Feeling Crappy, Screwups, and Decisions

1.  Feeling Crappy

Turns out, I didn’t have a hangover the other day.  It was the beginning of my PMDD/Migraine/Depression/Misery Days.  At least they don’t drag on for as long as they used to.  There’s that.  It was particularly rough this time, though, and the inner critic really capitalized on the opportunity to run rampant.  I remind myself that it has been far worse in the past, but it’s still so hard to get through when it’s happening in the moment.  Things are getting back to normal now, since some time Thursday.  Phew.

I have noticed that during Hormone Hell Week (hereafter to be affectionately known as HHW), I am far more likely to misunderstand things people say, or to misread their energy.  It occurred to me the other day that a situation with my therapist that happened back in August, where I completely misread and misunderstood her and more or less mentally “checked out” from the whole process for a little while, probably happened during HHW.  I looked back on my calendar this morning, and sure enough, it was smack-dab at the beginning of HHW for that month.  Going back through emails to my therapist in the few days around that time, I can really see how I was melting down.

So, I have added a recurring reminder to myself in my calendar, to appear every fourth Monday: “HHW – Don’t let it get to you.”

*  *  *

2. Screwups

So, I went to the doctor’s office Wednesday (my GP’s office), intending to talk to the nurse practitioner about trying some ADD medication.  I’d already spoken with my therapist about it, signed a release, and she’d faxed the information to the doctor’s office last week.

When the nurse (or medical assistant?  I’m not sure) called me back (almost a half hour after my appointment time, although it’s common for that office to be running behind), I noticed she was new and I took an immediate (and at first, unexplained) dislike to her.  I smiled anyway and tried not to let it show, aware that I’ve been tense and hormonal for days.

I got on the scale, and while I was standing there waiting for her to move the little slidey-things and find out my weight, she was reading a note on my record.

I see you called in recently asking for a prescription for Yaz.”

“Yes, that was taken care of.”

“The doctor isn’t going to prescribe Yaz for you.”

“He already did.  It’s taken care of.”

(This was almost four weeks ago, when my prescription had run out and I’d had to cancel my annual gynecologist appointments a few times because of other issues, and the gynecologist wouldn’t call in another refill because she hadn’t seen me.  I asked my GP to call it in once, which he did, and then I saw the gynecologist last week.)

“He won’t do it again.”

“It’s ok.  I don’t need him to.”

“Yaz is dangerous.  There are problems with it.”

“L (who has worked there for years and years) called me last week and we talked about it.  I’m aware of the issues.”

“The doctor won’t prescribe that for you.”

“I don’t need him to!”

Why wouldn’t she mind her own business?

Then we went into the exam room and did the whole checking-blood-pressure and going-over-my-records thing.

“Is this a follow-up?”

“It was supposed to be, but I didn’t do my blood work yet.  I kept the appointment because I want to talk to her about ADD medications.  My therapist faxed over the information on Friday.”

Nurse-Or-Medical-Assistant rolled her eyes and said, sardonically, “She probably didn’t do it.”

“She did.”

Don’t'choo be talking bad about my therapist.  My hackles were up.

She searched my record on the laptop.

“Who was supposed to fax it?”

“My therapist.”

I told her my therapist’s name, and spelled it.  Twice.

“The cardiologist?”

“No.”

Seriously?  Did she really ask me that?

“Who was supposed to send it?”

“My therapist.”

I spelled her name again.

“And what was she supposed to send?”

“An ADD assessment and the release I signed.”

There’s nothing here.  She didn’t send it.”

“She sent it.  But if you don’t have it, there really is no need for me to stay today, since I didn’t have the blood work done yet.”

“Well, let me go check.”

She left the room.  I waited, and steamed, and finally decided she had five more minutes and I was going to leave, when she came back in (now more than an hour after my scheduled appointment time) and told me that they had received the fax but didn’t know where it was.

I stood up to leave.

“Wait.  Don’t you want to talk to her anyway?”

“About what?  Without that fax, there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Why don’t you just talk to her anyway?”

She’s not going to prescribe me amphetamines based on my saying I want them!

I left.

Oh well.  I had some reservations, anyway, about ADD medications, because I’ve already had problems with medications that affect neurotransmitter levels, and because of some other possibly illogical “terrors” that have arisen around the whole topic (“What if I don’t really have ADD?  What if I’m just lazy?”, or “What if the things that appear to be ADD symptoms are really just the cognitive symptoms of Fibromyalgia / Chronic Fatigue?”, and, “What if the meds make me feel crazy or out of control?”)  So it wasn’t terribly difficult for me to just walk way and drop the whole idea of meds anyway.

I do feel a little sad, though.  I had begun to imagine less noise in my head.  Being able to grasp and focus on what is important and needs my attention at the moment, rather than ruminating about things that just aren’t important right then and don’t necessarily even serve a useful purpose at all.  I’d begun imagining what it might be like to be able to stay on task more easily at work.  My job isn’t ideal for someone with ADD.  There are a lot of interruptions, often layering over one other, and while I multi task pretty well during the higher-intensity moments of being interrupted by more than one person who thinks their problem or issue is the most important thing in the world at the time, it’s the getting-back-to-whatever-I-was-doing-before that is so hard.  And with each new interruption, the getting-back is harder and harder, until I finally just sit and stare.  I had anticipated that becoming easier.

