7d ago
41 and genuinely baffled by my own body right now. My periods used to be so predictable I could have set a clock by them. Now I honestly don't know if I'm getting a light one or three days of absolute carnage until it's already happening. Last Tuesday I bled through onto my work chair and I'm 41, not 14, and I could have cried in the toilets. Actually I think I did a bit. I've started keeping a scrappy little diary because I've got a GP appointment in a few weeks and I don't want to just sit there going "it's quite heavy I suppose" and have her nod and send me away with nothing. So I'm writing down when it starts, how heavy (rough scale, nothing fancy), how wiped out I feel the day after, whether I can actually function. The fatigue is the bit I keep underplaying when I talk to anyone. I act like the bleeding is the main event but honestly it's the tiredness that floors me. Two days after a heavy one I feel like I've been run over. Wanted to ask, has anyone gone in specifically asking about iron levels? I keep reading that ferritin can tank and that it explains a lot of the exhaustion but I don't know if I'd be pushing my luck asking for a full blood panel or if that's a totally normal thing to request. I've written it down so I don't chicken out and forget to mention it. Also, total side note, I've been doing really simple dinners on the bad days because cooking anything complicated feels impossible. Lentil soup from a tin, beans on toast, that sort of thing. Not glamorous but it keeps me upright. Anyway. Hi. I've been reading this room for a while and it's the first time I've felt like other people actually get it x