what's going on?

[slowandfrumpy]

I feel as if I am slipping inexorably towards decline and don't understand what is going on. My periods stopped eight months ago, started again after six months, and I've had two more but on a much shorter cycle (three weeks). My body feels up and down, my breasts hurt and I don' t feel I can read what's my body anymore. I am gaining weight fast and I'm flabby around the middle and soft everywhere. My hair is thin and my skin looks baggy and grey. My joints ache. But worst of all is my mind: I am a clever person, but my reasoning abilities seem to be less than normal. I can't follow through thoughts, and I'm getting muddled all the time. I feel like I've got early onset dementia. I'm also incredibly anxious: thoughts get stuck in my head and go round and round and I can't rid myself of them. When that happens I'll get insomnia for nights in a row. I'm often exhausted.
Is this all down to perimenopause or could it be something else? (I"m hypothyroid, but on thyroxine for that). My iron levels are the very lowest end of normal, but still in the normal range (just).

[PreAdvent13610]

HRT even if it is just for the sleeping.
Go chat to a doctor, do not accept antidepressants.

[PreAdvent13610]

And check [http://www.menopausematters.co.uk/greenscore.php this] site

[PreAdvent13610]

try again to link

[madmother1]

I felt all your symptoms a while ago. I'm now on Hrt. I've had to try a few to find the one! The mind thing is very frightening. I use a lot of post it stickers to cope with things that people tell me. I have a very busy job and had felt very out of control but slowly feel a bit better. Please take yourself off to your GP.

[OneMoreForExtra]

Have you read Stop The Thyroid Madness? There's a book and a website. I had all the same symptoms and assumed they were peri (in fairness, hot flushes etc mean there was a peri component), went on HRT after a bit of a struggle with GPs and improved a quite bit in terms of mood swings and flushes. But the brain fog, weight gain, weakness, lack of energy, lack of motivation, and anxiety increased and actually got so bad I was failing at my job. After oodles of researching I'm now zeroing in on adrenal fatigue as a big factor, and addressing this is making a measurable difference, in life and work - to the point my boss has commented on the step change in my performance and the house no longer looks like squatters live here. Since you are hypothyroid and there's a connection, this would be worth a look. Good luck...

[slowandfrumpy]

Thanks for your replies.

[2plus1]

Onemoreforextra what steps are you taking to improve adrenal fatigue? I also may have this as well as peri meno confirmed by bloods. I can take hrt or pill for peri meno but have no idea about dealing with adrenal fatigue.

[lljkk]

Adrenal Fatigue is said to be made-up nonsense.
By all means try some easy things that are supposed to be good for AF, but I would try them with some skepticism.

[PollyPerky]

Practitioners of TCM- traditional chinese medicine- work on adrenal fatigue if it's part of their diagnosis. They use acupuncture and herbs to support the adrenal glands. It's not something that western medicine really addresses and TBH I always thought it was for people who were wiped out through stress and long term viral illnesses.

[OneMoreForExtra]

Not an expert on this by any means, so don't take anything I say as gospel - there are books and info online aplenty to do your own checking.

Your adrenal glands are in charge of producing 3 types of related hormones: ones which regulate your water/mineral balance; ones which regulate your fight/flight response; and ones which do a bunch of other stuff including regulating your cell metabolism. As I understand it, adrenal fatigue can come about through prolonged or acute exposure to stress, which can be anything which makes your body produce cortisol, the stress hormones, at the expense of the others, for too long. The adrenals try to produce more cortisol and maintain the other 2 pathways, but eventually prioritise the cortisol and can't make enough of the other 2. This leads to a range of symptoms depending on where your body feels the lack of the other 2 hormone pathways, but there are some common ones. Eventually cortisol levels drop too if the adrenals can't maintain them, leading to another set of symptoms.

