::time::

A whole month has gone by since I last blogged. How does that always happen?

My orthotics came in and I have less pain now. My hormones on the other hand continued to be out of control. Since Dr. Wallner insisted that my dose of hormones was not too high (I was getting between 100 to 200 mg of progesterone in a cream when the normal dose is 20 to 40 mg) and her only suggestion was to put me on antidepressants, I decided it was time for a new doctor. Since it looks like we will be moving to Nashville anyhow I did some searches and found Dr. Mark Calarco at EMP Health in Franklin, TN. After some more research I found an entry at city-data.com about Dr. Calarco. A woman said her friend highly recommended him and that he helped both of them with hormone imbalance.

I went to see him on September 12th since he happened to have a cancellation. He is very nice, kind, and knowledgable. He spent about 2 hours with me and then prepared a dossier, which I just received a few days ago, with a treatment plan. He recommended a ton of supplements which I already ordered and after being off my hormones 4 weeks he will get a baseline of my hormones with a blood test and will then make a recommendation on bio-identical hormone treatment.

At the time I thought it was a good idea being off the hormones 4 weeks. I figured it might give me an idea if I may be able to stop them all together. It's been 9 days now since I have been off of them and I feel miserable. While the cream I was on was dosed way too high, and Dr. Mark agreed, not having any hormones leaves me feeling fatigued, swollen, and miserable.

The day before Bob and I went to Florida the fluid retention and abdominal distention finally went away after 14 1/2 days. I was SO relieved and happy and was able to wear normal clothes in Florida. Four days later, as we were on our way home, it all started back up and I am still swollen. This time I am on day 15 and hating it. I can't wait to get my hormones tested and then start treatment. I am hoping that things will balance out by the time we go on vacation and a cruise end of November. It would be so nice to have a vacation WITHOUT PMS for a change.