The midlife cry, hormones & irregular bleeding

Hey peeps, welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. I'm your host Dr. Sarah Milken. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago like last fucking year. I was sitting in the midlife pump wondering, was this it for me? That day I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD, wipe the menopause, sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shit shovel and started digging deep to all my midlife pitches. It's not just luck, coffee and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this. Hi, peeps. This is Dr. Sarah Milken and this is the flexible neurotic podcast. This is the third minisode of the midlife golden shit shovel clusterfuck series. Did you get all that? The midlife golden shit shovel clusterfuck series. Get those sparkly golden shit shovels out we're gonna dig deep into some of this midlife shit that we're all dealing with. You're not alone. We're all in this today's the midlife bleeding for a month out of nowhere fucking episode. You just wait. I bet you can relate to most of this and even if not the exact same thing happened to you that are super fucking relevant things here. Oh my god. Buckle your seat belts. Sorry if you're getting the muffin top and the half pancake boob from the strap. It's just midlife fun. Okay, so if you're new here, you don't know that I'm a birth control pill taker. I know it's fucking controversial, but it works for me. Remember, in this midlife journey, guys, it's not about what other people are doing. There are going to be so many women doing the same thing as you different things as you but it's about the choices that we make that are good for us no matter what people think. So for me birth control pills keep me sane for a million reasons. While they make some of my friends what they say fat and psycho for me, it's the opposite. So once in a while too much estrogen piles into my body and I get sore nipples Yes, or nipples. So I skip to birth control pills to make those nipples cool off. They sort of feel like you know, when you're pregnant, and they just like feel super tender to the touch and you put your abroad and you're like, oh, that's how I was feeling. I'm not suggesting that you skip to birth control pills at home. But this is just my little agreement with one of my doctors. Except this time the plan backfired. I don't know. Maybe just because it was this time and I'm turning 47 And I bought is not the same as it used to be. It can be for a million reasons. So I skipped two pills, and I got a full fucking period. Well, that's a problem. I don't even get my period. Because I take birth control pills seven days a week. Another fucking hot topic. But yes, it works for me. This was not a light and cute period. It was like a smushy gross. All the colors What the fuck? Two days, four days, six days never ending fucking days. I don't like tampons because they make me sweat. I feel like I have toxic shock. And pads make me want to die. I don't know. There's like some like coating or texture on them that make my whole vagina sweaty.

So I know if you're friends with me, you know this. I usually roll toilet paper into a pad because I like the texture and yes, is the toilet paper get like a little kind of tissue balls that you have to shower off. Yes, of course. It's not the prettiest thing in the world. But for some reason the toilet paper sort of like contours to my body. I usually don't bleed that much. It just works. Okay, the toilet paper thing wasn't working this time. There was just too much blood Yei so after a week of this nonsense, I went to the gynecologist I was like okay, this is not just I missed two pills. Slide spotting like this is a fucking problem. So I had an ultrasound they wanted to see is there a pull up? Okay, that was fun. You know getting naked putting on a pink gown opens in the front and opens in the back. I never remember which way to put it on. I have a giant black mask on so that's attractive. And then this like giant instrument gets shoved into my vagina with this like nasty gel that I swear like never wipes off and then you're supposed to like wipe it off with the pink gown. That starchy like never even absorbs the gel. But whatever. It was just gross. Anyway, the gynecologist said there could be a polyp hiding because your lining is really thick so we can't rule the polyp thing out I was like, Okay, that sounds gross, but whatever. And she said you could take progesterone and it could quiet down the bleeding. I was leaving for Utah with three teenage boys, only one of them was mine. And my 15 year old teenage daughter, which as you know, is like the equal to having, like the entire fucking sorority house of estrogen just from her alone, and the testosterone from the boys, but I'm telling you, they're just so much fucking easier than the girls right now. My son was a pain in the ass when he was 15. Now, and yes, my adoring husband was supposed to be the main adult on this ski trip. And I was just sort of like the tag along with the blow dry who kind of just stood there. ski trips and I are not a good fucking match. It's cold. The altitude makes me feel weird. My skin is dry is the fucking desert. I get awkward for my hair, because I'm trying to moisturize my face. And then it gets in my hair. And then I'm like, oh my god, I have to shower, blow dry my hair. And if you know me, I fucking hate to like my hair. And ski trips are like a full shopping vacation. If you're not Jewish, and you don't know what schlepping means. It's just like, you're carrying things. You're dragging things. You're looking for stuff. It's not like a beach vacation, where you just like sit your ass on a chair with a towel and a book and scroll Instagram. Anyway, this kind of vacation requires too much work for me, but my son was like, you can't cancel it. My friends and I are counting on it. And yes, my kids are professional skiers, and I can't even see with them. So I wouldn't even be skiing with them anyway. And as you know, from the last episode, I