Help me out here, Internets

[annathepiper]

I’ve been bitching about this on the social networks, so a lot of you know this already–but here’s a post on the general theme of It’s Official, Surgically Enforced Early Menopause Sucks. By which I mean, the vicious hot flashes that’ve been swamping me for the last few weeks. My sleep’s been shot to hell, and I’ve been waking up at least three or four times a night.

Which has meant I’ve been pretty much thrashed, physically and mentally. I’ve been just functional enough to keep making it to work, but not much besides that, including getting any decent progress done on the writing or music. It’s very hard to write a book when you have an inner dragon doing this.

What Hot Flashes Feel Like

So what have I been doing about this? A few things.

One, I’ve been horribly snorky lately as well, so at Dara’s recommendation I’ve been hitting some first-generation antihistamines before going to bed. Specifically, the stuff in Benadryl, diphenhydramine.

Two, at the recommendation of my massage therapist, I’ve been taking an adrenal supplement to get my system to stand down out of crisis mode (due to having to recover from surgery), and decrease the amount of cortisol running through me.

Three, most significantly, reading around on the Internets (and in particular, skimming the forums on hystersisters.com) pointed me to references about how it’s common for Asian women to not have hot flashes nearly so badly, due to high-soy diets. I deemed this as requiring immediate investigation–and discovered, after ordering a tofu dish from the Chinese place near our house, that two nights’ worth of using that dish as dinner tamped down the hot flashes HARD.

I have since been able to replicate this with another tofu dish, and am therefore now deploying an emergency soy surge to my diet for the next few weeks until my scheduled physical with my primary care doc, and my followup with my oncologist as well. We’ll be discussing a proper game plan for dealing with these symptoms, as well as whether dietary changes are a feasible plan long-term.

For now though I’ve got some soymilk for putting on cereal and into my tea, as well as some soy-based yogurt. And I’ve been having miso in the morning AND in the evening. It’s helping. It scales down my inner dragon to this.

Really, the Dragon Just Wants a Soy Smoothie

Either way, Internets, this is where YOU all come in. Tell me about your favorite tofu recipes! What are interesting things to do to tofu?

Also tell me about your favorite soy-based snacks as well! And thank you all in advance for any pointers!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Comments

[jedishampoo]

I looove tofu! One quick recipe I use a lot I got from fail-fandomanon: Take extra-firm tofu. Cube it. Spray a frying pan with olive oil spray. Cook tofu on medium until it's a little golden.

Put in dish or saucepan. Dump a jar of prepared curry sauce - like Patak's -- on it. Stir and heat, pour over cooked rice, add a dollop of yogurt, enjoy!

[annathepiper]

Huh, that sounds simple enough that hell, >I< might even be able to make it. ;) (Dara usually does the cooking.)

Thanks!

[hederahelix]

I really enjoy edamame in general. You can heat up a big batch, and then put some into containers that you can take with you for meals/snacks later--so long as you find the taste while they're cool fine (which I do). For snacking, I like the kind in their pods.

Trader Joe's makes a soycutash (frozen) that's tasty too.

On the non soybeans on their own front, I'm a big fan of the Morningstar Farms Faux chicken nuggets. They're crispier if you put them in the oven to cook then, but they aren't terrible nuked.

[mdlbear]

I was also going to suggest edamame. Yummy.

[annathepiper]

I have edamame on a semi-regular basis, yeah. It's tasty. I usually have some any time I go out for sushi, and Dara periodically makes it with dinner. I've had it recommended to me as a thing to add to salad, too.

[annathepiper]

Dara semi-regularly makes edamame for me for dinner, though I have considered my options for edamame snacking, yeah. 'Cause yum.

Dara's also found some faux chicken nuggets before that were pretty tasty, at Costco. But they haven't been there in a while. I'll have to keep a sharper eye out for those.

Don't know yet if this is going to be a permanent dietary change, but it's nice to know what my options are. I'll know more after I have my physical next week. Thanks!

[mmegaera]

All I can say is that I wish I'd been intelligent enough to do five years ago what you are doing now.

But my hot flashes are all but gone now. Thank all the gods.

[annathepiper]

Thanks! I'm given to understand it's common for women who have hysterectomies, if they're too young for actual menopause yet, to be hit HARD with menopausal symptoms. This is apparently proving true for me, anyway.

[mmegaera]

You're not the only woman I know for whom this has happened. [debates on whether to add a rather discouraging datapoint] My older sister had a hysterectomy in her thirties, and was still having hot flashes in her fifties. She's in her sixties now, and I don't know whether they've tapered off or not (we don't have much contact anymore). She's also a brittle type 1 diabetic, though, and has a lot of other health problems, so perhaps that complicates things?

[annathepiper]

Could be, I dunno!

After a week of working on it I can at least report that I've got the flashes under control. My current strategy hasn't _completely_ eliminated them, but they've been substantially reduced. And most importantly, I've been sleeping better.

Physical on Wednesday. We'll see what my doctor says about my current game plan, and what if anything I need to do to alter it long-term.