End of the Cycle - no migraine but terrible mood swings

Unfortunately, I ended-up having an abysmal Christmas.  It was probably the worst ever.

Because I stopped taking HRT last month, I went past the point where it should have happened and continued into my next pack.  I could feel a 'pressure' building up, but put it all down to the Christmas rush. 

I managed to get hold of a very helpful essay, which proved key in helping me in the lead up to my little 'crisis' - I'll talk more about that book another time - plus I kept taking 2 Rhodiola Rosea, which helped immensely and even family members noticed a definite improvement, plus I'm taking the 350mg of Magnesium daily, as mentioned earlier.  

I noticed I was getting pretty bloated and started to crave mature cheese, but resisted.  My one coffee a day, in the morning, is quite weak and doesn't really taste of coffee any more, so diet-wise, I felt I was coping well.  

What was particularly great this menses, was that it arrived  without a dreaded migraine!  

In fact, it presented as it used to when I was a lot younger, in that I felt really tired, kind of weird, with a slight sensation of sensitivity at the side of my head, but nothing specific, just a general feeling of needing to take it easy for a couple of hours - but not getting the chance.

The tiredness increased, to the point that it made me irritable and I was disappointed in myself that simple tasks were taking me a long time.  I plodded on and forgave myself by saying 'look, you didn't do this and you didn't do that, but you're migraine-free (so far) and you're not having to lie down!'

This continued for quite a few days, much longer than usual and I honestly thought I would miss my menses this month?   

Then I encountered an exhausting 'unforeseen circumstance'.  I couldn't park the car in the supermarket car park so had to carry about 10 bags of food for a quarter of a mile in incremental short trips.  It was pouring with rain and my coat was soaked through.  I came home and with all the extra work for Christmas, I couldn't really manage to sit down for any significant time until about 10.30pm that night.  I noticed my back was beginning to really ache after about 10 hours of being non-stop on my feet!

The next day I had all the cooking to do.   My mood was still OK and I actually looked forward to creating all the wonderful dishes and smells for the feast day.  

Then, while stirring one of the concoctions at around 3pm, I remember I had a very clear thought that everything was against me and I was a miserable little person with little hope of redeeming myself!  

This was odd, but this is what happens when my brain chemicals change dramatically due to my periods.  Really weird things pop into my head and little worries become HUGE issues that make me very, very disturbed!

This diary is supposed to be about my migraines, but the more I write the more I realise that my PMT problems go hand-in-hand with all that disturbance.  

My lifelong problem with extreme PMT, which really has been hell to live with, is characterised by an overwhelming feeling or belief that I'm 'persecuted and under-valued, everyone is laughing at me and I'm going to fail at everything and die without any money, miserable, forgotten and ashamed, in a dark corner somewhere, dressed in filthy rags??!!??!!  

To put it another way, any feelings of generalised anxiety, become much more extreme and take the shape of overwhelming emotional pressure and distress.  This is so strange, because I'm a person that can usually think quite clearly and is very reasonable and always formulates 'B' plans and takes very little risks.  

These clear, but extremely threatening thoughts, always start off as slight niggles, that gradually build up, until in the end my negative thoughts speed up dramatically and become louder and LOUDER!

I don't know why I think like this, its like someone else inhabits my body for a few days each month and makes me say things that I bitterly regret afterwards?

This is accompanied by my speaking very fast indeed and my poor DH often says, "you speak faster than I can think!".  

This time however, it all happened with the pressure of Christmas on top of me, so it was just AWFUL, really, really awful.  

I remember at one point I ran up the stairs because among other things, the roast potatoes were not turning out as I had hoped and I'd undercooked the swede.  When I got upstairs I slammed the door, starting swearing to myself about being surrounded by outright bastards everywhere and looked out of the window and remembered all the things I hadn't got round to doing e.g. Christmas was FAR from perfect.  Suddenly remembered I hadn't bought any lemons and so the rice salad I'd planned for that evening would be a TOTAL failure!  My anger with myself became so completely overpowering that I reached the point that the only solution I had for such a miserable attempt at festive cheer was to kill myself.  

This now sounds very over-the-top and like a complete joke and I can see how totally stupid that episode was, but honestly, my thoughts were out of control!  

I returned to the kitchen, which was boiling hot and the timer was screaming at me.  I managed to sort out the food, cleared some space, ate something, paced up and down.  

Then my poor dear unsuspecting husband walks in holding a completely inoffensive object.  I take one look at him and literally hurl him across the kitchen and threaten that I will push him off a cliff!  (We don't live anywhere near cliffs but I think he got the point!)

That's when all my feelings totally finish me off and I run upstairs again and start crying profusely, in fact I was wailing.  He then comes up the stairs and says through the closed door in quite a soft voice: "you'll feel better later, when you get your period".