And reading.  I so miss reading for pleasure, and being able to follow the plot of a novel without re-reading the same sentence or paragraph multiple times, and being able to remember which character is which, so that the next time they appear in a scene, I remember how they fit into the story.  I miss that.

I’m leaning toward asking my therapist if she can recommend a psychiatrist.  If there is one she recommends who is also on my insurance plan, I might make an appointment to talk about the meds.  After doing some further research to find out if maybe, by altering the amino acids I take to keep my neurotransmitter levels where they should be, and by not taking ADD meds every single day, I could avoid the sort of neurotransmitter damage I experienced before.  I think the ideal scenario would be to find a psychiatrist who incorporates a bit more of a holistic approach into their work, and perhaps would be willing to order tests to monitor my NT levels once or twice a year.  Other than my PMDD times, I seem to be in a really good place right now, so I would think that whatever my levels are during my non-PMDD weeks would be a good base line to go by.

Just thinking.

*  *  *

3. Decisions

PMDD time is a bad time for me to make decisions, and ironically it’s also a time when I keep ruminating about decisions I shouldn’t be making at the time, but can’t seem to let go of.

One of those is whether or not to do NaNoWriMo this year.

On the one hand, I participated for the past five years.  This will be number six, if I do it.  It’s become such a big part of my fall.  I’ve loved writing for most of my life and it’s fun to prepare for NaNo, making notes and brainstorming with Sister to come up with the framework of a story.  It’s fun to plan what kinds of snacks I’ll have available while I write, and it’s fun to go to write-ins and enjoy the social aspects of the whole thing.

On the other hand, I have a lot of other things going on this year.  My older nephew is getting married in November (my younger nephew just got married in September).  I’ve been working on my clutter problem and preparing for a very special visit in December.  This last week or so, I’ve been pulled away from decluttering because I’ve been working on getting my taxes filed, since the extension I filed for back in April will expire on the 15th, and then I spent a few days in “dialed-down” mode because I didn’t feel capable of much other than dragging myself into work and home again.  In order to completely immerse myself in NaNo, I’d like to have the decluttering done by the end of October, and I’m just not sure I can do that.

I also have this other pressure-feeling this year, that since I finally won last year, I have to win again this year.

I did decide that if I do NaNo this year, though, I’d rather not continue on to the third novel in the series I’ve been working on, simply because without having finished either of the first two, it becomes more and more difficult to keep starting the next ones.  I’d really like to finish one or both of the first two before moving along to the third, even though I have notes and a basic outline and time line for the entire series.

I decided I’d like to do something completely different this time, if I decide to do it.  I thought about it, came up with a couple very loose starter-thoughts, brainstormed with Sister (who, on hearing my first loose starter-thought, said, “And then what?”, and I said, “That’s all I have so far.”), then brainstormed some more with SS, then with Sister again, and then even more by myself, and . . . I think I’ve got it.  It’s an exciting concept, to be done in a somewhat unusual way.  It’s getting more and more exciting, the more I work on my notes and the more thinking I do about the plots and each character’s individual story.

And that, I believe, means I’ve made a decision.

–

The UPS Guy and Dick Clark

There are a few different regular UPS drivers who deliver to the office where I work.  One of them is a guy who used to be the regular UPS guy for the place I worked back in the mid-to-late-80’s.  I don’t think he remembers me from back then because I’m quite a bit older now, but I remember him because he hasn’t changed a bit.  Seriously.  Like the way Dick Clark didn’t change for so many years.  It’s almost creepy.

When he delivered a package yesterday, I got to thinking about just how many years ago it was that he used to deliver to the other office, and how much has changed.  Twenty years ago, in 1989, I was 25.

In 1989:

• My hair was still dark even without my dying it.
• I weighed (muffled, unintelligible word) pounds less than I do now.  I wasn’t “thin”, but I weighed a whole lot less.
• I had no arthritis and no symptoms of fibromyalgia (other than depression, which is related, but then again, is related to everything I deal with).
• I was able to sit with my foot under me in my chair at work.
• I still smoked.
• My migraines hadn’t started yet.
• I had a lot of sinus trouble.
• I wore aqua-colored contact lenses, which prompted a lot of compliments, but I always felt I was cheating, since the compliments weren’t for my real eye color, and I went back to clear lenses.
• I used to occasionally wear heels to work, but I never got the hang of walking in them, so I eventually blamed my height (I was about 5′11″ at the time) and quit trying to wear them.
• I wore makeup at least a few times a week then.
• I smoked pot.  A lot.
• I had been in love with my best friend for five years and finally admitted it.
• I came out.
• I still had my small, old, black and white TV from when I was a teenager, but it never bothered me that I couldn’t watch TV in color.  Even though it seemed to bother my friends.
• I was still years away from knowing what gluten was, let alone that I shouldn’t eat it.
• I ate a lot of Whoppers back then.
• Burger King Whoppers, not the malted milk balls, although those are also a no-no on a gluten free diet.
• I’d felt the loss of a pet, a year or so before that, when I had to have my beloved cat, Indigo, put to sleep.
• I didn’t know, yet, what it felt like to have a relationship, or a breakup.
• My parents were still young and the looming reality that I will have to say goodbye to them one day was not part of my daily ruminations yet.
• I had no idea that within a year, I would begin a relationship that would change the lives of everyone in my immediate family, in ways I would not have believed, had I been given a glimpse into the future.
• I’d been in counseling before (may have even been in counseling that year) but I’d never stuck around long enough to call it therapy, or to make the kind of progress I’ve made this last year.
• I did not know that I had Adult ADD.
• I thought I knew what fatigue was then.  I had no idea it could get so much worse.
• I thought I had a clutter problem then.  See second sentence of the point above.
• I’d heard of Microsoft Windows but had never seen a computer with it installed.
• My niece and nephews were all under seven.  They’re all grown up now, and have spouses or fiances; the boys both have either children or a child on the way.
• I didn’t know any of my three closest local friends yet.  I have been getting back in touch with some of my older friends on facebook lately, though, which is nice, but I’m not in touch with the two friends I was the closest with, back then.
• I thought I would never lose touch with many of the people who were in my life at the time.
• I had no idea that SS existed, or that my life wouldn’t begin to be lived with the depth of feeling that I’m seeing is possible until my hair turned silver.

