One of the big “baddies” found in the ingredients list of household products, skin-care products, and cosmetics is the general label “fragrance.”  Yummy smelling stuff is also one of my greatest weaknesses.  Here are some of the ways I have been eliminating the toxic fragrances from my life and replacing them with equally lovely non-toxic scents.    

I’ve switched my home and classroom fragrance to a few drops of essential oils in water, using the pretty reeds for delivery rather than plug-ins.   This saves electricity, which is a great added perk.  I feel like I can really smell the difference between the synthetic and natural fragrances, and have noticed that my sense of smell seems much more sensitive after only one week.  I have been different using blends of lemongrass, geranium, lavender, rosemary, tea tree and ylang-ylang.  Lemongrass is a nice sort of neutral that seems to mix well with most other oils.  I’ll use a little tea tree and rosemary with lemongrass in the bathroom for a nice natural clean and invigorating aroman.  In my classroom, I mix the lemongrass with lavender and a bit of ylang-ylang for a calming and non-irritating scent.  I’d noticed when I was using the plug-ins in my classroom, there was always one or two kids that would find a fragrance unpleasant, no matter how many different varieties I tried.  So far, none of my students have complained about my essentials oils blends.  I’ve shopped around a lot, and found www.mfmed.com to be a great resource for mixing supplies and reasonably priced oils.

Seventh Generation makes a heavenly smelling bathroom cleaner, www.seventhgeneration.com called Emerald, Cyprus & Fir, which you can purchase at Target for only $2.99.  I have tried Ecos brand fragrance free laundry detergent, which I supplement with a sprinkle of laundry soda and borax.  My clothes come out clean, but completely scent free and a touch static-y.  The “all natural” laundry products are pretty spendy, but I think I’m going to have to cough up the cash for some fabric softener.  I have tried the Meyers Clean Day http://www.mrsmeyers.com/ lavender liquid fabric softener in the past, and know that a teeny bit goes a long way.   One complaint is the scent doesnt last thru the dryer cycle, so I put a couple drops on an old sock when I put the wash in the dryer for a fragrance “boost.” 

I am LOVING the “Yes to Carrots” C Thru the Night face cream, which I use day and night.  The scent is heaven, I’m constantly smelling my hands the first few hours after I put it on my face.  It is very emollient, right up there in quality to the far more expensive Arbonne I’d been using.  I bought mine for about $15 at Walgreens.  Burt’s Bees Radiance body wash is another wonderful smelling non-toxic option.  I also really like their lip shimmers, but notice that in the winter my lips get pretty flaky when I use them.  The Yes to Carrots makes wonderful balm, but their colored lip glosses have some consistency issues, the color doesnt spread evenly on your lips and wears away immediately. 

I spent a lot of time researching cosmetic options on the Skin Deep sight, and found the L’Oreal Bare Naturals line to have a few good quality options that were in the “minimal risk” category.  I purchased their mineral powder foundation, eye liner and mascara and am very happy with the performance of all three.  I particularly like the color, staying power, and consistency of the “black-brown” eye-liner.   Almay’s sheer naturals eye shadows are another great drugstore find.  The other day I was visiting with my mother outside in the full day-time sun, and she commented on how great my skin looked. 

Any suggestions and or comments would be greatly appreciated! 

Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated!       

Right now, I believe that I have not exhausted all options.  Yes, the Lupron experience totally sucked.  Yes, the Yaz experience also totally sucked.  I have a bottle of Norethidrone sitting in front of me, but my online investigations tell me that would be a treatment approach similar to the Yaz.  Not only involving the whole hormone scenario, but removing ME from the cast of players in control.  What I have not yet attempted is a dietary approach.

Time to put my money where my mouth is?  My husband suffers from severe gastro-intestinal issues I am positive are caused by Celiac disease.  I have begged him in the past to “just give me a month” of eating a diet which excludes all forms of gluten, and see what happens.  Turns out, the whole “gluten” thing is also a key player (supposedly) in endometriosis.  In a nutshell, it is a food product that increases prostaglandins, which aggravates and/or contributes to endometriosis in ways I cannot really explain due to information overload.  Here is a list of the 10 foods to avoid if you have endometriosis:

1. Sugar- encourages inflammation
2. Wheat – phytic acid
3. Soy – more pytic acid than wheat
4. Caffeine – more than 2 cups per day may increase estrogen
5. Alcohol
6. Dairy
7. Red Meat
8. Refined Carbs
9. Saturated fats & oils
10. Additives & preservatives

I’d like to say I’m going to give myself the “30 day challenge” starting now.  Looking at the list, however, I realistically see that this is an undertaking requiring some preparation.  Any comments or suggestions from endometriosis sufferers who have TRIED the “Endometriosis Diet” would be greatly appreciated.  I intend to continue to read and start my 30 day trial on Monday, Nov.  2, 2009.  I will try to document my experience in as much detail as possible to provide information for other endometriosis sufferers desiring to take control of their treatment.

