Finding Sleep Through Finding Peace

I am so grateful nowadays when I get a good night’s sleep, and especially when it comes without a struggle to fall asleep. It was not until I found myself lying awake hour after hour early last year that I not only dug into why I was struggling to fall asleep, but also the importance of “sleep health”. I learned that for me, it was not just the hormonal imbalance that I was going through from perimenopause, which I had never even heard of until January 2019 at the age of 46. There were greater forces at work.

The Hormonal Aspect

Hormone imbalance can absolutely create an environment within you that can make falling asleep and staying asleep a challenge. However, it’s not one size fits all when it comes to hormone therapy. The gynecologist who I had been seeing for a few years was initially hesitant to even run a hormone panel on me when I first suggested to him that I thought I was experiencing chronic nausea and sleep issues as a result of perimenopause. His initial reaction was to tell me he had been treating me for a few years and thought I was still several years away from going through that transition. To his surprise, but not mine, bloodwork came back to show my body was definitely in the home stretch for arriving at menopause. While I don’t recall getting a detailed explanation of what each hormone level was at or where it should be, he did suggest a couple of things that might help with the transition: herbs (i.e. kava kava, valerian, chamomile) or birth control for it’s estrogen content. When he also suggested that taking the birth control pills would “take care of everything” because it would act to replace the hormone(s) my body was no longer producing, I was all for it. I had actually never taken prescription birth control in my life, but I also had never felt as “broken” as I did back then so I agreed; sign me up!

Well, it was not the miracle pill I had been hoping for. I was told that it would probably take several weeks for my body to rebalance and start to feel better. After 2-3 months, I actually felt like some of my symptoms were worsening. WORSE, I WAS STILL NOT SLEEPING. However, by then, I had started working with my therapist to “look under the hood” and found there was so much more going on than hormones. I came to realize that a series of out of the ordinary events in 2018, coupled with how my mind had trained itself to cope throughout my lifetime AND hormone imbalance created in me a “perfect storm”. With my therapist as my beacon, I started learning how to cope and manage all these changes that I was going through; both physical and mental. I was no longer allowing a night of zero hours of sleep dictate what the following day or night would bring. The chronic nausea that had been coming and going for several months was under control, and turns out, it wasn’t just the hormones. No doubt that a common symptom of perimenopause is anxiety, and I do feel that it contributed to how much anxiety had taken over my body. However, I also know that I managed to start getting control of my life again when I learned to use what I already have inside of me to heal.

I am now and always have been a seeker. So, despite how my life was improving as I committed to the work involved with therapy, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still hoping to find that magic bullet that would make everything go back to normal for me.

Bioidentical Hormones

The first time I had ever heard the term perimenopause was in January 2019. This was also the first time I had heard of bioidentical hormones. I shared with my yoga teacher the results of the hormone panel I had done, and her first question was to ask if the doctor was prescribing bioidentical hormones. No clue. I did just enough digging to find out the birth control pills he prescribed are synthesized in a lab. Bioidentical hormones come from plant sources and are chemically identical to those produced by your body. I was intrigued.

Unfortunately, my gynecologist at the time did not practice bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). I decided to shelf the topic and see how the birth control would work out. After about 2 months of feeling like I was not getting anywhere with birth control, I hit the internet to look for a new gynecologist who could help me look into BHRT. To my delight, I found someone not too far away who advertised the use of BHRT on her website. To my disappointment, my meeting with her revealed that she no longer practices this type of hormone therapy. Her reason: it involves routine blood-work that insurance companies won’t cover and they won’t pay for the hormones. When I asked for a ballpark figure of what it might cost me out-of-pocket, she was very dismissive and told me she wasn’t going to go through that with me. She also suggested I stick to the birth control and meet with her in a year for my annual. As a last ditch effort, I asked if we could repeat my blood-work taken in January to see if there were any shifts because I didn’t think the birth control was doing anything for me. She shrugged and said, “Maybe it’s not your hormones”. That was about the only thing I think she got right during that visit.

Fast forward to May 2019. I will forever be grateful to a female co-worker at the time who took a minute to listen on a day when my face must have been a picture of a thousand words. She recommended I get an appointment at a clinic she had used in the past for relief from symptoms she struggled with during her transition to menopause. She had her reasons for being opposed to traditional hormone therapy (i.e. “the pill”), and this clinic she recommended only practices the use of BHRT. In a nutshell, she told me that for her, the difference was night and day. She really got relief from her symptoms, AND, wait for it……….blood-work was covered under our insurance. The hormones themselves were not, but she assured me they were affordable.

By June, I had a whole lot of results from lab-work taken at this new clinic, but I’ll keep focused on the hormone situation for this post. I can’t say that I was surprised when it was explained to me that with regards to my reproductive hormones, what was down in the dirt was progesterone. Just to recap from earlier, in January my gynecologist suggested I start taking birth control to deal with my hormonal imbalance. Traditional birth control pills are mainly made up of estrogen. So, based on the latest and greatest lab results, I stopped the birth control and switched to taking bioidentical progesterone. Progesterone. Ahhhhh, we should all be blessed with more progesterone always. The pills get compounded at a pharmacy in Colorado and shipped directly to me.

As with most topics, you can find loads of information online regarding hormone therapy. But in my quest, I have struggled to find feedback from actual customers of the products and their story. So, I’m offering mine. Let me tell you, within 2-3 days I really did feel a shift in the right direction with regards to all the symptoms I had been dealing with for several months. Weekly migraine headaches gone, and I had an improved overall mood and was significantly less irritable. Initially, even bedtime was getting easier, and I really thought that I had finally found my magic bullet. However, my quest for better sleep didn’t end there. Despite so many of my symptoms slowly disappearing with this new hormone therapy, something was still keeping me awake at night.

Finding Peace

The extensive trial and error with both herbal and prescription aids for sleep only strengthened my desire to resolve what was really keeping my mind awake. I stayed committed to the work with my therapist to try and make sense of how I could go from a couple weeks of great sleep to being suddenly hit with yet another sleepless night or nights. It was during all these difficult nights that I uncovered so much that I had never unpacked but was there waiting. It was all these goodies packed so tightly in the dark closet of my subconscious mind that wanted out. The process of unpacking and unfolding things that I’ve worked so hard to permanently erase has been the most difficult and scariest challenge I’ve ever taken on. But through it, I’ve learned how to bravely stay . I’ve created somewhat of a new lifestyle for myself that has been serving me well since starting this journey. I took note of and modified habits/routines I had had for years which made me start every single day at a high intensity. That lifestyle seemed to serve me well for a long time. Perhaps one day I’ll go back to some of those routines, but I know for now, focusing more on activities which cultivate peace within me is doing wonders for my sleep pattern. Meditation is one of the tools that I’ve found to be very beneficial. I had worked with meditation on and off for many years but never really commit to a daily practice until about the fall time-frame in 2019. After 2-3 months of daily practice, I really did notice an internal shift with my overall mood and very new sense of calm and peace throughout my days. Is it just all in my head? YES! LOL, that’s exactly the point! For me, that magic bullet I spent so many months searching for was actually inside of me all along. Looking back, I’m confident I have a much better relationship with sleep than I’ve probably ever had as an adult. And most importantly, I HAVE FINALLY FOUND PEACE WITH WHO I AM……..

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Treating Anxiety with a Pill Wasn’t for ME