Yes.  A lot has changed.

I should ask the UPS Guy how many things have changed in his life.

–

“I Want” Wednesday . . . I Want To Know

Today’s question for “I Want” Wednesday is “What Do You Want To Know?”

Oh boy.  I want to know so many things.  There are so many things I wonder about on a regular basis, but I’m not sure whether they fit into the “want to know” category or if they are more of the “sure would like to know” variety, such as why cats purr and dogs don’t, or why some people don’t wonder about things the way I do, or what is going through my cat’s mind when she bites me (only occasionally, thank goodness).  But there are also those burning questions or problems, things I really, really, want to know, among them:

I want to know . . .

1 . . . a foolproof way to pick winning lotto numbers.  Even if it only worked once.  Yeah, I know; lots of people want to know that.

2 . . . how to build a database driven web site.  I’ve bought so many books over the years, and tried online courses, trying to learn PHP and MySQL and various other languages, tried database software, tried building a FrontPage (I know; I’m still in the dark ages) web site with an Access database, and I keep running into brick walls and caving under the massive overwhelm that falls over me.  I have never been so intimidated by a learning project before in my life.

3 . . . just how many hours of sleep I require.  No matter how long I sleep, it never seems like enough.  I’m just saying.

4 . . . quantum physics type stuff.  I wish I knew somebody who could explain those concepts and theories to me in language I could really wrap my head around.

5 . . . what kind of shoes my therapist wears.  She only wears socks in her office.  I have asked her if I can see her shoes at my last session, whenever that will be.  She didn’t really answer.  She said, “Shoes?  What are shoes?”

6 . . . where all those rolls of electrical tape are that I remember buying over the last few years.

I also have several religious questions and questions about societal issues and such, but I don’t want to make this entry a very deep and heavy one.  I’m in a “keep it light” frame of mind right now, but that might be a great topic for a future post.

So that, I s’pose, is it, for now.

Anyone else want to know anything?

Maybe I’ll add more items in the comments if I think of them.

Fatigue . . . zzzzz

I’ve been having a really rough time the last several days because I missed my Yaz for almost three days.  Word of advice for anyone taking Yaz for PMDD: Don’t skip doses! I had a small snafu with refilling my prescription last Friday (my own fault, for not planning ahead) and had to go until Monday evening before I could get it taken care of.  Since Tuesday, I’ve been exhausted in spite of getting sleep, mentally foggy, dancing with depression, and nauseated off-and-on with muscle aches and mammoth hot flashes.  Ugh.  And did I mention feeling exhausted?  It’s actualy work to keep my head up.  There is also the return of some fear-related issues that I thought I’d mostly dealt with, but I’ll save that for some other blog post, some other day.

At least I have the knowledge, from past experience, that things will get better over time.  In the moment, it doesn’t feel like it will get better, but it will.

And when it does, I have several drafts of blog entries to work on finishing.  And emails to several friends I’ve gotten behind in emailing.  And reading and commenting on blogs I like to keep up with, and posting to a forum I belong to and have gotten behind on.  And I’m looking forward to clear thinking again.  And having my attitude change from “*Sigh*  Whatever” to something a little more like I’d been starting to get used to lately.

But for now, all I can really think about with much clarity is how much I miss my bed . . .  and my pillow . . .  and my blankie.

I Can Grit My Teeth Again!

Well.  Progress.  Since Wednesday night, I’m seeing steady improvement.

I no longer feel like I’m being stabbed in the head (that finally stopped yesterday), my knees still hurt but the pain is only a fraction of what it was, and I can actually bite correctly where my back teeth meet again, although my jaw still hurts.

The most noticeable thing, however, is that I slept eight hours last night and was able to stand almost completely upright as soon as I got up.  My back still hurts, but not nearly as badly as it did.

And come to think of it, I’m not as sleepy as I’ve been.

I’m actually glad that the improvement is slow and steady rather than fast and miraculous, because if it was fast and miraculous, I would have trouble trusting that it would last and was not some kind of crazy fluke.

This is good.

An ADDitional Piece of The Puzzle

So, I emailed my therapist last week about something (not related to the topic of this post), and I mentioned that I have so much trouble switching my focus from one thing to another.  If I’m on top of things at work and have a productive day, then when I get home I can’t seem to switch gears and take care of the things I need to do in my personal life because my head is still at work.  If I get involved in working on a novel or a web site or some other project at home, then when I go to work, I can’t seem to stop thinking about that project and focus on my work.

