Woman with Butterfly Wings
So, if you are at a member at the forum you are noticing some changes.
First, the link is the same, but I did change the title to: Redefining Life: Life w/ PMDD Network, I think it is more fitting for a PMDD forum. This is a PMDD network and the only one of its kind, so we should be very proud. :)
Also, I have been taking notes and ‘trying’ to get started on my first PMDD book, not an ebook, but book which is going be more like my life story from start to finish with my life with PMDD. I posted how excited I am that I got thru the first page, just a start, but a start. :) and the title is Redefining Life. I believe with PMDD you are constantly having to redefine your life. When you realize you have PMDD you have to redefine the way you do things, when you can do things, etc…
Once you get used to that, with or without meds, a lot of times PMDD throws you a few curve balls and yet another redefining moment comes along.
Next, for some peri-menopause, menopause, or surgery induced menopause hits and of course, another redefining moment.
I just felt that this title fit all of us 100% and I hope you all agree too.
***UPDATE*** 6/15/09
Well, I don’t know if it’s the cramps or the bad mood, or what… but the pic is on my nerves. It’s not what I want and that of course pisses me off more than it should (good ole’ PMDD) :) Anyway, I went back to what I love and that is the turquoise color, left it at that and am stopping the over analyzing.
So, the pic is gone!
Now, onto the butterfly pic… I have wanted to find the perfect butterfly picture, my hopes were for the blue morpho butterfly because the color for ovarian cancer is turquoise and the blue morpho is that blue-turquoise color, depending on which pic you look at. Now, obviously PMDD is not cancer, but our hormones are definitely affected by our ovaries so I thought using the color was perfect.
During my search which has been going on for so long I can’t even remember, that’s why the header of this blog is so plain, I came across this pic today. A huge thank you to someone on photobucket.com. I love the thought of the butterfly for PMDD because for me to have wings and just fly FREE, without pain, worry, PMDD (all of it) is a dream come true. Sometimes when I am having those days when just everything seems to just over-take me, or go wrong, I can just sit outside and literally just drift away, think about a butterfly. Corny? Probably! but I love it!
Back to the pic. When I came across this pic of the Woman with wings, it was perfect. I just felt it! It wasn’t over-done, not an overly sexy butterfly Woman pic like so many of them are, it was like it was done for this site.
Also, if you don’t upload your own profile pic to the forum (the network forum: www.lifewpmdd.ning.com, then this pic will be uploaded until you add your own.
If you need help adding your own pic, just shout. :)
I hope you guys love the changes as much as I do! I can’t wait to get the site header fixed up now!
Stef
If I have a hysterectomy will I go thru Menopause?
Some of the questions I am looking for answers to I am posting here.
Please do NOT think that I am encouraging a hysterectomy to cure your PMDD. I would recommend trying a million things for a long time before even considering this option.
Again, I am just posting this info because I was looking for info, and I thought others may be too.
Question: If I Have a Hysterectomy, Will I Go Through Menopause?
Answer: If you need a hysterectomy prior to menopause to treat a women’s health issue such as endometriosis or cancer, you’re likely to experience an immediate onset symptoms of menopause only if both the uterus and the ovaries are removed during surgery. This type of menopause is called surgical or induced menopause.
If you are able to keep your ovaries during your hysterectomy, you won’t experience menopause because your ovaries will still produce hormones. While you won’t have periods anymore, you may still experience PMS or PMDD because the hormones made by your ovaries will cause your body to still “cycle” monthly. Occasionally women whose ovaries were not removed during a hysterectomy experience hot flashes due to disturbance of the blood supply to the ovaries during surgery. When you get closer to the natural time you would enter menopause, you may begin menopause a few years earlier than you would have otherwise.
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Ovary removal before Menopause Increases Risk for Dementia
Someone from my PMDD support group put this link out, I thought it was worth sharing here. The thought crossed my mind during some bad times of course, LOL, now it won’t cross it again.
Ovary Removal Before Menopause Increases Risk for Dementia, Study Says
Thursday , August 30, 2007
Women who have their ovaries removed before menopause run a heightened risk of developing dementia or other mental problems later in life — unless they take estrogen until age 50, a new study suggests.
Experts said the research needs to be confirmed by further study, but the findings suggest another issue for premenopausal women and their doctors to discuss as they consider ovary removal.
And if they decide to go ahead with surgery, they need to consider the risks and benefits of taking estrogen to age 50, said Dr. Walter Rocca, a Mayo Clinic neurologist and lead study author.
Hormone therapy has been linked to a greater risk of dementia and heart attacks when given to women after age 65. But recent research indicates that when given before menopause or just afterward, it does not raise heart attack risk and may protect against dementia.
