Mircette month one epilogue

Okay, so I was never expecting a 2-day period. And I didn't get one, either. No, mine was four days long. I've heard that such things exist, but I believed in them about as much as I believe in a pleasant Walmart shopping experience. Consider me converted. (On the period thing, of course, not the Walmart thing.)

Also, I didn't have any of the clotting and other chunkiness I normally associate with periods. Extra bonus: Sex (which I didn't dare attempt until last night...I don't mean to imply that this period's been a walk in the park) didn't hurt as much as it usually does.

In short, this period has been 1) very heavy and 2) accompanied by moderate to severe pain, but 3) shorter, 4) easier, and 5) less onerous than my usual.

Unless something untoward comes up in the next month or so, I'm sold on this pill.

All I want for Christmas is...

Santa brought me a period! How thoughtful of him. I started Christmas Eve, around 6 p.m. Was up until 4 a.m. with the pain. Dragged meself out of bed at 9 to spend Christmas with the fam. Twas a 4-pad day, with Lyrica + Darvocet pain. (Had a good Christmas despite all that.) Today was roughly a 3-pad day, with Lyrica + whining (Mom wanted to go shopping, so Darvocet was not in the cards.) In short, the Mircette doesn't appear to make the periods any lighter, or lessen the pain.

But I can deal with that. What I'm concerned with is controlling the between-period pain, and keeping the periods to a single week. I'll let you know how that works out.

Mircette, month one

I can't tell you how my periods are on Mircette, 'cause I haven't started yet. I was supposed to start Sunday (and be done today...yeah, right). However, I haven't completely ruled it out yet...I'm in a moderate (no pill, some heating pad) amount of pain, and have that jelly feeling in my thighs that usually means it's coming.

However, everything else seems to be going well. I was a bit moody over the weekend, but it wasn't the crushing depression I'm used to. And I still bloated, but I've actually had days where I felt I looked thin -- it's been so long since I've felt thin! Plus, according to the scale, the bloating's only been in the 3- to 5-lb range, not the 10-15 I'm used to. No real breakouts to speak of. What mid-month pain I had was bearable...more a stiffness in my lower back than actual pain.

So if the period goes well, I'm sold. I know they say it takes 3 months to adjust, but honestly, I typically know how the side effects are going to go within the first month. So far, so good.

Exhaustion

I've read that endometriosis is often paired with exhaustion, but never realized until today how much so. After work, I took (rather involuntarily) one of my patented 3.5-hour naps. Granted, I was up late last night -- but not that late. Work was hectic -- but not that hectic. And I've not had any pain pills; there's been pain, but not that bad. (Yet.)

In other words, there was no reason for me to have been that tired, but I was. And still am. Luckily, my lack of a personal life leaves me time for such luxuries as evening naps. And my exhaustion level's high enough that it most likely won't even affect my sleep tonight.

However, I don't plan on allowing this to continue. I might have a life someday. So I need to get off my butt and make some lifestyle changes here.

I'm almost through with my month-long ban on pizza and fast food; it's gone better than I expected. But as I was doing dishes tonight, I realized that I do need to make other changes to my eating habits. Lately, I've been too tired to cook and clean, and have thus been eating party mix for dinner most every night. (I'm bad about using the holidays as an excuse to eat horribly.) The dishes from the last batch sat in the sink for two days; seeing what buttery dishes look like after that amount of time made me realize that cutting out pizza and fast food isn't enough -- I need to revise my snacking, and start eating meals again. Until I do, I can't really make any judgment calls on the effectiveness of eliminating crap from my diet, as I just replaced one flavor with another.

I'm also finding that, while I still do like black tea, I prefer green tea. Plus, I think my dependence on caffeine is gone. So I'm going to switch to decaf green tea in the mornings. Hopefully that'll help some of the symptoms. Might even help with the exhaustion.