My therapist commented that difficulty transitioning is a strong indicator of adult ADD.  I’d actually wondered, four or five years ago, if I might have adult ADD, but I quickly discounted the idea because (1) I’ve never been hyperactive a day in my life . . . or really, anything that even resembles any usage of the word “active”, and (2) I’m sometimes very able to  focus, even to an extreme.  I have a small web design business and have a half-dozen or so web sites that I maintain and I often build new ones for personal use, and I’ve been known to work on a web site for 14 hours straight, focusing on it to the exclusion of everything else except the occasional need to pee or eat or drink water or coffee.

As it turns out, hyperfocus is a symptom, and can be a good thing, when channelled properly.  I guess I just need to learn how not to forget to take care of other things that are important.

I found this ADD web page, and the majority of what it says is so on-the-mark.  My therapist offered to do a formal assessment, or not, as I chose.  I wavered a little, thought about it, and then finally decided to just do it and find out.  What could it hurt to find out?  The results were pretty clear.

And this explains so much.

Now I am realizing that finishing NaNoWriMo felt like such a big deal to me for very good reason.  All the introspection, all the trying to figure out the psychological reason(s) for my apparent fear of success, and coming up with nothing that really rang a bell, other than “If I succeed, people will expect me to keep succeeding, and I’m not confident I can do that” . . . it makes a lot more sense now.

The never finishing anything (one of my friends pointed that out to me just recently, that in the three years since she’s known me, I have begun several projects, novels, etc., and she never heard me ever say I’d finished any of them, and I’ve been this way for years and years), the hyperfocusing on one thing while forgetting to do other very important things, the stupid mistakes at work that would (and understandably should) have gotten me fired a long time ago if my boss hadn’t given me so many chances to redeem myself, the way I so often “zone out” in conversations (that used to drive one of my exes batshit – I don’t mean to do it), the inability to get to work on time more than about six times a year . . . so many things make more sense now.

I hadn’t been aware there was still another piece of the puzzle that I didn’t have.  I’d been blaming all my focus and concentration problems on the different health issues I have that can all come with those symptoms.  That, and I did believe that underneath it all I must just be a lazy loser.  I thought this was as good as I was going to get, and that I would just have to accept it.

In spite of making the decision to go back to school, I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do it.  I knew enough to try and prioritize what I’ll need to do before I can start, like getting into a habit of eating healthy and losing some weight, so I can be a bit less sleepy all the time and have more stamina, as well as being in the habit of planning ahead with meals so I won’t be left to eat from vending machines at school (which would be difficult because of the gluten and also wouldn’t help in my fight against fatigue or my weight loss attempts).  Knowing about the ADD, though, is a good thing, because now I can finally let go of that “I’m-a-loser” mantra and start forgiving myself and working toward solutions.

My therapist loaned me her copy of Driven to Distraction and I started reading it last night.  I’ve already found some information in it that I think will be very helpful.  I did have to laugh, though, at the idea of reading a book about how to deal with ADD when reading retention and reading the same paragraph over and over are symptoms of ADD.  But the authors both have ADD, so I’m figuring if they could manage to write it, I can manage to read it.  And I do read a lot.  It’s just been taking me longer to read something in the last several years than it used to.  I’d been wondering why I was having so much trouble following a novel anymore.  I can never guess whodunnit anymore because I confuse and forget little details about certain characters and mix them up.

I’m even thinking the reason I tend to eat the same thing for dinner most nights is possibly ADD-related, since I have so much trouble planning ahead and figuring out all the steps involved in making something different each night.  I’m also even more pleased, now, with my decision to just make that quirk work for me and go ahead and eat mostly the same things on my diet as well.  And it’s still working, so far.

Leaving you with some interesting myths from the web site I linked to in the fourth paragraph:

Adult ADD Myths: Fact or Fiction

MYTH: ADD is just a lack of willpower. Persons with ADD focus well on things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really wanted to.

FACT: ADD looks very much like a willpower problem, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a chemical problem in the management systems of the brain.

MYTH: Everybody has the symptoms of ADD, and anyone with adequate intelligence can overcome these difficulties.

FACT: ADD affects persons of all levels of intelligence. And although everyone sometimes has symptoms of ADD, only those with chronic impairments from these symptoms warrant an ADD diagnosis.

MYTH: Someone can’t have ADD and also have depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric problems.

FACT: A person with ADD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people. ADD usually overlaps with other disorders.

MYTH: ADD doesn’t really cause much damage to a person’s life.

FACT: Untreated or inadequately treated ADD syndrome often severely impairs learning, family life, education, work life, social interactions, and driving safely.

MYTH: Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD as a child, you can’t have it as an adult.

FACT: Many adults have struggled all their lives with unrecognized ADD impairments. They haven’t received help because they assumed that their chronic difficulties, like depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not respond to the usual treatments.

Combining Diet Plans

I’m liking this whole concept of lowering caloric intake and then seeing corresponding weight loss.  I love it when things work they way they’re supposed to.

Because “150 pounds to lose” is a huge goal to look at head-on, I decided to break it into five 30-pound goals.  I’m 14% of the way to my first goal.

Note: The rest of this entry carries a severe boredom warning, unless you are here specifically because you are interested either in hearing about my diet or learning about the Inflammation Factor in foods. 

The diet I am following is a modified blend of more than one diet plan.

