Tree Hugger Fertility

Did Chantix force my body into pre-mature menopause?

jace520 — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:25:00 GMT

Well if you read my last post, I was excited to see Aunt Flo. Turns out she did not make an appearance, but seems to have sent her dog "spot" to visit for a day. Oh well, I guess some is better than none. I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow to find out about getting on some hormones. I'm still going to try to keep this as natural as possible (using Suzanne Somers as my role model & guide), but over the last couple of weeks, my herb therapy has not been working as well. It's very likely due to the fact that I travelled for a week with no exercise & terrible eating habits. I'm pretty sure sugar treats trigger hot flashes. Anyways, on to my main topic: Did Chantix force my body into pre-mature menopause?

Well, three years ago (July 12, 2008 to be exact) was my official quit smoking day. My doctor put me on Chantix because I had been trying to quit for over a year & was having a really hard time. I did quit once before using nicotine patches & was successful, but after a year or so, I started up again & quitting a second time was proving to be impossible. Chantix is a drug that affects the neural receptors in the brain - scary. Anyways, I was desperate. After 3 weeks of Chantix (you're supposed to take it for 3 months) I couldn't handle the side effects anymore. I was severely constipated, moody, irritable, & my skin was breaking out like nobody’s business. I had gotten over the hump of the first few weeks of quitting smoking (the hardest part) & decided that I could do the rest on my own, because if I stayed on that evil drug, God only knows what would have happened to my body.

Three years later I am still smoke free (I learned my lesson & don’t ever want to have to go through that again), but I think still feeling the effects of Chantix. Did this drug do some brain damage? I know for sure that it took at least a year for my digestion system to come back to a somewhat normal status after taking Chantix & that was with me taking laxatives & fiber drinks & body cleanse systems. But what I was not watching was all these other ailments; things that I chalked up to stress, bad diet & lifestyle changes. However, now that I’ve been diagnosed with menopause… all my symptoms have been in the last 3 years (steadily getting worse to the point where I am now)

Menopause starts in the brain – it starts with your pituitary gland not producing the hormones you need. Chantix is a drug that chemically affects brain function. Seems like a likely connection to me.

I’ve been experiencing hot flashes with my menstrual cycle since my late 20’s, but all my other symptoms have only appeared in the last 3 years (since I went off of the Chantix). My list of symptoms only started making sense to me after I sat down & wrote everything down. Pre-mature Menopause is so hard to see coming because most of my symptoms looked like something else – it really didn’t occur to me that these are all menopause symptoms until I listed them out & viewed them all together.

Here’s a list of my symptoms & what I thought was causing them.

Symptoms	Pre-diagnosis Excuse/Cause
Weight Gain (30+ lbs)	Quitting smoking, stress
Forgetfulness	Stress, bad job environment
Hot Flashes	Usually just with menstrual cycle, normal hormone fluctuations
Loss of sex drive	Stress or depression, again - bad job environment
Vaginal dryness	Didn’t really acknowledge this until recently
Irregular periods	Never closely monitored it before a year ago (no missed periods, some late ones & some early ones, but nothing very majorly different)
Eczema	Associated it with washing hands too much & allergies (Zertec seems to have helped this in the past)
Spells of depression	Changes in lifestyle & work
Insomnia	Tied to diet, stress & PMS
Constipation	Associated first with side effects from Chantix (12 mo recovery), thereafter diet effects

Now I’ve seen ads on TV for lawsuits against Chantix for various digestion ailments, depression & suicide attempts & other things. Chantix did help me quit smoking, but at what cost? I don’t know.

(WARNING: I am not a doctor & I have no medical background experience. My trials are on my own body which I've known for 39 years & I determine what's best for me based on my own research & my body's reactions. Please don't take any of this as medical advice for yourself, but maybe get some ideas on treatments you can discuss with your own doctor.)

A Brush with Premature Menopause

jace520 — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:47:00 GMT

I am 39 and 3 months and I have been told I'm in menopause. Bull. I think I've a pretty typical American girl. I was raised by a single mom, ate Stouffer’s frozen dinners after school, grew up on hamburgers & pizza in college & my 20's. I was a smoker (because that used to be cool) & now at 39 I'm finally an adult... married... and ready to start my family. Don't look at me like that - 39 is not old.

I started having hot flashes with my period in my late 20's. Over my 30's this just became a fact of life - no one seemed very concerned about it (by no one I mean my family practice doctor who does my annual paps). Over the past 3 years my life made some very dramatic changes and my body made some very dramatic changes. All of which I kept contributing to stress, diet & lifestyle changes (new house, new man, new job). Here's how I convinced my doctor to give me a blood test for premature menopause & what I've been experiencing.

June 3, 2010 was my last period (68 days ago)

I went to see a new OBGYN on June 16th to discuss my annual pap & getting pregnant. I told her I was concerned about menopause especially since I had been experiencing non-stop hot flashes. She suggested I try the at home fertility & ovulation tests for a couple months & see where we were at. I agreed. By July 16th I was back in her office having missed a period & knowing that I was not pregnant (by symptoms & testing) & begged her for the FSH blood test. She did it & sure enough it came back that I was in menopause. Now, most site will say because of my age group it's not really menopause, but rather premature ovarian failure (POF) - I'll wait for more doctor opinions before I categorize it for good.

Now I had the proof. But more importantly I had the ability to start taking some herbal supplements (certain that I wasn't pregnant) to help those damn hot flashes! 4-5 a night & 5 or more during the day - EVERY DAY! So now I'm on a holistic regimen to get my body back on track. I'm reading everything I can on menopause & infertility so that when I go to a fertility specialist they don't just throw some Clomid at me or say invitro is my only option. I don't believe that crap. Treat the body as a whole & you will get it back on track.

Here are my symptoms over the past 3 years: hot flashes, vaginal dryness, extreme moods (especially anger which I thought was 100% the fault of my stressful job & a**hole boss, but now I can see where my moods were exaggerated), sugar cravings (which I blamed on quitting smoking), insomnia, major weight gain (again with quitting smoking), major loss of sex drive (which makes my husband feel bad & then I feel bad) & to top it all off - spells of depression. WOW what a load to bear! It's taken me 3 years to get my head on straight & realize just how much of my vitality of life I've lost - & these have been some of the best years of my life in terms of work (after the a**hole boss) & love. Honestly - I didn't connect the dots until I wrote it all down in a list & wha’la - menopause.

Now - what am I doing about it? Well first there's my herbal & vitamin regime: black cohosh, blue cohosh, wild yam, DHEA & a fish oil blend (just started this week), & Deepak Chopra's Woman's Vitality every day. Then every other day I add evening primrose & red clover to the mix. I started with the cohosh's & wild yam - within 2 days my hot flashes had subsided dramatically & were completely gone within a week.

I've added soy to my diet (as creamer in my decaf coffee) & stopped drinking skim milk (there are several reports online linking fat-free dairy to infertility). Now I'm 3 weeks in my new diet & my symptoms are gone. Now for the big test... in the past couple days I've been re-experiencing some hot flashes, sleep issues, tight pants & sweets cravings so what's up with that? Well - it's my period! Long time no see my old friend! I've been so obsessed with menopause symptoms, that I didn't even recognize PMS symptoms until I saw some spotting today. Now, I don't believe my body is miraculously surging with hormones, but I do think I'm on the right track.

Here's to Aunt Flo & how I'm so glad to see her - this means my body is trying to get back to a natural cycle & rhythm the way nature intended. Now let's see what kind of healing I can do to my hypothalamus & pituitary gland in the next month or so before I start talking to endocrinologists & fertility doctors.