Since it's a question of balancing a system, there isn't one magic pill, and lifestyle choices play a big part (which all make sense even if you're an adrenal fatigue cynic so nothing to lose!). You can also get adrenal function tests done privately for a clearer picture, for in the order of £100. There are lots of supplements designed to help, some of which I've tried, and the one which I really responded well to is pregnenolone. This is available from health food shops as a food supplement, but is the precursor to the top of the 3 adrenal hormone pathways. Taking it for a while saves the adrenals the job of making it out of cholesterol and makes it easier to make the right amount of the hormones you need, without barging in with an actual hormone supplement which could throw the balance out even more, is the thinking. Logically to be taken at the same time as sorting out a healthier, less stressful lifestyle, or just a sticking plaster. I swear my IQ went up 30% when I started taking it.

NB I did adrenal function tests before taking anything and would suggrst anyone else to do the same before messing - might be something completely different!

[slowandfrumpy]

Dear Lord,
i used the c word at a middle aged couple in the street today. i have never called anyone that to their face in my entire life before.
(the circumstances are thus: my daughter tried to get by them as they were blocking the path and said 'excuse me', quietly. they didn't hear her and as she walked by spoke loudly to each other saying she was rude and had no manners because she was pushing by them, and that the parents (me) had no manners, and then they said very loudly to each other, with my daughters standing right next to them, 'What do you expect from a family of arseholes'.
I was extremely f* off as the children - and they are young kids, under ten - have beautiful manners, and are very sweet.
I ended up asking the couple to apologise, they insisted they were right, and I had a crazed flare up of anger, wanted to rip their heads off, and told them, extremely loudly, they were FING CNTS... a word I have literally never spoken, let alone shouted, in my entire life before - and certainly not in the middle of a naice south London shopping street in front of a trendy organic vegetable shop.
Of course they were delighted as i'd proved I was indeed an aresehole and didn't have manners.... and spent the rest of the evening apologising profusely to my children ('what can i do to make it up to you?' I asked, and they helpfully suggested a Kinder egg from Sainsburys).
bloody hell.
got home, rang up GP and asked for an appointment to discuss HRT ASAP.

[OneMoreForExtra]

You can always call the GP a cunt ----when if he/she refuses to give you HRT and suggests you're depressed, you know, now you're warmed up and everything

[slowandfrumpy]

I have become a sweary old mad person.
a sweary INDECISIVE mad person.
(anyone else have the indecision?)

[2plus1]

Thank you for the info on adrenal fatigue. I know there is a divide on this topic and I have too been on the fence. My adrenals have been active for far to long so I am striving to reduce their usage in De - stressing my life! I will look into the tablets suggested.

[MyVisionsComeFromSoup]

After some advice please, not sure if this is perimenopause or not. Am 45, and have PCOS, but my periods have been pretty regular for the past 10 years or so, at 32-34 days. Was diagnosed with a 3cm fibroid last year after gp refused to let me have more transexemic acid (had been taking for approx 7 years for heavy clotty flooding). She wanted me to have the mirenabut we decided in the end on the implant.
So, periods then went to 36, 36, 34, 38 days, no clots, over by the end of day 3. All good. Then unexpected period after 20 days, loads of flooding overnight, lasted 5 days. Just getting over that, then a woosh while cooking dinner, 13 days since last period.
Question, is the implant not working, or is it the start of peri? And do I need to go to the gp now, or do I need to see over the next few months? I'm not sure if this counts as the kind of "bleeding between periods" you're supposed to get checked out.
What do you reckon?

[MyVisionsComeFromSoup]

Sorry, thought I'd started a new thread, but am on my phone and a bit zonked out on painkillers

[swearymad]

I've been lurking around mumsnet for a while but have never posted.
I have become very sweaty and indecisive recently. I was being particularly sweary at work this week when a young man started off a sentence with 'I don't like to swear because...', I stopped listening at that point, I suspect it was a lecture that swearing meant you had lost the argument. To my credit, I didn't swear directly at him.

I have also been ridiculously emotional - a manager that I like was leaving today which had me in tears - we are not best friends or anything.

I am still having painful periods - and I am considerably more sweary and emotional before my period.

[swearymad]

*sweary not sweaty (although that too sometimes)