Today I walked a mile. It took me 36 minutes and I had to stop twice to rest; but I walked a mile. It's been 5 1/2 months since the last time I skated, almost 6 months since the last time I ran - and I still have a long way to go before I can do either of those things again. But I intend to. I am starting over, completely from scratch; as I have lost the majority of my muscle tone and all of my conditioning.
Since my last post in November, a few things have happened. The first and most important one being my finding a hormone specialist. I saw him at the beginning of December, he took blood work and discussed my symptoms then put me on a compounded bio-identical hormone cream. I've also learned a lot about hormones; our female hormones do a hell of a lot more than just prep the body for making babies or making you feel like a mental bitch before your period - they affect every system in your body. Low hormones can wreak havoc! This is what happened to me. I had too little Estrogen, Progesterone, and Testosterone. My symptoms have been first and foremost the anxiety and panic attacks; insomnia, depression, hair loss, heart palpitations, night sweats, muscle tension (in my neck and back) worsening of digestive issues, irritability, crashing fatigue; and a few other fun ones. I suspect that low hormones are what caused my already slow motility issues in my digestive system to get even slower - they're still not 100% but it's getting better. I can eat almost normally again and have been gradually adding foods back into my diet. I got down to 115 lbs but I think I've gained a few pounds.
I'm slowly getting better, I have more energy and less anxiety; I do still have some hesitation towards driving (since most of my panic attacks occurred in vehicles) but I know that I'll have to continue to work on that to overcome the fear and get back to driving myself normally. I'm pretty much completely off the Xanax (I just take it to help me sleep but that will be changing after my Dr appt tomorrow.) But the biggest thing is that I feel optimistic. I feel hopeful. I don't feel the crushing despair or the hopeless fear that this is how things are going to be from now on. I refuse to accept that. This is not living. So far I have not needed to take an antidepressant; my hormone doctor is pretty confident that I won't need to. So I'm just taking my thyroid medication, my hormone cream 2x a day, and compounded progesterone orally at night. I also take Vitamin D, digestive enzymes, probiotics, and a multivitamin.
I see my hormone doctor again on the 20th for blood work, possibly another increase in my cream but I should have an idea of what my new normal is by mid-February. I hope to start skating again in April or May. I am going to skate on my rec skates for now. I don't know if I'll do any races this year and that is okay, I just want to regain my independence and my strength. But I'm getting there!
