Concerned Gal
01-07-2007, 07:08 AM
(Apologies for "too much information" below. You may want to stop reading if you are uncomfortable with women's health issues)
Hi all,
I've been working on a theory that may not have any basis but i'd be interested in your thoughts.
it seems to me that a lot of spontaneous leak sufferers are women, and women in the 40 - 50 age bracket. I'm not saying everyone who as a leak is in the category (well i'm not anyway) but i think there seems to be quite a few who are. Correct me if i'm wrong - it's hard to tell on here genders and ages.
Anyway, the middle age bracket for women would be one of the major times in life where the hormone levels are a bit out of whack, with pre-menopause, menopause etc. Which got me thinking about the effect of hormone levels and spontaneous leaks.
I personally am not in the middle age bracket, and although my symptoms did exist prior, when I ceased the pill, my symptoms appreared to get gradually worse. However not enough for me to think it was directly related at this stage. However, when I was at my sickest some time later, my cycle (sorry for too much information - again in the name of research) completely stopped for 6 months and only returned two weeks are a thoracic blood patch which signficantly improved my symptoms (progress confirmed objectively through MRI results). So it seems funny, that there was a relationship between the two. Yes, it could have been the stress which put a stop to things, but two weeks after the blood patch i was still as sick as ever (vomiting, in pain etc) so at that stage, we didn't think it had worked and i was still as stressed as ever being more sick than i was before the patch. I was also still bed bound at this stage so nothing had changed in my life.
And now i've noticed that i suffer more with the leak symptoms when i'm "more hormonal". I've had a bad few days of neck stiffness and discomfort and the "cotton wool" feeling in my mouth that "Pain in the Neck" has described and a feeling of never being able to quench my thirst.
Out of curiousity, has anyone noticed anything similar or a possible association? I'm tempted to ask my Drs for a full hormonal level work-up test but didn't want to if there wasn't a good basis for it. I'm starting to think i'm on to something in terms of managing my own health so thought i would share and see whether anyone else has noticed anything.
Hi all,
I've been working on a theory that may not have any basis but i'd be interested in your thoughts.
it seems to me that a lot of spontaneous leak sufferers are women, and women in the 40 - 50 age bracket. I'm not saying everyone who as a leak is in the category (well i'm not anyway) but i think there seems to be quite a few who are. Correct me if i'm wrong - it's hard to tell on here genders and ages.
Anyway, the middle age bracket for women would be one of the major times in life where the hormone levels are a bit out of whack, with pre-menopause, menopause etc. Which got me thinking about the effect of hormone levels and spontaneous leaks.
I personally am not in the middle age bracket, and although my symptoms did exist prior, when I ceased the pill, my symptoms appreared to get gradually worse. However not enough for me to think it was directly related at this stage. However, when I was at my sickest some time later, my cycle (sorry for too much information - again in the name of research) completely stopped for 6 months and only returned two weeks are a thoracic blood patch which signficantly improved my symptoms (progress confirmed objectively through MRI results). So it seems funny, that there was a relationship between the two. Yes, it could have been the stress which put a stop to things, but two weeks after the blood patch i was still as sick as ever (vomiting, in pain etc) so at that stage, we didn't think it had worked and i was still as stressed as ever being more sick than i was before the patch. I was also still bed bound at this stage so nothing had changed in my life.
And now i've noticed that i suffer more with the leak symptoms when i'm "more hormonal". I've had a bad few days of neck stiffness and discomfort and the "cotton wool" feeling in my mouth that "Pain in the Neck" has described and a feeling of never being able to quench my thirst.
Out of curiousity, has anyone noticed anything similar or a possible association? I'm tempted to ask my Drs for a full hormonal level work-up test but didn't want to if there wasn't a good basis for it. I'm starting to think i'm on to something in terms of managing my own health so thought i would share and see whether anyone else has noticed anything.