Restlessness of the soul

For reasons unbeknownst to me, I've been physically suffering with pain for more than a month now. Body aches, migraine attacks, sinus infection, menstrual cramps and allergies were whacking my entire being all at almost the same time! No joke, some days the pain could be quite unbearable and was unremitting like the relentless bombardment of an abssessed tooth. I supposed as we age our body goes through a gamut of changes and these could be the sympthoms.

Then there's what was told to me, the perimenopausal stage or midlife crisis where the body temperature ascend without any apparent reason, creating bouts of hot flashes! Yes, at times I felt as if I'm on fire and yet my internal body temperature didn't change. I guess what heated up was just the temperature of my skin! As the name implies, natural menopause starts without my intervention; that's why it's sometimes called "spontaneous". But does every woman pass through the same menopause milestones?
My monthly cycle have certainly gone haywire, with twice a month and then missing the next but the following month came heavy flow, lasting for days. Then the cramps of my youth returned to attack me with a vengenance! I try every effort I could to avoid painkillers. After all, I'm allergy to NSAID.

Another issue is my blood pressure that became increasingly erratic. It went 155/103 one morning and 103/64 the next, and 166/83 another day.
Being an active person and one with a high threshold for pain, it is sometimes difficult to determine if this pain and hypertension my body is going through is normal and just part of the 'menopause package' or something else.

Within a week, I've consulted a GP and an ENT Specialist, and went through a series of medical checks : endoscopy, scan, chest x-ray, blood test and dozes of antibiotics that left me in a rather alpha state now. It didn't work well for me (the medication) cos' I woke up this morning with another full-blown migraine! But thought this was good enough to make me ponder, "Do I really need to go through this agony in order to understand the pains patients at Hospis are going through?" "Is Nature trying to mirror back something to me?"

Of menopause and allergies or maybe more..

A Matured Man and A Menopausing Woman
Some months back...I recalled having a light moment with Kelvin Ng (Buluman) and some of our running mates just before the start of a race. We were joking about being 'creative' in naming our race categories instead of the extremely boring Men Open, Women Open or Men Veteran and Women Veteran. Very quickly we came up with a few ideas eg. Fast & Furious Men, Fit & Fabulous Women, Modern Men, Wise Women or Matured Men and Menopausing Women!! Ha! Ha!
Kelvin immediately admitted that he'll fit himself perfectly into the 'Matured Men' category while I'll just categorise myself into the 'Menopausing Women' category!

The "Midlife Crisis"
Hey, I am not joking! These days it's rather common especially when women entered "midlife" - the popular euphemism for menopause...
Sometimes when I ran out of steam, lost my energy and started getting annoying aches and pains (esp. at the lower back); I began to wonder.."Is it menopause or just the normal effects of aging that kick in simultaneously with menopause?" As a runner and being a woman, I assumed that sometimes my aches, pains and loss of performance are menopause-related, but was informed that the research is vague and the connection unsubstantiated. Nobody knows for sure. I believe that every woman experiences menopause differently and I also know of some women who passed through it with little complaint.

A Hyper-Sensitive Guinea Pig
Perhaps athletic women have more difficulty than other women because we are so used to being in control, and menopause is a phase when one feels tired and definitely not feeling in control anymore especially over what's happening to the body! But things always happened quite uniquely for me, perhaps this is because I was given a super-sensitive body in this life. One of my doctors commented that it is a very good body for them to work as an experiment...No Way!! In other words, I am actually a good guinea pig? Ha! Ha!

A Victim Of Allergies
Jokes aside and to be honest, the slightest misuse of drugs would irritate my eyes and cause it to swell. At times, it's the environment or surroundings that would trigger an explosion of rashes. Sometimes it's the application of a certain product that made me vomit like crazy. Other times it's just the consumption of certain food and I would succumb to an allergy of sorts and my hormones would go hay-wire! I remembered the year where I had 3 analphylatic shocks and living with a BP of 180/120 and gosh, I survived! Last week, I had a piece of Roti Canai for dinner and I passed out a bowl of blood for 3 days!! Scary..

A Seeker seeking to know herself
Some of my friends panicked when I related this to them but to me, I've been quite used to this kind of drama now. So I don't worry too much. This morning I woke up feeling totally unwell..I was sneezing with watery eyes and my head felt heavy as if a migraine would attack anytime. My body, as always was burning. So I need to examine myself - what went wrong? Many times, there's no answer. Sometimes, I just assumed.
My physician suggested that I should record down all my encounters with allergies and share my experiences in the blog. Well, I don't know...I'm still trying to discover more about my body first.

So many questions, so few answers...