via urbanmkr Flickr Creative Commons

via urbanmkr
Flickr Creative Commons

I really need some kind of catchy title for these things.

Was more aware of making my rosehip and red raspberry tea this month and drinking it. I played around a little with white willow bark, but you aren’t supposed to mix it with naproxen and I’m on the fence about its utility alone.

Also added in magnesium supplements the week before my cycle.

I still had two days of heightened emotional vulnerability and one day of feeling fatigued and slightly crampy and bloated with just a general sense of heightened pain sensitivity. But nothing naproxen couldn’t nix.

So, DIM+, chasteberry, and a multivitamin daily. Plus probably adding calcium/magnesium supplements daily. Occasional smoothies with bananas (for potassium) and maca powder. Rosehip and red raspberry tea the week before and week of my cycle, once a day then twice a day respectively. Seems to be working. Laying off regular abdominal massage for now, but may still do it every 4-6 months or so to keep up its effects.

So I’m hopeful. The sucky part is that all the vitamins and supplements I’m taking cost like three times what I would pay for a non-preferred generic birth control through my health insurance. And also my health insurance is $20 more a month in the New Year. I don’t want to mess with what’s working and try to take things out, but it’s hard to pay for all this stuff every month. At least I have a cup so I’m not paying for pads every month. Having a uterus is expensive, y’all.

But another interesting development is that I hardly bled at all!

Just stop reading if blood squicks you out because we’re getting into TMI territory.

I use a menstrual cup and usually on the first day of my cycle I have to change it every 12 hours because it gets filled up. But this month it was less than 1/4 full in 12 hours. That is significantly less, and I already bleed less now than before I went on birth control. In high school and college my flow was majorly heavy. Not sure what to make of that bit – I just wanted to control my cramps and mood. But super light bleeding is a possibly added bonus!

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