Meanwhile, I continue to try to live a healthier lifestyle, try to take care of my body and treat myself with love and believe I am worth being healthy.  Not starved to a stick, punished with bone-jarring sweat sessions…but nurtured with healthy food, and move and stretch and walk and breath, feel my heart pound and my skin glisten.  I want to believe that when I turn 40, so soon, so scary-soon, I can be sexy and attractive.  More than hearing anyone else say it, I want to believe it.  With or without ovaries….and I am going to do everything I can to avoid that stupid hysterectomy, I want to believe I can be sane and lovely and loving.

“There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts.” “Excellently observed,” answered Candide; “but let us cultivate our garden.”  Candide by Voltaire

My personal “concatenation of events” has led to complete and utter infertility, a combination of aggressive endometriosis and poor choices.   For over a decade I didnt really care, for another decade, I vacillated between avoidance and acceptance.  The past couple years morphed into a panic, that clock ticking cliche, feelings of loss and desperation and hope.   My age equivalent peers and family members suddenly en masse getting knocked up and giving birth to gorgeous babies.  The new moms radiating a mysterious aura, buddha-esque wisdom gazing from the eyes of the most profoundly vapid cousin-in-laws.   Sincere thoughts of suicide began to preclude these gatherings and so I beg off, my mother admonishing my absence until I finally break down in hysterical tears and confess my broken heart.  

Hope erupts like a festering boil, subsequent visits to fertility specialists lance said hope with red-hot barbed pokers.  My harbingers of doom sometimes cloaked in kindness,  others  in barely comprehensible English, devoid of anything remotely resembling compassion.   I practice acceptance because, hell, what else can one do?  It begins to fucking feel as if every bite of this carrion stew I eventually choke down, my mouth is promptly stuffed with another increasingly maggot-ridden morsel.   

I try putting everything on hold via monthly Lupron injections.  Objective- save my remaining eggs, (after learning a woman is born with a set number of eggs rather than a replenishing supply,) halt the damage endometrial tissue is doing to my tubes and various internal organs, and reduce some of my monthly pain.   The first month, easy breezy, nothing really happens, maybe a little less cramping.   The hell begins with month two.  My husband becomes increasingly annoying, I beome increasinly unable to conceal my loathing, and he is as unable to understand what is happening as I’d feared he would be.  In his opinion, being medically launched into menopause and hormonal insanity is absolutely NO excuse for treating him ”like shit.”  Blaming the medicine is a cop-out.  Asking him to be the “bigger man” was a MAJOR fubar on my part, interpreted as a slam on his manhood and catapulting him into his own personal insanity place, where the only adjectives describing his wife involve  the words “evil” or ”bitch” or combinations of the two.   Sleep deprivation sets in as a result of soaking night sweats, “add back” therapy, low doses of hormone replacement, do nothing.  I begin having crying jags at work.  I begin to believe that I truly am an evil bitch.  I gain ten pounds, believe I’m now a fat, evil, bitch.  After the third shot I’m cut off, Lupron is typically only given three months at a time.  I’m told to continue the calcium supplements I was never told about, to prevent the bone mass loss I was never warned about.  

Two months pass with no period, and, being the delusional freak that I am, I believe I am pregnant.  I consult my guru, the internet, and learn that those mild cramps I’m feeling are probably what is called “implantation,” the fertilized egg implanting itself into the wall of my uterous.  I buy a  pregnancy test, (the Walgreens brand) and decide that the negative result is due to time of day and inferior test quality.  I buy another, name brand, two-pack digital, and get two more “negatives” and then my period in all it’s agonizingly painful glory.  

I contact my doctor, decide to try low dose birth control called ”Yaz” (again) to control pain and adhesion growth.  Maybe last time I was just being too sensitve?  I have my period for a month straight.  Wierd adds for Yaz appear on TV, a model at a club clarifying how deeply Yaz can fuck you up; how Yaz should only be taken as a last resort, for example, if your PPMD causes you to actually commit a murder, not just fantasize about and plan how you would go about committing a murder.  I discontinue Yaz.

I accept that maybe the uterous has to go.  The buddhists believe the ego is the root of all suffering, to successfuly banish the ego, one may experience nirvana.  I believe the uterous is the root of my suffering, I accept this finally, I consult a specialist.  I learn that no, the uterous is actually NOT the root of all my suffering.  My problem lies within the whole schebang, ovaries and all, and only after the removal of all that makes me woman will my suffering be eased.  There is no hope of repairing anything.  My internal organs, female and otherwise, are a tangled and gooey web of endometrial adhesions.  My kidneys and colon could be at risk.  Stage 4 endometriosis is no laughing matter.  The entire staff of specialists at the UW Hospitals & Clinics agree that my case is beyond repair, and to attempt to repair would present risks too great to hazard.  I am referred to another speciailist for total hysterectomy.  Appt in 15 days.