Back in, oh, I think it was 2005, I ordered a diet plan that was advertised on TV.  It’s one where you answer a bunch of questions to find out which body type you are and then follow the plan for that body type.  I forget what they call my body type, but my type has the slowest metabolism of all the types in their results.  The diet is one where you eat five or six small meals each day.  It’s sometimes hard to remember to stop and eat every few hours, but I’m getting the hang of it.

When I tried this diet in 2005, I had more trouble sticking to it, which is why I have modified it a little bit.  As the diet is written, it is very strict and does not include any dairy products, nuts, bread, packaged foods . . . it’s pretty much lean meats and fish, vegetables, fruits, and carbs like potatoes or rice or sweet potatoes.  (That is for the first six weeks, to improve the metabolism, and then it’s ok to slowly add extra items, I think it said – I didn’t stick to it for six full weeks the first time.)  

The restrictiveness of the diet was a big part of what helped to confirm my suspicions about my gluten intolerance, however, when I tried it in ‘05.  I didn’t start the gluten free diet until ‘07, but having done Atkins in ‘04 and then this diet in ‘05, I really noticed a difference when I cut out bread.  In fact, I remember noticing how much better I felt when I started the Atkins diet, and then the moment I discovered low-carb bread, I started to feel bad again.

But I digress.

The proteins, vegetables, fruits, and carbs are broken down into categories on this diet, and the plan allows for x-amount from one category or a different amount from another category, depending on the calories, fats, and sugars.  The snacks are always a protein and a fruit and the meals (lunch and dinner) are a protein, a vegetable, and a carb.  Breakfast is usually a protein and a carb, but I’ve also seen an example that lists a protein and half a grapefruit, which is the only time I’ve seen a fruit with a meal.  I’ve been eating gluten-free oatmeal and hard boiled eggs for breakfast.  That’s easy to do and I like it.

The modifications I made were to add cottage cheese and almonds to the foods I eat, as well as apples, even though they are in the category of fruits that I shouldn’t be eating until after the first six weeks.  I’m in this for the long haul, and so I’m figuring that as long as it’s working and I’m seeing results, I’m doing ok, and by allowing a few more choices, I’m making it easier on myself.

So anyway, the idea behind a small serving of protein with every meal and snack, as well as the five or six small meals aspect, is to keep blood sugar levels balanced through the day, avoiding big spikes and dips.  That must also be the reason that fruits are at snack times and (other) carbs and vegetables are at mealtimes, to keep the carbs/sugars balanced.

The other diet plan I’m working into the mix has to do with the Inflammation Factor.  I found the NutritionData web site awhile back and have used it off and on to check calories, carb counts, etc.  They also include an Inflammation Factor rating for each item, and I clicked on their “What’s This?” link to find out more.  This is what it says:

The IF (Inflammation Factor) Rating™ estimates the inflammatory or anti-inflammatory potential of individual foods or combinations of foods by calculating the net effect of different nutritional factors, such as fatty acids, antioxidants, and glycemic impact.

How to interpret the values: Foods with positive IF Ratings are considered anti-inflammatory, and those with negative IF Ratings are considered inflammatory. The higher the number, the stronger the effect.

The goal is to balance negative foods with positive foods so that the combined rating for all foods eaten in a single day is positive. 

I followed the “Read More About the IF Rating” link and ordered the book by Monica Reinagel.  I received the book and have skimmed it, but so far haven’t read all of it yet.  I understand the basic gist of combining foods so that the total IF rating for the meal (and for the day) is positive, though, and I have been combining my choices according to that.

For example:

2 oz. of pan-fried chicken breast meat = -16
2 oz. canned pink salmon =  +280 (I make patties out of it with flax seed and fry them in olive oil.  Flax seed and olive oil should raise the IF rating even more.)
1/2 c. baked sweet potato =  +186
1/2 c. instant mashed potatoes = -57.5 (This is when prepared with milk, which I don’t use, so my number would probably be slightly better.) 

I eat the chicken with the sweet potato and the salmon with the mashed potatoes so that both meals average out with positive numbers (I didn’t list the vegetables here because the ones I eat all have positive ratings anyway).  Same with snacks.  Four oz. of cottage cheese is -25, four oz. of unsweetened applesauce is -5.5, 1/4 cup of cubed cantaloupe is +16.75 and 1 oz. of salted, dry roasted almonds is +56.  I’m eating the cottage cheese with the cantaloupe and the applesauce with the almonds.  The cottage cheese / cantaloupe combination is still in the negative, but that will be balanced out with the rest of the day’s numbers.

I just did a quick calculation, and on a typical day, I should wind up with about a 195.  The NutritionData web site says a typical target is 50 per day or higher.

The thing that keeps this from being too overwhelmingly complicated for me is that I’m capitalizing on one of my weirder quirks rather than trying to force myself to endure too much change too fast: I’m the epitome of “creature of habit”.  

Before I was gluten free (I cringe when I admit this), I would eat the same meal from McDonalds for lunch and dinner every day and not get tired of it.  I went gluten free and then started making melt sandwiches with gluten free bread every single night for dinner, and often for lunch on the weekends.  I know.  Crazy, huh?  I suppose that means I’m lazy and unimaginative in the kitchen, though I can cook, if I want to.  I just don’t seem to do the whole meal-planning thing very well.  Part of the problem has been money – it’s cheaper and less complicated to make sandwiches, despite the high cost of gluten free bread.  And part of the problem has been my fluctuating moods and memory / focus levels.  Sometimes it’s just too much to plan that far ahead.  That has been a problem when I’ve tried to diet in the past.  I’d be going along fine and then hit a bit of an icy patch with depression or fatigue and I’d be leaving for work with no lunch prepared and no real plan for what to do about it, and I’d wind up just eating whatever, and blowing the diet.