broke my fucking wrist and rib the year before. So now I have ski panic. And I don't want to ski. So I'm like, what if I break my wrist again, and then I'm up shits Creek, because when you're turning 47, sometimes you feel like you're 107. So anyway, my husband ended up having to stay home. And I told the gynecologist now I'm not going to take the progesterone. I'm not going to do anything new and altitude, I'm just going to grin and bear it. I'm going to bleed and deal with it when I get home. Okay, so I think I skipped ahead for a second. But we bought a new house we haven't moved in 18 years. Kind of a weird time to be moving considering my son is going to college in a year. But it was sort of like, Great House wrong time. Let's just do it anyway, so we don't have any regrets. Anyway, we bought the house. We did some work on it. And we moved in a couple of weeks before this bleeding Utah saga. Everyone was wiped out. I was bleeding more than any teenage girl anyway. The house story is its own episode. And I just can't do that right now. The bottom line is that my old house went on the market and it sold in like four hours. And my husband had to stay home from Utah and empty the rest of our stuff out of the house because we left it mostly staged. And I think I mentioned that he was sick. So he was like sick moving houses, whatever. But I still feel like I might have rather have done that been gone to Utah with four teenagers. Anyway, I take four teenagers to Utah a mooring along cashmere sweater and black leggings on the plane. At the end of the flight. I go to pee. What the fuck? I bled through all my clothes, just not the pink sweater. Thank God, I had to get my underwear off in an airplane bathroom. I was wearing dogs. I'm a germaphobe and I had to get my leggings off my boots off and my underwear off without touching anything. clean myself up create a new pad out of toilet paper with no underwear and just my blood drenched leggings on. I tell my daughter after this all happens like maybe just to get some like girl Girl sympathy like oh mom like oh, so nothing. She's like, Yeah, whatever. Like, okay, that's cool. My son asked me what's wrong? I tell him he's like, Can I help you with anything? He'll be a great husband, for sure. Okay, we get to the condo we rented. It's not the place that we're usually in. It was a very last minute thing. The room for the boys was Thai knee with no windows and a bunk bed and there were three of them. It was very different than what was promised. My queen 15 year old daughter was clearly not going to volunteer to sleep in the shitty Rome. And why was I going to do that? Like, I'm the mom on the ski trip with the bleeding whole drama like I'm going to go sleep in a bunk room anyway. I knew the boys would get no sleep. So I offered my son to sleep with me in the king bed assuming he would say no, but at the same time I was sort of like secretly hoping he would say yes because then I could like talk his ear off like early in the morning and late at night and I never get to do that. I never have that time. First he says Thanks, mom. But no. Then at 1am he appears and he says, the small room is just too hot for all of us. We can't breathe. That one night turned into seven nights. teenage boys are not quiet sleepers. Thank goodness for the hum of the old disgusting gross humidifier in the rental condo. And they fucking move a lot like honestly, it was like I thought he was a part of the World Wrestling Federation like moving all over the place. Thank God it was like a king bed and not a queen or would not have survived. Anyway, he ended up sharing the bathroom with me too, because the bathroom for the tiny room was like literally like a shit water closet. And you know, he has products you know, pimple stuff, this razor viva. And so he is not stupid. He realized that like my bathroom was bigger, so he was going to share the bathroom with me. He never ever wants complained about the hand wash song black underwear that was drying all over the bathtub. I mean, honestly, every day I was washing five pairs of underwear because of the blood and like drying it out on the bathtub. He never complained about like tampon wrappers in the trash. And yes, I had to force myself to use tampons because I couldn't keep up with the underwear changes. And look you guys I want you to know I'm talking about this blood like it's a lot. It was a lot but I had spoken to my doctors and they knew I was not in like danger of bleeding to death. But it was really annoying. Bleeding Washington black leggings and underwear on repeat for sure. Anyway, let's not even discuss the fact that my son told me our shower when we arrived had someone else's pubic hair in it. That's awesome. What the fuck? Like, why was my husband at home, moving a house sick and I was bleeding with four teenagers with a stranger's pubic hair. I mean, like, none of that fucking works for me. So I hired my own cleaning person to come in and just get like a handle like a full wipe down which was obviously what the condo was supposed to get before we got there, but whatever. Meanwhile, just to mention, I was not taking birth control pills at the time because they told me to stop until I got back. So I was mentally losing my fucking mind a little bit but keeping my shit together so that my kids friends didn't think I was crazy. I know them all really well, so it wasn't a big deal, but I just didn't feel like I needed to get into like my bleeding or deal with two other teenage boys. Anyway, thankfully we had a car so my son and his friends could go out to dinner because how the fuck was I going to feed all these giant man like, I don't cook anyway, but like having that like extra thing of like trying to get to the market and like make a meal like No thanks. I could deal with My Sassy daughter 15 year old at home as long as she honestly had her phone. Okay, you guys I have to shower and meet a friend for lunch. I'm going to come back and finish this one later because we have so much more to discuss about the blood saga.

