Were our foremothers just uncomfortable all the time??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, this is a fun rabbit hole to wander down. Thanks for the inspiration OP.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/opium-soaked-tampons-were-the-midol-of-ancient-rome

Realized this sounds spammy, the article talks about ancient Romans using opium soaked tampons to alleviate menstrual pain and other things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder this too. I don’t know what my grandmothers were like in their 50s.

Surely they pushed through menopause. Women of that generation were stoic and they didn’t discuss their misery. I don’t think allergies were as bad then. Anxiety was pretty common for some. That was the generation who took Benzos.

However women did not eat heavy back then. Canned peaches, whipped cream, small amounts meat and potatoes, small egg salad or tuna sandwiches on white bread, that sort of thing.

They would never eat pizza or anything to cause heartburn.

What a dumb and unrealistic generalization.

My grandmother took Paregoric regularly for stomach issues which is essentially opium. But yes, I think there was a lot more discomfort in earlier generations. I also know a lot of older people who are overly stoic about pain and refuse to take advil or tylenol for everyday aches and pains for some reason.

James Joyce and Rudyard Kipling both died of a perforated ulcers. I'm sure we could dig up other historical examples.

[Anonymous]

I agree it’s a mix of people possibly being more stoic because there were less interventions, maybe even having certain less stresses in their life because they weren’t bombarded with more information that most people can digest in a year every day on their phones, and other problems of modern life that we have.

I also think people used to self medicate a lot more. My grandparents and great grandparents etc were big smokers and drinkers and I don’t do either of those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Theres's plant medicinal that help with symptoms and women knew about them or shared them.

Absolutely. My grandmother was born in the 19th century. She took aspirin for fever or aches. Whiskey, honey and lemon for sore throat (works better than most cough syrups). Hot steam for congestion. Her great grandmother was a herbalist and midwife born in about 1820. When she came to this country, she supported herself by helojmg with deliveries and selling (or bartering) herbal medicines for illnesses. My grandmother said she once shared the recipe for some of those remedies with a 20th century pharmacist and he was very impressed and said it was basically the same as what he was selling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The reality is that yes, our ancestors lived with pain.

I have ovarian cysts. When a largish one bursts, there is nothing I can take to alleviate the sudden and blinding pain. I lie down wherever I am, and cannot move for 2 hours. I can't talk or scream. My doctor asked innocently why I didn't go to the ER, and I told her I can't get to my phone to call 911, because I can't move. I can move a bit after 2hrs, and the pain leaves me after 48hrs.

Only opioids would relieve that type of pain, and I don't have them on hand, nor do I want to. Thank God I've only had two episodes in my life. Worse than natural childbirth, of which I've had two as well.

I had an office mate that happened to and it was super scary. She collapsed on the ground moaning and unable to move and I didn’t know what to do. I called Hr and we called 911. She wanted HR to give her morphine — she was from China and said they would do that there when it happened. The EMS folks also were not willing to give her a morphine shot and put her back to work, which is what she wanted. I think it was the first time it had happened to her in the U.S. and she didn’t understand the restrictions around opioids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Theres's plant medicinal that help with symptoms and women knew about them or shared them.

Also, women absolutely discussed The Change, and knew it to be a difficult time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder this too. I don’t know what my grandmothers were like in their 50s.

Surely they pushed through menopause. Women of that generation were stoic and they didn’t discuss their misery. I don’t think allergies were as bad then. Anxiety was pretty common for some. That was the generation who took Benzos.

However women did not eat heavy back then. Canned peaches, whipped cream, small amounts meat and potatoes, small egg salad or tuna sandwiches on white bread, that sort of thing.

They would never eat pizza or anything to cause heartburn.

Your comments about what women used to eat are so weird. My German grandmother ate German food, not known for being especially light. Italian women absolutely ate things with tomato sauces and/or cheese. They weren't all eating like white Midwestern ladies on diets

[Anonymous]

A couple of my forefathers made or sold patent medicine. I'm assuming my foremothers partook of those.

[Anonymous]

Lots of alcohol, smoking, and medicinal plants. Also lots of dying younger and putting up with more discomfort.

My kids take a ton of medicines, allergies, anxiety, adhd meds, different multi vitamins, melatonin, Tylenol, cough meds (not everything all at once, just listing some examples). I dont recall taking any medicine as a kid except some nasty tasting pink stuff if i was really ill. Is that a good thing? Im not sure.

My parents are in their 70s and have almost no medicine in their home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder this too. I don’t know what my grandmothers were like in their 50s.

Surely they pushed through menopause. Women of that generation were stoic and they didn’t discuss their misery. I don’t think allergies were as bad then. Anxiety was pretty common for some. That was the generation who took Benzos.

However women did not eat heavy back then. Canned peaches, whipped cream, small amounts meat and potatoes, small egg salad or tuna sandwiches on white bread, that sort of thing.

They would never eat pizza or anything to cause heartburn.

Your comments about what women used to eat are so weird. My German grandmother ate German food, not known for being especially light. Italian women absolutely ate things with tomato sauces and/or cheese. They weren't all eating like white Midwestern ladies on diets

I wish I ate healthier, and I'm overweight. I look like my paternal grandmother and her grandmother do in pictures. Slavic background. My grandmother lived into her early 90s.

[Anonymous]

I do a lot of stretching (I'm 60) and take yoga and things like that, and I am always astounded that my Silent Generation parents literally NEVER exercised. They had sedentary jobs and I have wondered if they were just tense and had tight muscles all the time. I would imagine that would be very uncomfortable.

[Anonymous]

I don't remember them being sick or even having a medicine cabinet. I do wonder how they dealt with toothache though.
Dentist was not available until about 1995 in the old country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

Because pharma runs the country. Even your fav orange prez is on in the scam. Heck, Mark Cuban and so many. No wonder have to declare medicines when entering Japan they know Americans are full on whatever it is that is being made in India.