Chronic Illness, stress, trauma, and hormonal changes

 

This week I want to talk about chronic illnesses and the effects anxiety-filled, stressful, and even traumatic experiences, and hormonal changes have on them. My experience with them was a couple of weeks ago, I had a bad, stressful, and even traumatic time with my boyfriend and some bad habits he has had and friends he indulged in them with making him be mia from me that week. He wasn't coming home, answering calls or texts, or calling/texting me, worrying me sick. I was so anxious, panic-stricken, scared, worried, hurt, frustrated, and angry that I could barely function. I wasn't taking very good care of myself at all, barely eating, not sleeping, missing my medications and it caused all of my chronic illnesses to flare up badly. I was in so much pain from my asthma, migraines, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and fibromyalgia that it was just miserable. I was nauseated from the migraines and IBS that just getting through each day was a struggle.

I had an appointment with my pulmonologist right before this and she told me that I have inflammation deep in my lungs at the bottom of the airways in the nodes at the bottom, bronchioles and alveoli I think they are called. It causes a lot of chest pain, coughing, mucus production, shortness of breath, and wheezing, which makes breathing a big struggle. It was already bad before this stressful situation and it just got 10 times worse during it. I received a new medication, the Advair Discus in the second highest strength which is 250/50, I think. It is powdery inside the discus which can be uncomfortable starting out, especially when your lungs are ALREADY pretty badly inflamed and that too also caused coughing, wheezing, chest pain, tightness, etc. It was a struggle and add all the worry, panic, and emotional turmoil on top and you have a recipe for misery. I could barely even get relief either, going from 8/9/10 level pain to a 7-level pain, 6 if I was lucky. It was a difficult week to be sure.

I also had hormonal changes around this time, my period came early, and I was not expecting it for 2 more weeks, at least another week for sure. The pms/pmdd I have was a lot worse and my flow was not the same. It has been changing for the last few cycles at least. The flow has been changing, it's been a heavier flow at the first couple days of the cycle and then getting lighter and lighter until it is over whereas previously it stayed heavy for most of the cycle, not lightening until a couple days before it ended. My period also used to be longer, lasting 5 to 7 days and now it will only last 3 to 4 days, 5 at the most. I do believe that I have started perimenopause as I am also having other symptoms besides the period changes, such as increased anxiety, hot flashes, night sweats, bladder leaks/urinary issues, and increased insomnia. I am the right age as they say it starts between your 40s and 50s and I just turned 47. It adds to the flare-ups with my chronic illnesses and makes life very hard.

Finally, I would just like to introduce my new podcast that goes along with this blog, called My Chronic Life, that is all about living with chronic illnesses, the effects they have on myself and others with them, and other information on chronic illnesses that could help others with them. I created my podcast to help people with chronic illnesses learn more about them, show that they are not alone, and to offer tips, tricks, and treatments that can help it, that either I use now, used to use in the past, or have read about or discussed with others. Check it out today!