The study did not include women who had ovaries removed as part of cancer treatment, and Rocca said the results do not apply to such women. The work was published Wednesday in the online edition of the journal Neurology.
Ovaries produce estrogen. Rocca said the likeliest explanation of the study results is that removing ovaries causes a sudden deficiency of that hormone, which in turn affects the brain.
Hundreds of thousands of women have their ovaries removed each year in the United States. In women around age 45, approaching menopause, ovaries are often removed during hysterectomies as a precaution against developing ovarian cancer. In addition, some women at unusually high risk of developing ovarian cancer have ovaries removed without hysterectomies, as do others who have ovarian problems like endometriosis.
Women younger than 45 often take estrogen after ovary removal because of symptoms like hot flashes and concerns about developing osteoporosis, noted Dr. Nancy Chescheir of Vanderbilt University. But older women who have the surgery are less likely to start estrogen therapy, said Chescheir, who did not participate in the new research.
The new study found the risk of later mental impairment was higher when the surgery was done at younger ages.
The research examined the fates of about 1,500 women who had one or both ovaries removed from 1950-87, and compared them to about 1,500 other women. Interviewers spoke with either the women themselves or somebody who knew them, asking about signs of memory impairment and any diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
Overall, the study found that women who had had one or both ovaries removed showed about a 50 percent increase in risk of the later mental problems.
A second study, which included about 2,300 women who had had the surgery and about 2,400 who had not, found about a 70 percent increased risk for a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease or Parkinson’s symptoms like tremors.
Still, that outcome was far less common than mental impairment, and experts said the evidence behind it was weaker than that provided in the mental-impairment paper. The Parkinson paper finding is “not quite ready for prime time” in terms of affecting patient care, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She was not involved with either study.
The mental-impairment paper suggests that a premenopausal woman without a family history of ovarian cancer who has to decide on whether to have her ovaries removed should ask her doctor whether that step is really necessary, she said.
“It’s very reasonable and important to have that conversation with her doctor,” Manson said.
Chescheir noted that estrogen therapy carries its own risks, such as a higher rate of blood clots and breast cancer, but that ovary-removal patients younger than 50 may want to have a serious discussion of that option after surgery.
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PMS predicts problem Menopause
I knew this from my doctor, this was one of the main reasons I am working so hard to get my PMDD controlled now so that my Menopause years won’t be spent spinning my wheels too.
I refuse to spend the rest of my days ‘figuring’ out life with PMDD or life with Menopause, LOL… I laugh, but I am NOT joking!
Here is another article from womenlivingnaturally.com
More Hot Flashes, Mood Swings Reported Later in Life for PMS Sufferers
Women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS) are likely to have a harder time later in life during the transition to menopause, new research shows.
In a study published in the May issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, investigators found that PMS suffers were twice as likely to experience hot flashes and mood swings as they approached “the change” as women who did not have PMS.
While it may seem unfair, the link does make sense, according to Pamela Boggs the North American Menopause Society director of Education and Development. She says women with PMS tend to be especially sensitive to fluctuating hormones, and fluctuating hormones are also the cause of the symptoms associated with the time prior menopause, known as perimenopause.
“We have known for some time that if a woman has bad PMS in her younger years this is a fairly good predictor of a bad perimenopause,” she said. “During this period estrogen levels are high some days and low others, and this is especially troubling for women who are sensitive.”
From PMS to Hot Flashes
Most women reach menopause, defined as having a year without a period, in their early 50s. Perimenopause is the period lasting a decade or so before that when menstrual bleeding become erratic and many women experience hot flashes, depression, and other well-known symptoms associated with the end of the reproductive years.
In the newly reported study, researchers followed 436 women approaching perimenopause for five years, in an effort to determine if PMS was predictive of these common symptoms.
All the women were between the ages of 35 and 47 when enrolled in the study, and all reported normal menstrual cycles during the preceding three months.
PMS symptoms declined significantly as menstrual bleeding became less frequent, with the likelihood of having PMS decreasing by 26% among the women considered to be in early perimenopause and by 80% among women who were late in the transition period.
The women with PMS at enrollment were twice as likely to report hot flashes during the study period, and slightly more than twice as likely to report having symptoms of depression. Women with PMS were also 50% more likely to report problems with sexual desire and 72% more likely to report problems sleeping.
Symptoms Similar
Clinicians often have a hard time distinguishing between PMS and perimenopause because many of the symptoms are similar. This study showed that a main defining characteristic of menopausal symptoms is the fact that they can occur at anytime and are not, like PMS, cyclic in nature.
We concluded that changes in cycle length may, in fact, signify the transition to menopause, and that symptoms occurring frequently throughout the cycle, and not just during the premenstrual period were also predictive,” author Ellen W. Freeman, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.
