How much do hormones affect M.E.?

If this is the first time you've read anything about M.E., please do not think that in any way what I'm about to describe is the norm. It is not, hence my reason for blogging it.

As I'm sure we're all familiar with by now, I lost my baby on April 13th. A month and ten days ago. As such it's been six or seven months since I last had a period. I had forgotten some of the things that go alongside having a period ... for me at least. Obviously, everyone's experience is different.

For me, in particular, I have a rather strange form of PMT, which always seems to happen the day before my period. I'd completely forgotten about it, and it was only yesterday evening when I sat exhausted staring bleary eyed at the computer that I realised that was what was going on. (So yes, you maths genii, I started my period today).

Yesterday morning I got up, and I decided it would be a good idea to bake a cake. On a normal day this would be a challenge for me; I would struggle to stand up to mix the cake, so would opt to bring the mixture in to the living room and do it ... make adaptions for each part of cake making as I went along. This did not happen yesterday. Not only that, but because I have only just moved in to a new home, the entire process was a whole lot more complicated.

First of all I went to Tesco to buy some ingredients I did not have. Whilst there I figured I may as well fill the car up with fuel. I did use a disabled parking space, but I left my stick in the car and did not realise until I returned to it. Once home, I realised that T does not have some of the things I required for baking a cake, and that some of his things were not suitable. As such this meant unpacking boxes containing my kitchen belongings. This in turn meant moving a lot of boxes around upstairs, bringing some down, taking others up. There were still a few boxes littering up the bedroom, so I decided to empty and sort through the contents of them. I figured that since I was going up and down stairs a few times I should take laundry down with me, so I ran the washing machine three times. Once I'd moved the boxes from the bedroom floor I gave it a vacuum, then vacuumed the landing, T's bedroom, and the stairs were covered in cat fur, so I vacuumed them, taking the cleaner downstairs with me. Once the cake was in the oven I vacuumed the kitchen, utility room, and office floors, before giving them a good mopping. While I waited for the cake to cool I vacuumed the hallway and living room, took the clean laundry back upstairs and sorted through it. Once the cake was cool enough I made the icing, and covered it carefully with a bowl. I then went and ran a bath, and only realised it was 6pm because T got home from work.

I know I have gone in to meticulous detail about my day, which could be considered a little odd. The reason though, is that it demonstrates that I did A LOT yesterday. I am not sure whether this is considered a lot by a healthy person's standards, but it certainly is for someone with M.E.. Normally such activity would be spread out over the period of a week, or more.

As long as I can remember I have been this way though; the day before my period I get a completely new wind, and not only can do everything, but need to do everything. After I'd had the bath last night I dragged T out for dinner, where I eventually discovered that when I left the fuel station in the morning I'd forgotten to put my debit card back in my purse. Oops. Thank you for paying for dinner T.

I just couldn't stop. I needed to do more and more. The way my mind was working felt so completely different to normal. I was able to plan, and to multitask. I was able to plan what I would do during the time used for cooking the cake. I was able to see that I could take something downstairs, and then take something else back up with me for later use when I returned to continue what I was doing. I know these are normal thought processes that normal people do all the time, but usually I really struggle with these. The worse I am with M.E. the harder it is to think in such ways.

I realised last night that I used to be that way all of the time. Before I was ill, obviously. When I used to work my colleagues called me the Queen Of Multi-tasking; anyone who knows me now would think that was a joke ... unless they saw me in action yesterday anyway.

And this leads me to wonder ... this now only happens to me the day before my period. From what I remember of GCSE biology, that is the point at which the hormone levels are crossing over, triggering the shedding of the uterine lining. Are there some other chemical reactions going on also caused by that crossing over that cause me to become hyperactive? Am I being hyperactive, or is something actually cancelling M.E. out for a day? When the hormone levels cross over the other way do I have the oposite affect? I don't know, but I shall try and remember to watch out for it. And does anyone else with M.E. experience the same thing that I do?

The cake is delicious by the way.

Wednesday 6th June 2011

Wow, my mind is spinning, so this isn't going to be easy to write. I've had a really really hard few days. Really hard. I'm not quite sure where to start though really, coz my mind's in a completely different place now.

