Were our foremothers just uncomfortable all the time??

[Anonymous]

This morning, I took four pills: two ibuprofen for a headache (I clench my jaw in my sleep when times are stressful), an antidepressant/ antianxiety, and an allergy pill. Tonight, I will take a few more: progesterone 'cause I'm 50, (plus an estrogen patch) and maybe half a benadryl for both sleep and seasonal allergies. I also take a fistful of tums most days.

And I have to wonder... my great grandmother and grandmother never took a pill. Maybe something for blood pressure in old age. Maybe a vitamin C in the morning because it was trendy in the 70s. All my foremothers lived into their 90s. And some of them smoked.

So were they miserable with headaches and perimenopause and hay fever and anxiety and heartburn? Or was there something essentially different about previous generations? Did they not have the symptoms I have? Was tolerance for physical and psychological discomfort just different?

Every medicine cabinet in America is stuffed full in a way they just weren't before, even 20 years ago. Good because we're using science to reduce discomfort, and potentially heading off longer term problems? Or bad because it speaks to a larger problem about our baseline well-being?

[Anonymous]

I mean, my grandmother had tuberculosis as a child and had life long impacts from that. The treatments for TB, the rise of vaccines all massively improved pain and life expectancy.

[Anonymous]

It seems you have a lot of stress (jaw clenching, anxiety and can’t sleep). Do you exercise or meditate?Why all the hormones?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean, my grandmother had tuberculosis as a child and had life long impacts from that. The treatments for TB, the rise of vaccines all massively improved pain and life expectancy.

Right, because tuberculosis and heartburn are very comparable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, my grandmother had tuberculosis as a child and had life long impacts from that. The treatments for TB, the rise of vaccines all massively improved pain and life expectancy.

Right, because tuberculosis and heartburn are very comparable

I mean my granddad also had ulcers. The whole "us having cabinets full of medicine means we're sicker" shows a lack of awareness of the very significant and pervasive pain our ancestors endured before modern medicine.

Now you could buy like cocaine and opium over the counter in a lot of places, and people drank a lot more alcohol. So there's an extent people were self medicating with the only real sources they had.

There's a reason aspirin was considered a miracle drug when it was first synthesized.

[Anonymous]

I imagine people in the past were in physical pain a lot more than we are today, yeah. Fewer painkillers, more people doing physical work in more dangerous environments with more injuries, fewer treatments for chronic disease.

[Anonymous]

Our diets now are crap. You are what you eat.

Older generations often grew and canned their own food. Many didn’t have sedentary jobs.

[Anonymous]

I’m 49 and I don’t take anything.

[Anonymous]

I think our food is much worse/more processed/etc, which explains the Tums. My grandmother dealt with her depression and other things by being an alcoholic. That probably helped the sleep problems too.

[Anonymous]

Does all that stuff actually make you feel better?

[Anonymous]

dealt with her depression and other things by being an alcoholic

Correct. Drinking and smoking were the coping mechanisms.

Alka-Seltzer and asprin to help the rough mornings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does all that stuff actually make you feel better?

I take it to address a problem, and yes, it alleviates the discomfort. My sleep was shit, with night sweats and frequent waking and frequent need to pee. My joints ached. I had brain fog. The hormones reduced those symptoms by 80%. Did my great grandmother wake up drenched twice a night, and sit staring for an hour at a pile of green beans needing to be canned? I assume she did...?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does all that stuff actually make you feel better?

I take it to address a problem, and yes, it alleviates the discomfort. My sleep was shit, with night sweats and frequent waking and frequent need to pee. My joints ached. I had brain fog. The hormones reduced those symptoms by 80%. Did my great grandmother wake up drenched twice a night, and sit staring for an hour at a pile of green beans needing to be canned? I assume she did...?

I mean, yeah, probably. I don’t think anything’s a magic bullet, though, so the meds could potentially cause you issues that your great grandmother wouldn’t have known.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does all that stuff actually make you feel better?

I take it to address a problem, and yes, it alleviates the discomfort. My sleep was shit, with night sweats and frequent waking and frequent need to pee. My joints ached. I had brain fog. The hormones reduced those symptoms by 80%. Did my great grandmother wake up drenched twice a night, and sit staring for an hour at a pile of green beans needing to be canned? I assume she did...?

I remember canning with my grandma, and yes she was drenched in sweat. She would wear bandanas to soak up the sweat, and be absolutely red faced. No air conditioning, but she still needed to get done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does all that stuff actually make you feel better?

I take it to address a problem, and yes, it alleviates the discomfort. My sleep was shit, with night sweats and frequent waking and frequent need to pee. My joints ached. I had brain fog. The hormones reduced those symptoms by 80%. Did my great grandmother wake up drenched twice a night, and sit staring for an hour at a pile of green beans needing to be canned? I assume she did...?

She probably had a lot of that, but attitudes around menopause apparently significantly change how your subjective experience of the symptoms. If she didn't see it as a medical problem (which is less likely in a time when there's not any way of treating it), she probably experienced the symptoms as less significant than you did.