, thank the Lord, and the next day we found ourselves in counseling. I’d had the name of a naturopath that I’d been holding onto for several months. I don’t know if I was too stubborn or too far gone that I hadn’t called her. I finally did. I was able to get in quickly.
This began the next chapter of our lives. The good chapter. If it weren’t for the fact that this post is already almost 2,500 words long I’d share now. I’m thankful the Lord finally placed someone in our path who could help bring about the healing I needed. The journey isn’t over. As I can tell by my shaking this morning when pouring the milk, I’ll probably always battle these symptoms. But I can function in life now. And that’s all I ever wanted.
hopeforpmdd 