I can't remember Friday, so let's start with Saturday. G picked me up a little after 1pm. I had a bath in the morning, and got kind of bored so listened to my happy songs. (I have a happy folder in my Firefox bookmarks). He's a late riser at weekends, which I can understand since he works hard all week and is exhausted by it, but I find it frustrating using all my spoons in the morning and then zonking out on him in the afternoon. It was good to see him. When he arrived I just wanted to drag him inside and hug him. I'd not seen him for two weeks after all. But I'm a wuss, so I didn't. I can't really remember what we actually did now, to be honest. I do know however that we had an absolute disaster of an evening, which was entirely my fault, and I feel horrible for it. It affected the whole of Sunday. He went out briefly to see one of his neighbours. I started crying. He didn't know this obviously. I managed to compose myself before he got back. He went out to the shop a bit later though, and I started crying again. I was just starting to get a handle on it when he walked back in. He caught me crying. Holy clap on a bike, that's the worst thing psychologically for me, it really is.

As a child I was depressed, but obviously I didn't have any concept of depression, and no one seemed to pick up on it. I spent my childhood and teen years crying myself to sleep probably every night. Occasionally my sister would hear me and come to see what was wrong. If my parents or my step brother found me crying I was .. told not to .. to put it politely. I learnt to cry silently. In fact, pretty often I can be sitting next to you crying and you'd not know it. I still have this mental block. No one can see me crying. It's terrifying. So while he comforted me, it made me worse.

Why was I crying? Well, because I'd failed him. I failed him Saturday night, and then again on Sunday morning, and a little song I wrote for my dad when I was about 11 years old, about how everything I ever do goes wrong, just kept going round and round my head. I felt like that child again.

On a rational note; it could have been PMT causing that. I'm not quite sure whether PMT causes the negative thoughts, or whether it turns them into tears, but occasionally I have emotional PMT. Not every month thankfully.

So, I came away from the weekend feeling that I'll probably never see G again. Oh, he's assured me otherwise, but I feel like I keep pushing and pushing, but I'm not doing it on purpose. It's just that since I've known him things have got steadily worse (and no, I'm not implying that it's his fault at all). The stress from the medical assessors notes has seriously been pushing me to my limit, which has lead me to me being a giant psycho cry baby, and to M.E. crash after crash after crash.

I've spent the last two days in tears. Well, mostly anyway. I don't remember much about Monday, other than I was in tears and banging my head against a wall at one point. Yesterday I started to feel a bit more rational ... my period started and my mind seemed to clear. But then I had a massive crying attack in the evening again. Notably, my period had stopped ... which is odd. I keep thinking I'm having a nervous breakdown again. I do not want one. Obviously. The fear of the fear can cause the fear though.

Well, this morning I woke up feeling melancholy. I lay in bed listening to the rain, which inspired me to write a poem which I've shared on FetLife. I may share some poems on here eventually, now that it won't be scrutinised. I got up and went to the bathroom. Now here's a weird thing, I keep getting emotional, cystitis, and constipation all at the same time. I wonder if they're related. Anyways, I sat on the loo and I decided that I need to force myself to have routine again. Just a simple thing. So here's my resolution .. which I'll probably not stick to ... but anyways:

- lie in bed and try to write a poem or read a little, listen to the birds or rain, or whatever is going on outside

- brush my teeth

- wash my face

- drink half a pint or a pint of water

- do ten sit ups

- take my medication

- make the bed (unless I'm getting back in it)

And later on in the day:

- wash plates as soon as I use them

- don't use a plate if I'm not up to washing it

- put clothes away as soon as removed

It's pretty basic, but it's a start. So, I got dressed, thinking these things through in my head. I want to remain in a tidy, clean house, despite the fact that I am technically not really able to maintain it. If I don't have the spoons to clear up, then I'll not make the mess to start with. I was not feeling positive. I felt as miserable as sin, but I had decided that there was no way in hell I'd let a breakdown happen, and the first step is to force myself to have a routine. Or so I've read anyway.

DWP smell about it. I was loathe to open it, but open it I did. Low and behold; they have reconsidered my medical assessment and allowed me to retain ESA after all, with no tribunal.

This is why my head is in a spin. The thing that has been causing me to stress out beyond my own control, has just been whipped out from beneath me. I mean .. yay, obviously. I hope it's that simple. I hope that means the stress is gone. But you know, what if the damage is already done. I guess we'll have to watch this space won't we.