Okay, you guys I'm back from lunch with my friend. I'm sitting here eating a mini Twix bar. If you know me, you know that. I am a chocolate eater. I always have candy or some kind of like gummy or just kick the desk gummy candy in my purse along with a water bottle that I pretend to drink that I never fucking drink because I have to pee and you know being in midlife is a major issue as we all know. Okay, so it's 90 degrees in LA and profusely fucking sweating. It was so good to see my friend. And what was funny about it is she was like, oh my god, I saw your episodes with Dr. Karen Alber. They just came out and I was like, oh my god, Isn't She Great? And she goes, Oh my god, she did my mother's bladder surgery. So I'm picking good peeps that everyone seems to know which is awesome. Then I went to pick up my daughter got a full lecture on everything on I picked her up out somehow my fault that it's fucking hot outside, came home. And she is now getting her hair Brazilian where they glop on 10,000 chemicals so that she doesn't have to blow dry her hair for six months. And it smells and it's gross. And it's 90 degrees, which makes it worse. So I got a fan and an extension cord and I'm still somehow the worst mother ever even though I think I'm like being a good mom. Anyway, I'm wearing a black shirt wore to lunch. Thank God it was black because I have like armpit sweat stains, which is not cute. But getting back to the bleeding in Utah. So let's pretend I'm still back in Utah. We have a car there an old car there. It's like 12 years old, and I had to get gas if you know me. I hate getting fucking gas. It was a snowstorm. I had to get it. I was said to my daughter I'm like Grennan fucking Barrett. We're going to get gas Of course my son's like skiing with his friends and Marin took the day off or something. So I'm very proud of myself that I got gas because I in my house, I sort of feel like that's a husband job. I mean, I'm not saying it's totally his job, but I sort of drive the car and then somehow he miraculously drives it when it needs gas. Then while I was in Utah, there was a snowstorm even though it barely dumped any snow. So didn't help the ski situation. But my 12 year old car decided that the window wasn't going to work anymore. So I basically had to drive around with a window that wouldn't roll up in a snowstorm. So that was cool. And I'm almost back to LA at this point, because I'm like, counting down the fucking minutes. I'm like, I gotta stop bleeding. This trip with the teenagers has to end and what's going to happen now. So finally, to make a long story short, I finally get back to LA back from Utah. My pity party is over. And they make me take progesterone, it stops, the bleeding stops within like two days, I take the progesterone for like 10 days. And they're like, Okay, come back and get your second ultrasound since you're lining is going to be thinner, because you're not bleeding. Got the ultrasound, no polyp, which was like, great, because now I don't have to have a polyp removed, but also fucking annoying because then you don't really have an answer other than your 47 It's your hormones. But anyway, because I hadn't been taking birth control pills. I was able to do a hormone blood test, which you can't do when you're on birth control pills because you get like fake fucked up numbers that don't mean anything. The news was, I'm not fully menopausal on perimenopause, all my thyroid was low, which is totally fucking weird because I've been taking Synthroid since I was like 24 years old. Because I have a goiter. My mom has a goiter. It's like a nodule in your throat, but it's neither here nor there. It's not Hashimotos or whatever. It just means you have to take the medication. So the thyroid the nodule doesn't grow. But for some reason, this blood test my thyroid was low, and my iron was low DHA. I mean, honestly, like I bled for a month like now my iron is low. So the moral of the story on the bleeding is no Paula up. Had the ultrasound twice. Still no, Paula went off birth control pills took progesterone. And then they were like, Oh, well, you can put an IUD in that goes progesterone like straight to your bloodstream. And I'm like, I really don't want to have something inside of me. I know I've tons of friends who have them again, staying in your own lane. What feels good for you. I'm like, I can't fucking do it. I just can't. Birth control pills it is. I switch from one birth control pill to another and now I've been 100% Fine. But the blood loss led to something else, which I'm sure you guys all saw on my Instagram, which was frozen fucking shoulder. But I am going to save that for the next episode. I recorded this episode prior to the infamous colonoscopy episode. If you haven't heard pro tips from the diarrhea bowl, and all the reasons why you need to go and get that damn colonoscopy, go back