Hormones

I read a blog this morning via Twitter all about how this person's body couldn't handle hormonal changes. She wrote openly about how it affected her personality and her life and at last, I felt as though I wasn't alone in my plight with hormones.

It all began when I was in my early 20's. I was a size 6/8 and tiny..... things weren't going to well in my life. My parents had been going through a very nasty divorce during which time I was emotionally attacked by my dad, then my heroe, my big brother was killed in a car accident. All of this resulted in me going through a breakdown which led to the breakup with my long standing love, my fiance which was particularly nasty.

Looking back, I don't blame my dad or my ex.... I was a nightmare at that time in my life. Low self esteem, no confidence and I hated myself. They were having their own personal issues which changed them too. Its all water under the bridge now.

As part of my breakdown I started with an eating disorder. My weight plumeted to 6 stone and I was nothing but ribs and bones. The scarey thing for me looking back is that I distinctly remember thinking I was fat at the time.

The eating disorder never went away, it stayed with me until I had therapy at the age of 42 but it affected me in different ways.

The thing I am leading up to is.... when I did start eating properly again suddenly my periods stopped and my weight went up and up and up totally out of control until I hit 10stone and developed boobs!

The doctors didnt want to know until I met my husband and found that I couldnt conceive. During this time I was trying to lose weight unsuccessfully. Only after tests I found out that I had a hormonal disease called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome which meant that my eggs developed normally but when they were released they stuck to my ovaries.

I read up about the condition and followed advice taking vitamins and supplements which helped and suddenly I found that I was losing weight and my symptoms subsided.

With fertility drugs I was able to have my two sons which is a blessing.

The hormonal changes which happened during each pregnancy made my weight go up and out of control but following my supplement and diet regime I lost the weight over time and felt great again.

I stayed a petite size 8 weighing in at 8 stone for years then I heard of this contraceptive contraption which all of my friends were raving about, the merina coil. This coil has a small amount of hormone in it and from the minute I had it fitted to the time I had it taken out my weight spiraled out of control again until I reached a size 12/14 and 10st 11lbs.......

As soon as the coil was removed and I started taking the pill again my hormones started to settle again and my weight began to fall off..............

That was when I found out that I had stage 3 HER2 pos breast cancer! The cancer was hormone sensitive so after surgery, chemo, radiotherapy and herceptin I was put on a hormonal treatment, a pill called Tamoxifen (thats another story).

Since being on Tamoxifen I have been struggling with my weight but that was the last of my problems because three years to the day of finding my first cancer, I was told that I had another cancer in my other breast.

This cancer wasn't as aggressive as the first and wasn't HER2 pos BUT it was hormone sensitive. This means that both of my cancers have been fed by my hormones.

Now I have had to have my ovaries shut down artificially to reduce the amount of oestrogen in my body and I also take a drug to stop my body producing any. Result..... I get days when I want to scream for no reason, other days I have no energy and then I have days when my bones hurt so much I can barely walk.

Hormones have been the bane of my life.