I then lurch forward and suddenly open the door, look at his gentle face and get confused?  I walk up and down a bit more and hiss at him: "You're going to ruin my life, my parents will laugh at me, I'm going to die starving and filthy under an arch, everyone hates me, and I want you to pack a bag and leave NOW!"

He then announces that he'll go out and buy some petrol instead.  I then add he should never come back.  

Meanwhile the potatoes are finally looking like they should, the gravy has turned out very well and all the other vegetables are quite successful.  

Husband returns, incredibly we manage to have a really nice Christmas lunch and stuff ourselves with sherry and chocolates afterwards, and watch Ben Hur.  Then later, while I tidy up the kitchen, my head starts spinning again, my back starts to seize up but I continue with my tasks and decide to deal with the recycling.  

I went up to bed eventually, and slept OK.  

My cycle ended during the night - Thank God and all the celestial beings!!

When I got up, my back had totally seized up and I had to crawl to the bathroom.  I managed to pull myself up and noticed my legs were numb.  I went downstairs, had breakfast and remembered all the horrible things I had said the day before and cringed.  It was like a monster had possessed me, I'd said hateful things, things that make NO SENSE now, but cannot be taken back.  

I spend the rest of the day apologising and making very elaborate dishes to compensate for such terrible behaviour and end-up even more tired, but Thankfully, still with no migraine!

Taking Rhodiola Rosea to help maintain Serotonin Levels

I've been taking this ancient plant root for over a week now but haven't really mentioned it because I didn't notice any significant changes until 4 days afterwards.

Basically, I decided to give it a try after reading an article about boosting your Serotonin levels called: '10 Quick Tips to Boost Your Serotonin' written by Mark Sisson, an athlete, that believes in keeping as healthy as you possibly can.  

Quoting from his article:

"HTP is a popular supplement, but I personally prefer rhodiola, which actually slows the process of serotonin breakdown (it also has better scientific backing)."

by Mark Sisson, that you can visit here.

If you recall, I was reading about Serotonin levels dropping steeply in response to a decrease in Oestrogen, according to our cycles, and how chaotic that invariably is for moods and PMT.  

I've always had awful PMT and now, part of that cyclical downturn, is these debilitating migraine attacks.

So there I was, taking Rhodiola Rosea for about 4 days and 

noticing nothing in particular.  

Then at around day 5, it registered, by my reaction to a stressful situation, that I was feeling different, somehow?

It was initially hard to define, but according to my packet of pills, I should be lurching into arguments and feeling totally exhausted by now?

Instead, I felt calm, my thoughts were logical, (instead of extremely emotional) and I was definitely less tired.

Considering where I am in the cycle, this is VERY unusual for me.

There is a downside though, in my personal case, because it reduces appetite.  I'm not a person with a huge appetite at the best of times and Rhodiola certainly reduces mine even more.

This figures really, as its prescribed for among other things, stress-related over-eating!  I can totally see how that would work, because quite honestly, even by 3pm I'm still not actually hungry !!

It turns out that Rhodiola Rosea is an ADAPTOGEN and that means it works out what your body is  imbalanced in e.g. you could be producing, say, too much stress hormone: cortisol.  Then it will 'adapt itself' to suppress / boost your levels, whatever the needs be.

Here's a quotation I found from a really good article about recent testing on Rhodiola:

"A Swedish trial from 2009 examined the effects of a patented Rhodiola extract (SHR-5) on 60 patients with “stress related fatigue“. The dosage used was 4 tablets of the herbal extract, providing 576 milligrams, or an equal quantity of an inactive placebo. The authors of the trial concluded that, “repeated administration of R. rosea extract SHR-5 exerts an anti-fatigue effect that increases mental performance, particularly the ability to concentrate, and decreases cortisol response”. Previous experiments, dating back up to 9 years, tend to support these findings. (4,5,6)"

Written by J P Fanton of Healthy Fellow, that you can read here. 

I'm currently taking two capsules a day (of maximum strength), during mid-morning.  I was taking it later on in the day, but I noticed it was keeping me awake.  This is not unusual and you are warned about that.  

I plan to only take it for half the month, from a few days before I start taking Progesterone.

There are countless articles about Rhodiola on the internet, and it seems its a common ingredient that's added to a lot of 'wonder drugs' for combating fatigue.  

I'll need to watch my appetite while taking this, in that I don't want to end up too weak because I eat lunch too late.  Once I start eating though, I feel fine about food again, but before that, I've noticed I'm not thinking about food, if you know what I mean?

It's going to be very interesting to see how my next migraine will turn out.  Because my aim in taking this medication was to maintain serotonin levels, but now I can clearly detect that my real problem was quite possibly the over-production of Cortisol?

Happy holidays everyone!