So instead of beating myself up and trying to force change in two major areas at once (the “creature of habit” thing and my food addictions), I decided to taylor the diet to my established habits.  Since I like for dinner to be something I can make very quickly with little fuss and since I am capable of eating the same thing every night without going nuts, I picked out an easy meal I can make every night that can become as much of a habit as my melt sandwiches did (salmon patties, instant mashed potatoes, and green beans).

 I’ve been eating the same thing every day for breakfast, too.  I eat breakfast at work because I take amino acids in the morning that require not eating any proteins within an hour or so, so every night, I measure my oatmeal into a plastic bowl with a lid and add Splenda and cinnamon for the next morning, and I keep hard boiled eggs in the fridge.  At work, I add water to the oatmeal and microwave it.

I can cook lunch meals ahead, once a week, and freeze them to take to work, and I can cook pretty much the same three or four meals to keep it easy and uncomplicated, and on the occasion that I feel especially creative I can change it up with something different.  During the next few weeks, I’m going to be working on cooking ahead enough so that I have lunches for about three weeks, of about three different meals, and then each week I can cook a week’s worth of one of the meals and keep rotating them so I don’t eat the same lunch every day, for some variety.

There.  I am putting my quirky weirdnesses to good use.  At least, some of them.

Coming soon: a post about my exercise plans.

Results . . . and Results

I saw my nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office last Monday morning to go over the results of the Holter monitor and echocardiogram, and it is mild MVP, which I already knew was not a big deal as long as it’s mild.  I’m supposed to make an appointment to see the cardiologist, but I kept forgetting to do that last week.  I’ll be sure and do it today.  I have to have bloodwork done again, too, though I don’t really understand why my NP wants it again so soon, since I just had it done in September and everything came back great.  But, ok.

The cardiologist wrote in the report that a stress test might be a good idea, so I guess maybe he’ll order one.  I’ve never had one, and how well I will do can vary greatly, depending on whether my back is bad that day and whether it’s a bad fatigue-day or not.  Too bad I can’t predict those in advance.

I live in a second-floor apartment, and I use the nightly climbing of the stairs when I get home as a gauge as to what level the fatigue is.   Climbing stairs at my weight will always make me somewhat out of breath, but on the bad fatigue days, it’s so much more pronounced, along with aching in my legs.  I’ve been making a more concerted effort at sleeping more regular hours (instead of broken sleep, like I’ve been doing for a long time) and not forgetting to take my vitamins.  Those two things do make a surprising difference.

I’m sure he will tell me to lose weight, and of course I am aware of how that will help in so many ways, but one thing that I’m finding comfort in is that MVP isn’t caused by obesity.  In fact, one article I read said that a large percentage of people who have it are tall and thin.  Well, I’m tall.

But of course, while I don’t buy into the blanket belief that a person cannot possibly be both healthy and overweight (my blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol have always been perfect and I have no heart disease), I do know I will feel a great deal of relief when I weigh less.  Moving around will be easier, my back will hurt less, I’ll have more energy, and I’ll be able to scratch any part of my back that itches without needing a back scratcher or other long instrument.  (That’s one of those weird little things one might not think of if they have never been very overweight.)  I miss being flexible, and being able to sit with my feet tucked under me on the couch, and not being embarrassed when I have to pick up something I’ve dropped on the floor and my difficulty is obvious.

So, I’ve been trying for a long time to adjust my mindset to start a diet again, and this, I guess, helped.  I started Friday, in a moment of deciding whether to go to the health food store while I was out on my lunch break to buy some of my gluten free bread.  Bread is one of those things that I am much better off not having in the house if I’m dieting, because the temptation to make “melts” for every meal is too great.  (And grilled cheese or toast or a cheese sandwich as a snack.)  I was questioning whether I was ready  to start the diet yet, feeling a little unprepared mentally, but I had already gone as far, a few days earlier, as to make a shopping list of the foods I would need in order to eat right for a week or ten days.  I opted to skip the bread and went directly to the grocery store, where I bought the items on my list, and it was officially “on” from that moment.

I weighed myself first thing Saturday morning, and by this morning I had lost three pounds.  It was such an awesome feeling to see a drop immediately (the first half-pound was gone by Sunday morning)!  For a few years, as the PMDD and gluten intolerance symptoms were reachng their peak before I figured out what the problem(s) was/were, I had the damnedest time trying to lose weight.  I would start a diet, and even after a week or two, would see either no change or a weight gain.  Well-meaning people would tell me that “muscle weighs more than fat” and that it must be all that exercising I was doing, but all I was doing was walking, not building muscle.  Doctors gave me “the look” – the one that says they think you’re a whack-job.  Some people thought I must not really be dieting, only claiming to, or I was doing it wrong.  Once I went gluten free and started taking Yaz for my PMDD, I automatically dropped several pounds without trying, and then remained at that new weight, though still way too high, until very recently.  I wasn’t aware I’d begun to gain again until I was weighed on the doctor’s scale the last couple times.

I’m thrilled to see that immediate result.  It gives me the “want to” to keep working at it.  It’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Palpitations, Migraines, and Fatigue . . . Oh My!

