The Weird-A*s Symptom Almanac: “You, my dear, have a raging case of... b*tch itch.” 😂
Or the ridiculous tale of how I made our entire household bonkers when it was actually just my hormones being hormonal...
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Fellow Empresses,
How the hell are you? This week I have a doozy from the past. It goes like this…
“You, my dear, have a raging case of... bitch itch.”
“I’m sorry, spit take... what?”
Let me back up. So, I'm in the dermatologist's office. And it turns out the doctor is another mom from school and she recognizes me. Her kids are two grades ahead of mine.
“You're 43, right? You don’t have allergies. You and the kids don't have parasites. This is your hormones. This is perimenopause. The same thing is happening to me.”
Right there, my brain implodes. For the last several months, I have been driving my family and our nanny—even the dog—insane.
So, one of the things about perimenopause is that you can be smack dab in the middle of it without having any clue that you're in the middle of it, and for me, the first inkling that I was in the middle of it came via a memo from my children's school, which was the last way I thought I'd ever find out about it because our school secretary, Ignacia, is kind of harsh and doesn’t like me, but I really thought she would NOT be the one to deliver this news... or that it would come in the form of an “Outbreak Alert” but there you go.
Our kids go to this perfectly lovely school, but all of a sudden, the school starts sending home all of these “Outbreak Alerts” for everything from head lice to ringworm to scabies—just outbreak after outbreak, warning us to inspect our children and remain on the lookout for suspicious critters. Each week more and more kids are being sent home. I’m, of course, OCD and inspecting my daughters like a forensic pathologist from CSI. And it’s like hello? Did our sweet little school get sucked into some cinematic wormhole and now we're trapped in the middle of some bizarro version of Hillbilly Elegy without any soap? Live footage of us being sucked into a soapless Appalachian multiverse! And ME in my CSI garb!
At the time, I kept itching. It was like these bugs were biting me. Think little, electric mosquito bites all over my body. There was nothing visible that I could make out. I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. It so happens I’m also in the middle of a divorce and so I’m eyeing my ex-husband with a great deal of suspicion, like... what did you do, mister?
To err on the side on the side of caution, my nanny Teodora and I are washing everything—all the sheets, blankets, towels, and clothes in super-hot water. We carpet bomb house, the dog, and each other with pet-friendly pesticides. We bathe and scrub the children until they're like poor little albino prunes. Everyone is flea-combed and nitpicked within an inch of our lives even though there's nothing there. The girls complain sweetly but vociferously. We offer ice cream in exchange for their suffering.
I keep itching. It doesn't stop. I think to myself, what if it's me? What if I'm the Naked Lunch creature in this equation? I bet I have an allergy! Or some kind of weird dermatitis? That’s when I make the appointment with the Doctor/mom who is now standing here telling me I have a raging case of “bitch itch.”
“It's perimenopause. It's like little electrical zaps and they feel like bites and it's just you're itching all the time and it makes you feel totally fucking crazy?” The Doctor/mom asks, with great empathy.
“That's exactly what it is,” I say, finally feeling HEARD.
“Yeah, it's called Paresthesia. Again, I have the same thing. It’s one of over 100 symptoms that can occur with all the hormone fluctuations that you can experience over the 8 to 10 years before menopause. B vitamins can help, exercise helps, and possibly exploring whether you’re a candidate for HRT.”
“But, my OB/GYN never mentioned anything…”
“Many only have limited training in menopause, but you may want to look into HRT at some point. For now, try gently dry brushing before a shower and then use a hyaluronic-based moisturizer and a light spray oil after and you’re probably going to feel better.”
I left feeling like an idiot. How had no one ever mentioned this before? I had made our household completely bonkers all because of my hormones. I called up another friend around my age who was not in our critter-beleaguered school and asked, "Is this happening to you?"
And she's like, “Yeah. It's been driving me bananas. I went and had a full battery of tests for allergies, and they didn’t find a thing.” Her partner had even said it was all in her head and that she needed anxiety meds. “He calls me ‘bitch & scratch’”
I gasped!
So, it turns out this is a very real thing in perimenopause and the answer to feeling better is something fairly simple. In the end, it did also involve me figuring out my HRT plan, but, in terms of reducing the itch itself, it was the solution suggested by my fellow mom-dermatologist—one that is now being marketed by her royal Goop-ness, Gwyneth Paltrow, below as the "everything shower.” It is a bit spendy, (we’re certainly not in Appalachia anymore) so I'm also going to present some options for you today from Aveeno below that are more affordable.
Goop-ness aside, the dry brushing and the post-shower oil helped my bitch itch without inflaming my skin or causing acne. The other wonderful thing from a purely Gretchin Rubin sensory standpoint is—it’s a great way to calm your nervous system while gently stimulating blood flow. And if you’re a person who’s on their own and not often physically touched—dry brushing can feel quite restorative and healing. The one thing to know about the goop shampoo, which is an amino acid shampoo similar to Khiel’s (which is about $10 less), is that the scent is very sandal woody. If you’re into that, go for it. The oil does smell amazing.
The Budget-Friendly Options - all for under $11 each:
The Aveeno Alternatives:
Regardless of what you opt for, peri/menopause is a confusing enough time with so many weird-ass symptoms. If we can make it just a little less itchy, scary, and confusing, we will have accomplished one small but, important thing in feeling better, and that deserves an Empress Huzzah!
Now, if you want a cool explainer of the mechanics of how our hormones shift throughout a woman’s lifetime, Dr. Amy Shah does an amazing job of comparing them to two very different sisters (like in Sense and Sensibility) and you can listen to her here on Mel Robbins’s podcast:
Next, I just want to say thank you to fellow Stacker
for supporting the WISE AF campaign and I Support the Girls. We’re so grateful and we love your voice and videos!Lastly, I want to leave you with some laughter. In case you haven’t seen… Just look at this little guy. Is this NOT the Goop “everything” shower or what??? I will never be able to eat another Escargot as long as I live. So much joy! 😂
For now, keep laughing. And until next time, remember… you are wise AF!
Yours in Grandeur,
*As an Amazon Associate, The Empress may earn from certain purchases, at no cost to you.
I have the bitch itch from Hashimotos Thyroiditis. Too many symptoms overlap. Do I have the bitch itch or is it skin cancer? I remember when my daughter had lice. She was horrified when in 4th-ish Grade a lice fell on her school work in the middle of class. We cleaned the sheets, towels, sofa... They came back. Had to sterilize the house to get rid of them. Good times.
The itching is a THING! And it pops up in different places at different times. Peri/menopause really is a wild ride and you don't even realize you're on it until you suddenly start having a bunch of strange symptoms that nobody ever told you to expect. Glad to have another voice out there spreading the word!