and listen, or you're fucking missing out. I got so excited about my colonoscopy that I recorded an episode that evening. And it came out before this one. So I just wanted to clear that up. If there's any confusion, go back and listen to the infamous colonoscopy. minisode. And then the second minisode that is what the fuck how did I get this injury and Hawaii and all the things that go with that. So while I was at the gynecologist I forgot to mention, you always have to get a tush check the poop stick, they stick the poop stick the finger in which I call the poop stack and they rub your poop on a slide. So I did that mine came back like ooh, that's kind of weird. Do you have blood in your stool? Not sure. Oh, Sarah, have you had a colonoscopy yet? No, I haven't had a colonoscopy because I was supposed to get one right when COVID started and then COVID started and it was a great excuse to not go and get a colonoscopy. And I was like, Oh my God, a colonoscopy like, how am I going to face that? And the doctor was like, Well, you could do this thing that's called colo guard where you basically shit in a box for three days refrigerate it, and then send it off to the company. And you know, they will come back and tell you whether you have this issue or that issue or this issue. But if you do have certain issues, obviously because you've set your shit in a box, they can't fix it. But if you get a colonoscopy and you have an issue, then we can go in and like take the polyp out or whatever. Long story short, getting a colonoscopy in the first week of March lucky fucking me gathering all the data. I've already had my consults. You can either do like there's two different kinds of preps where you can like drink this disgusting liquid and makes you shut your brains out for the evening or you can take a picture So duh, obviously, I'm going to take the pill. I'm going to keep you guys completely posted on that. But I do want to share something that was really fucking funny. So when I went out to lunch with my friend today, she's like, Sarah, it's so funny that I've known you for so long. And you're such a kind of like, out there, you know, extroverted person in person. But you know, you've always been like, private, like, you'll talk shit or whatever, like with your kids and have the sex talks and like, do all the things behind closed doors, but you've never been a sharer. So she was like, it's so interesting seeing you, like in this TMI light on this podcast, she's like, I just listen, I love it. It's so good. But it's so weird for me because you're such a private person. And now you're just like laying it out on the table, like, what's going on with that? Like, how are you doing that? And I just said, the kind of what I said in the beginning of this sort of little shit series Golden Nugget should series is that at first, I was a little bit private on my Instagram, but shared in the podcast episodes. And then I was getting so much feedback from you guys that it was funny and relatable. And you felt so much better about yourself, like knowing that other people who you know are similar to you are having similar feelings and cluster Fox in their own house and their vaginas, whatever. So we had that kind of fun conversation. Just kind of like seeing how you know your friends and people that you know, really well can change over time. Does it mean I've changed as a person? Fuck no. But what it does mean is that I've taken midlife by the horns, and I'm like, Hey, this is working for me. I love this podcast. I love my Instagram community. I love you guys. And I'm willing to lay it out all on the table for you. So I'm gonna wrap this up because I'm going to have a zoom call with my website designer, we have been trying to put a new website together for a while now. And I'm sure I'm gonna have a whole list of bullshit. My son just told me that I bought the wrong kind of Kraft macaroni and cheese. I was supposed to buy the blue box instead of this other box. I mean, it's very high level shit going on over here. But if you guys will take the time to write a review. I fucking hate asking for people to write reviews. It's so annoying. I don't even know how to do the technology. But if you can fucking figure out how to write a review, and before you send it in and submit to Apple, take your screenshot send it to me, tell me if you want to be tagged or you want it to be anonymous. And I'll post it I love it. People love reading other people's comments and reviews and so do i It means a world to me. When you guys review more people get to see and hear the podcast and it just helps me grow. You know that this podcast and Instagrams like a shit ton of work for me, but I fucking love it because I fucking love you guys. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to eat my last Twix bar signing off. Sarah Milken, the flexible neurotic.