The last few days have not been good, quite frankly. It started with Saturday, which did turn out to be a couple days before my period started. No brain, fighting for words, feeling shitty. Sunday was better, but I still had a low grade headache all day. Monday my period actually started and it was pretty bad. Really bad headache, no brain, achy. (No migraine – I could tell that the headache wanted to transform into one.)

However, I am stubborn as fuck and made it through the day anyway, doing the things that I needed to do. (Including things that I should have waited to do until I had more brain.)

Tuesday, I still had a headache, though not as bad, and I had a lot more brain. Headache lifted about midmorning, which was when my period decided to change from being a normal flow to OMG are you fucking kidding me?

September had been the heaviest flow I’d ever had in my thirty plus years of menstruating.

October heard about that and decided it wanted to put its hat in the ring for the same prize, as it were.

Of course, on a day we were traveling. Going camping.

*sigh*

But at least my head had stopped hurting for the most part, and I had brain again.

This morning, I’m sitting at a very pleasant campsite near Yakima. It’s a little chilly, but that’s in part because my hair is still wet from the shower. I’m adequately bundled up, with many, many layers on.

It’s also gorgeous. The leaves are brilliant golds and reds with some browns thrown in. We lucked out in terms of weather – it should be mostly sunny for the next few days.

I really love fall. Spring is still my favorite season, but fall takes a close second.

Because I’ve managed to get so much healthier by changing my diet, I tend to blame myself when I have bad days. There must have been something I could have done or eaten or not eaten to make myself better.

I really don’t know if there’s something I could have done. I have gone hard core keto again to see if that will lessen the hormonal effects. It’s too early to tell if it will actually help.

The days between my periods have been significantly better being keto. In general, I’ve been feeling really good. Lots of brain and energy and words.

On the other hand, this period was pretty bad. Would it have been worse if I’d just been low carb? I don’t know. Do I want to stick to keto if it means that most of the month is better, and just a few days are worse? Again, hard to say. Need more data before I can make a decision.

If the pattern my naturopath has seen in other women going through this turns out to be my pattern, then either November or December will be hell again. I’m hoping for December, as I have things to do in early November. (Pattern is: Whacked out month. 2-3 months of “normal”. Whacked out month. Rinse, repeat.)

And again, I’m really hoping that the keto diet will lessen the effects of the whacked out month. We’ll see.

ION – one of the lovely issues that the perimenopause brings is inflammation. I’ve been taking turmeric for a couple months now, as well as drinking rose hip tea, with hibiscus and ginger. Both have really helped. My fingers are nowhere near as swollen. Both hands are almost the same size. I can now touch the pad of my middle finger to my palm when I make a fist – something I hadn’t been able to do for more than a year. Still can’t touch the first finger to my palm, but it’s so much closer, and if I press on it, I can. So my inflammation has gone down significantly. And again, just the turmeric or the tea won’t reduce my inflammation significantly. I need both.

I guess that’s it for me this morning. Time to switch to the other computer to get in some fiction. I’m actually really happy that I finally have brain enough to do it. I’ll post this later this afternoon when we go into town and find internet access.

In the meanwhile, I hope that your week is going swimmingly well!