Premenstrual relief & pain update

I avoided chocolate and sugar before my period this past cycle and I had virtually no premenstrual pain flare. It was awesome.

I think I've gotten a slight premenstrual flare ever since my vulvodynia started, but over the past several months it was stupid-bad. And over the past several months I had no control in the face of chocolate and sugar. I know they have to do with one another.

And since I quit my desk job, I didn't spend a lot of time sitting in a chair this time around either. At home I try to lie down when I can. I don't have a couch anymore because my new apartment is too small for one (I mean, if I valued a couch above my other possessions, I would have a couch, but I would have a couch and nothing else), which means I end up lying in bed a lot. It sucks. But now that it's summer I'll be able to lie on my balcony, which will not suck.

So overall, my pain is low. And as long as I take my sex with a dose of Neurontin, my post-sex flares are down too.

My menstrual cycle took five weeks this time, six weeks last. I thought the delay might be related to my mood stabilizer, Lamictal, which seems to give me more physical premenstrual symptoms, but maybe it was just stress. I have never been one to skip periods due to stress. I've often run like a clock. But certainly it's possible. Lamictal is great for me so I don't want to stop taking it if I don't have to.

When I work at the restaurant, I often have scrambled eggs with cheese and a side of turkey bacon for breakfast. But I've deduced through trial that the turkey bacon makes me flare. Just a little "hey, watch out!" from down below. And I've decided I don't want to eat pigs or cows anymore, so the rest of the breakfast meat is out. The whole point in eating at work is to eat from the dairy and meat realms, which I don't usually buy to eat at home. I feel betrayed.

I was close to developing a complex about being skinny over this recent skinny phase of mine. Everyone kept telling me how skinny I was. Drink milkshakes. I even downloaded an app to my phone to count calories for me.

And then I said, screw you people. You tell me how skinny I am but I never tell you how fat you are. I've been roughly the same weight since high school. I was stressed and I lost five pounds. Should I poke your stomach every time you gain five pounds?

In my efforts to try to eat the weight back on, I realized that I just don't have the eating gusto necessary to do it. There's a reason I'm still my high-school weight, and it's not metabolism. It's the way I eat, and it's probably genetic. My brother is the same way. We eat, but not more than we're hungry for.

I am also a world-class slow eater, which helps. I'm talking two hours for a bowl of chili.

And when I can't control myself around chocolate and sugar, I don't ALSO have dinner. I think this one trick could be its own multi-million-dollar diet craze.

I am really mad about this whole "you're skinny" business. People think they're doing me a favor, but they're actually just making me paranoid. I'm going to make a T-shirt that says, "You're Fat."