Because symptoms like depression, fatigue, and migraines are associated with every health issue I deal with, when one or more of those symptoms becomes worse, I tend to look to one of those issues to blame.  Do I also have IBS-like symptoms accompanied by gas and bloating and intestinal pain?  I must have been glutened.  Do my arms and shoulders and upper back hurt and has the weather changed recently (from cold to hot or humid to dry, or the other way around) or did I overdo something physically?  It’s just a Fibromyalgia flareup, then.  Could it be hormonal?  It could be related to the menopause, or the PMDD, or maybe the PCOS.

Update 3/24/09: If I experience “brain fog” or an inability to focus on or begin a task, this could be caused by (or due to a combination of causes related to) gluten, Fibromyalgia, or ADD.

But when it’s accompanied by intense feelings of panic or anxiety (as if my chest is going to explode or I’m going to jump out of my skin), palpitations, chest pressure, a heavy “sinking feeling” (sometimes accompanied by a feeling like grief or dread) in my chest, or a really uncomfortable “fluttering” in my chest, as if my heart has turned itself upside down, I haven’t known what to do with that.

My sister, who was diagnosed with Mitral Valve Prolapse about 25 years ago, has been telling me for awhile that I need to mention it to my doctor, because so much of what I describe sounds just like what she experiences.

“Anxiety, panic attacks, and depression may be associated with mitral valve prolapse. Like fatigue, these symptoms are believed to be related to imbalances of the autonomic nervous system.” - MedicineNet.com

I’ve been having palpitations at times for about 25 years (most often after eating, and they last for at least an hour, usually longer), but the other stuff is newer, over about the last year to year-and-a-half.  It took me awhile to bring it up to the doctor, because I don’t see my GP very often, and every time I’ve gone, they always said my heart sounded great, though I do know that MVP is difficult to hear.  I did have a different doctor, about 12 years ago, tell me she heard a “click”, and she asked me if I’d ever heard of MVP.  I said yes, that my sister had it, and she suggested that we look into that.  I changed insurance companies shortly after that, though, and changed doctors as a result, and when the new (my current) doctor and nurse practitioner never heard it, I just assumed it was a mistake the other time.  My blood pressure and cholesterol are always very good, but that probably doesn’t indicate anything in this case.  I’ve just always been kind of proud of having a healthy heart and haven’t wanted to concede that anything could be wrong (as if I had anything to do with it; with the way I eat and my lack of exercise, I definitely can’t claim credit for my good fortune in the healthy heart department).

Anyway, I finally brought it up when I saw my nurse practitioner last week, and she ordered a consult with a cardiologist for this morning, and I’m on a Holter monitor for 24 hours.  (I told my coworker when I got back to work, “Don’t freak me out; I’m wired.”)

I’d mentioned to my nurse practitioner that certain foods trigger the symptoms I’m experiencing.  She told me to eat some of those foods today.  Peanut butter and corn chips are two biggies, and I had temporarily forgotten (over and over again) that M&M’s belong on the list, too.  It seems that every time I eat M&M’s, I have a reaction, but in the month or two before I buy them again, I manage to forget that I reacted to them in the past.  Denial is a powerful thing.  In fact, I had completely forgotten (until one day last week when I was talking to my sister about it) that a few years ago, when I was dog-sitting for some friends and was sitting and eating M&M’s while watching TV, I had some pretty intense chest pain afterward.  Most people don’t forget that sort of thing, you know?

But anyway.

I’ve been thinking it was more likely that this is a food sensitivity thing than MVP, but from reading the information on the Conscious Choice web site, I learned that they could go together.

“Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and MVP
In the new field of environmental medicine we are identifying a type of patient we call a “universal reactor.” This is a person who appears to be reacting with hypersensitivity to many environmental influences, including food additives, chemicals in the environment, dry cleaning chemicals, smells from plastic or vinyl, or the detergent aisle in the grocery store. These stimuli can set off a cascade of distressing reactions. Conventional medicine views this as a delusional state, and suggests that these people are becoming phobic to foods or smells, and suffering from depression or panic disorder.

“A more enlightened view is that these patients have suffered various environmental insults, such as living or working in an unventilated space with overwhelming paint or new carpet fumes, which have triggered their multiple sensitivity. People with mitral valve prolapse may have an underlying susceptibility to environmental stimuli that helps trigger this condition.”

My sister was the one who pointed out to me that not only am I gluten intolerant and extremely sensitive to even the slightest cross-contamination, but I also comment often about strong smells that others around me don’t find to be nearly so strong as I do.  Just last month, on the final day of NaNo, I was down to my last 1000 words, and I took a break and was looking through some old stuff in a drawer and I found several packages of incense that I haven’t used in years.  I couldn’t quite remember why I had stopped using it, and I got a stick out and lit it, and had chest pain, which was when I remembered why I had stopped using it before, so I put it out and I’m going to give all the incense away.  I can handle scented candles, but if I’m too close to them, I sometimes will feel choked up.  I also remember having chest pain when I used to use oil warmers and essential oils, which was a huge disappointment to me, since I loved them.

(I’m including all this excess information in this post just in case someone lands here in an effort to understand some weird symptoms they are having.  If I can help someone else, that’s great.)

