Small things you wish you knew before they happened to you.

[Enko]

I mean little things that surprised you when they happened to you and you wish you were pre warned about. Not personality traits 😁

For me I wish I had been prewarned that retainers can discolour and it's not due to you not cleaning them well enough.

Don't be half hearted about your pelvic floor exercises. Know exactly how important a strong pelvic floor is, and never ever ever strain when on the loo.

That one of the things PCOS sometimes does is make breastfeeding a bit harder to establish.

Maybe if I'd known this could happen I might have got better help sooner. As it was, total shitshow.

Similar.. the MAP isn't that effective post-ovulation.

Funny you should say that, I’ve just noticed that in my mouth after an extraction. Will sleep better tonight..

That when you break a bone at my age you aren't just back to all your regular stuff after 6 weeks , like with kids who fractured a wrist. Was very very upset to be laid up for basically months (not a wrist, another break, but holy hells it was not 6 weeks).

1. That when you claim JSA, you have to pay it back once you get a job. It’s hard enough trying to balance things when leaving / starting work partway through the month! My finances were fucked for ages.
2. Menopause doesn’t mean your periods will suddenly or gradually stop. It can mean months or years of the heaviest bleeding you’ve ever experienced.
3. (Related to the above) The coil sometimes makes heavy bleeding worse. It’s not the gynae panacea that GPs make it out to be.

That my c-section scar would shrink. I remember looking down at my stomach the day after DC was born and thinking OMG! The incision had to be a foot long! But then the stretched skin shrank back and now, years on, it’s barely visible.

That my hair would fall out a few months after having my babies and how long you need to wear thick sanitary pads after for!

I broke my ankle and had 8 weeks of wearing a temp cast after surgery to put pins etc in it. Then another 8 of a lightweight cast. Then a bloody moon boot. I broke it in July. Took till the October to get my trainers back on with crutches. I still struggle with stairs and when its icy outside.

Meant to add i was 38 when I done it and all I done was put on my trainers and went over on my ankle.

A friend of mine broke her ankle and needed pins over ten years ago. We're only in our 30s and she sometimes has to use a cane due to the pain. Ankle brakes are really underrated in how painful /difficult they can be to heal

@OhNameHgcaher I’m so sorry . I had a miscarriage without knowing . Picked up on my 12 week scan which I went too all jolly as had 2 children before .

Sorry about your pain. I had severe stomach pain in the night. . No doctor, of course but the hospital A and E would have sorted it if it hadn’t, thankfully, gone away by itself by the morning.
Would it be worth asking them tomorrow if they can help you? Our local hospital is open for reduced hours, so yours might be too. Check their website. Surely they’ll give you painkillers? Good luck.

This happened my dh a few years ago, we were away in our caravan when the pain started on the Saturday morning, it was a front tooth and I've never seen him suffer like that weekend. We ended up coming home early Sunday morning to raid the machine cabinet and he just took whatever I handed him, he felt a bit better by evening and was pretty ok Sun night and Monday, he just kept taking what I gave him. On the way to the dentist on the Tuesday he finally asked what I'd given him so he could tell dentist, it was ibuprofen and canine antibiotics that the vet had prescribed for our large dog (we had to keep the tablets ready to start her at first sign of a uti because she was a regular sufferer). Poor husband was horrified until the dentist told him it was a great idea and saved him lot of pain. I hope you feel better soon and at the very least can get pain relief asap.

Really? What procedure requires that?
male or female PT?

Male. Part of an assessment for lower back pain - he had me do a few movements and that one showed that I bent over by bending my spine rather than the folding from the hip.

I’m interested to know more about this. I have PCOS, and really struggled with breastfeeding my firstborn.

How debilitating tinnitus can be. Its there and constant and for someone who has always enjoyed silence and solitude - confronting.
Protect your ears at all costs.

What? You don't have to repay JSA unless you've been overpaid.

With you on the menopause flooding, though. I'm glad more information is now available to women approaching it.

That HRT doesn't remove all symptoms for every women.

Menopause symptoms do not disappear when your postmenopausal.

That if you temporarily lose your hearing your brain can make up for it by inventing its own music. Which sounds lovely but not so much when it's constant for 5 days while you have flu. I'd have definitely got my flu jab if I'd known. I wasn't able to hear for three weeks at all, the music then became tinnitus which made me want to bash my head off the wall and it wasn't until 3 months later that my right ear finally finally cleared

This
Also that you do bleed (lochia) after a C section.
I was really surprised as I thought you only bled after a vaginal birth, as I was thinking that if baby & placenta had been taken out then there wouldn't be anything to bleed from - obviously I forgot about the wound left where the placenta had been attached to the uterus 🤦‍♀️

Can you try and have a bit of a stronger routine with them thenarnianna
and firmer boundaries?

I sympathise with you because I love my dogs but they can be very demanding and take over a lot of your life!

As with young dc, I find them much easier to handle if I am up early with them, out walking early and not rushing the walk, feeding them at the right time and not too much, not too many treats etc. And giving them enough mental engagement with games and regular training. And then do it all again around 5 pm!

If it all works on a reasonably strict routine, they come to accept that there are times when you are available to them, and times when you have to work.

They have to be taught to settle though and not constantly nag us, but everyone in the household has to be on board with this. You need to give them a place mat and a cue word and reward “rest”. Repeat and repeat, This only works if they have enough exercise and mental enrichment the rest of the time though,

I’ve heard of many women my age (mid 50s) getting a really painful shoulder that radiates down their arm and into their hand. It’s possibly not a frozen shoulder. It could just as easily be radiculopathy, which is horrible nerve pain.

It starts to get better after 3-6 months but the muscle weakness can last a lot longer. Get the good drugs from your GP, see a physio and do the exercises, get an electric heat pad (Amazon - £20), and rest. That’s all you can do. In spite of claims otherwise, acupuncture and deep tissue massage therapy do not help at all.

To add to this: that pelvic floor physiotherapy is a thing, and works wonders for bladder/urine control, sexual pleasure (my orgasms felt completely ineffective after giving birth. I thought I was broken forever!), and helps heal diastasis recti (I went from a 4 cm gap in my abs to <1 cm with just a few weeks of pelvic floor physiotherapy. Before that, it was a huge gap for MONTHS with no sign of improvement!)

Oh, also nobody told me about diastasis recti!!!

Really? I have pretty severe PCOS and I had milk out the wazoo. Was waking up in puddles the first couple months, and it was a total PITA to have to express so often when I went away for work… I’m sorry that it went the opposite way for you.