Cerebral Palsy and Menopause Does Not Exist According to Google
A few weeks ago, I purchased Dr. Christiane Northrup’s The Wisdom of Menopause, in preparation for “the change of lifeâ€. Flipping through the list of possible the symptoms, I came across:
- Hot flashes. If they occur during the winter months, that will be one way to save on the hydro bill!
- Insomnia. Needing to get up two or three times a night to pee doesn’t make for a restful and restorative night’s sleep.
- Forgetfulness. Like, while making my breakfast, I reach in the dishwasher for a clean knife and put it beside the one I pulled out a moment ago? Doh! Is that forgetfulness or the result of being dead tired because I was up three times the night before?
- Brain changes. Whoa! What?
Let’s read that again!
Our brain actually begin to change at perimenopause. Like the rising heat in our bodies, our brains also become fired up! Sparked by the hormonal changes that are typical during the menopausal transition, a switch goes on that signals changes in our temporal lobes, the brain region associated with enhanced intuition.… There is ample scientific evidence of the brain changes that begins to take place at perimenopause. (from p. 38)
For someone with cerebral palsy (i.e. brain damage), this is not comforting news. I am still figuring out how my cerebral palsy works. I just discovered wearing a scarf on cold days reduces my gagging. All those early morning university classes, I thought that gaggy feeling was due to eating breakfast before a half-decent hour. I now discover it was probably because my neck and throat weren’t cozy warm. Now some hormones are going to mess up what I do know about handling my cp? Great!
And, for someone who had rare temporal lobe seizures as a young child – I’d have crying and screaming episodes during the night without waking up and ended up on phenobarbitol for several years, which is likely another contributing factor to my osteoporosis (but that is another story) – the fact that the temporal lobe is specifically mentioned is even less comforting. Will these temporal lobe changes reignite my seizures? I’d like to know what I could be in for.
So I did what most people would do as the starting point…I googled it. Googling cerebral palsy AND menopause AND temporal lobe resulted in no useful information; not even close. Broadening the search to cerebral palsy AND menopause resulted in vague, general information; nothing that was particularly useful and insightful without paying for a medical Journal subscription.
If Google doesn’t provide, at least, the starting point, what is a perimenopausal woman with cerebral palsy to do?
If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.
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