At the risk of looking and sounding like a raging hypochondriac, I made a spreadsheet where I copied and pasted the main symptoms for each issue I deal with, and made a column for each issue and checked off what the symptoms apply to.  I alphabatized the list and combined same or similar symptoms and those that were lumped together, and I can clearly see that my top complaints in how I feel and function do indeed apply to all the issues.  I wound up being glad I spent the time to make the chart, because now when I’m depressed or having a migraine or feeling painfully fatigued (yes, it really does hurt), I can remind myself it’s just something I’m going to have to keep consciously working to overcome and not a personal weakness or character flaw to beat myself up for.  And I can’t help but to keep hoping that it is still within my power to reduce my symptoms significantly, by losing weight and avoiding trigger foods and by exercising, which I haven’t really done with any long-lasting regularity yet.

I had been feeling pretty good toward the end of last week and over the weekend (after a really bad bout of constant anxiety and all the symptoms in paragraph two, along with depression).  I cut out caffeine (with the exception of a few small pieces of dark chocolate), peanut butter, corn chips, and M&M’s.  As each day passed, I felt better than the last.  Then last night, I bought more M&M’s so I could eat some today for the test, and of course, the temptation monster was extra powerful and I ate some last night.  I had anxiety and palpitations all evening, during the night when I was trying to sleep, and this morning.  Maybe now I’ll finally start to remember what they do to me.

My sister has told me about how her doctor had asked her if she had any recent, irrational fears or phobias at the time she was diagnosed, and she’d remarked that she’d been suddenly afraid of thunder storms for no aparent reason.  Her doctor told her that irrational fears or  phobias can also go along with MVP.  I’ve been noticing that for a year or two, I’ve been way more paranoid than I ever used to be (mostly about the state of my job, and the way my focus and concentration problems cause trouble in my ability to do my job properly).  There is a basis for some of the paranoia, but not to the extent I seem to take it in my head.

My sister also told me that ever since she began to have symptoms, she finds that she can’t stand to hear music that has a heartbeat-like rhythm or watch a scary movie where they use that heartbeat-like sound to induce tension.  My “thing” is (and has been for several years) being near a car with one of those booming stereo systems turned up loud.  I’m generally a pretty passive, live-and-let-live sort of person, but if anything can make me feel like getting out of my car and pulling a stranger out of his/her vehicle by his/her hair and beating the crap out of him/her for no reason, that is it.  Of course, I’ve never acted on those feelings, and I haven’t been noticing those kind of stereos f0r at least a couple years anymore.  I think there were new noise laws passed awhile back that must account for that.

So, I’ll know what’s going on soon.  Of course, I’m not automatically assuming it’s MVP.  It still could be another food sensitivity issue (though what is in peanut butter, corn chips, and M&M’s, I don’t know; corn syrup or corn oil seems like the most likely possibility, except it’s not listed as an ingredient in my peanut butter), or it could be pure anxiety, possibly magnified by menopause.  And, this is a particularly stressful time in several ways.  It’s Christmas time, which has always been hard for me, and money problems have been continually worstening for most everyone.  I made the decision to go back to school for Medical Transcription, and that brought a whole host of questions to the surface that I don’t know the answers to (Am I physically capable of the kind of commitment it will take to go to school for two to three years, probalby two to three evenings a week, in addition to working full time, when for the last few years, holding down my job has been about the limit of my functionality?  And if I don’t go back to school, where will I be in two to three years?  And, of course, there are the lack-of-confidence issues, like the fact that I haven’t been a student in 24 years, and I wasn’t a good student even then.  The last time I was a good student, I was in 6th grade.  That’s probably a whole entry in itself.)  Coupled with the stess is the fact that I drank more coffee in November, during NaNoWriMo, than I generally drink in probably three months.  Fortunately, I didn’t continue the candy thing all month, but the amount I ate was way too much.

I just feel that I’ve spent so many years researching, trying new vitamins and supplements, new diets, etc., avoiding medications and all their side effects, only to have most things seem to work wonders at first and then gradually lose effectiveness.  So I’m tired, and yeah, as bad as it sounds, I would love for this to turn out to be a clear-cut physical condition (especially one as relatively minor as MVP, as opposed to heart disease) that I can take medicine for and feel better.

Introduction

I guess it’s time to introduce myself.

I’ve had an online diary on another site since 2003, and while there are many features there I like and have enjoyed, I kind of feel like it’s time for a change.  Plus I really like the Tags and Categories on WordPress.

So, this blog will be about a lot of things.  I’ve been contemplating, recently, the difference between a blog and an online diary.  I came to the conclusion that most blogs seem to be about a specific topic, often with many sub-topics (writing, gluten-free living, etc.), while a diary seems to be more about the life of the diarist, all sorts of topics and sub-topics all rolled into it.  But I could be wrong.  Maybe they’re just two words that mean the same thing.  I still don’t know.  But since I am one who writes about a lot of topics that pertain to my life, the Tags and Categories feature on WordPress is especially impressive to me.  I like that people can read about the things they’re interested in and not be bored by the things they aren’t.

This is the little blurb I have at the top of my old diary, to give some sort of idea of the sorts of things I write about: “woman, 44, writes for pleasure, writes for therapy, writes to share . . . writes about growth and change, family and friends, pets, spirituality, sexuality, odd ponderings, irony, fiction writing, the mundane and ordinary (and sometimes finding the profound within the mundane and ordinary) . . . gluten-free since late April 2007, living with fibromyalgia / chronic fatigue / depression / menopause / pcos / pmdd, trying to keep a sense of humor, one day at a time . . . life is constant motion, however slow or fast it may be“.