Weird peri symptoms I never expected...

[ToxicChristmas]

Peri has hit me like a tonnes of bricks and I feel a bit like I've lost control of my body! Bizarre periods I expected. Vaginal atrophy I knew about. The joint pain I wasn't expecting at all -my fingers are so, so stiff. Did you have anything that shocked you? I think I was naive in thinking I'd have an easy go of it as I've been so fit and healthy but fucking hell 😩
I'm not alone am I?

reflux, itchy skin, always tired and flat in mood, the awful paranoid thoughts and the brain fog 😵‍💫

the upside is just not caring as much I am more confident in myself it’s really liberating as I have always been a people pleaser I will actually not say I don’t fancy doing that but thank you for inviting me rather than say yes and dreading going

The all consuming ever present feeling of impending doom
hot feet
dry everything
joints aching
sensitive teeth
feeling like tiny little fleas are landing on me/biting me (especially on my hot feet)
sweat
palpitations
health anxiety (largely linked to being anaemia actually, rather than peri, but all combined in one long 18 months of misery)

oh, and I have awful anxiety when I’m driving, literally cannot go on certain roads and there’s not a chance I’m driving anywhere new- I’m going back to the dr to request more help with this as my HRT worked well at first but it’s starting to return.

Itchy skin to the point I scratch till I bleed! Tried every cream under the sun 😞

Dry eyeballs. FFS.

Impending doom, fear, and palpitations. Every morning these days I wake up feeling like I did on the morning of my driving test in 1990.

My body hair is falling out i have no hair on my arms now

why didn’t this happen in my 20’s 🙄

My mum had the same! She has virtually no body hair now at all.

So many symptoms...
Thinning hair, the stiffness in fingers and wrist, body pain, sweats, allover body hives when i sweat (like prickly heat), periods very irregular (missed 4 month, then one came, no period for couple month atm)...very dry skin...other stuff..but..i feel quite lucky in comparison

Electric shocks. I have an electric touch button hob and prior to hrt I could turn it on without touching it. Aching painful everything, head to toe. Dry thinning hair. Dry thinning skin, sagging on the neck. Anxiety, memory loss, fatigue. Paranoid thoughts. Rage. Increased misphonia. Irritability. Problems with word retrieval. Inability to concentrate. Eyesight. Vaginal atrophy in the form of general discomfort and waking at night for the loo. Sweating/hot flushes and dreadful night sweats. Palpitations.

A lot of unwanted physical stuff that has already been mentioned but, I never expected to feel so angry about random things that have never ever bothered me before. Some examples:

-How food sounds inside DH's mouth. It sounds echoey. His mouth suddenly seems very large. I feel like I'm watching Desperate Dan eat. I want to run from the room.
-How my BIL holds his knife and fork. He kind of balances them in between his thumb and finger. Feel like ripping them out of his hands and throwing them against the wall. I have known this man for 18 years without issue before.
-Anyone singing or whistling loudly. I have to hold myself back from decking them.

I could add many more examples that all conicide with periods diminishing.... I appreciate I sound like an absolute nutter. In bygone times I would probably have been sent to live alone on a hillside. Would welcome it to be honest.

I'm just getting to 45 and am at the 'is it or isn't it time for hrt?' Stage.

Thinning hair. Was always too bushy.
V v dry skin that crepes.
Cellulite on hard, toned thighs.
Bloating before period that feels like I'm carrying a kettle bell on my stomach. See also: constipation. Last time I had constipation I was breastfeeding.
Yy to the misphonia. I hate to hear my family breathe.
Non specific anxiety that I have to talk myself down from.
Teenage mood swings.
Night sweats. No day one, thankfully.
A feeling like I'm not really here and that nothing really matters. Lack of urgency.
Loss of sex drive. Which is ironic, cos I alwats had a high one and nearly left dh about 6 years ago when he lost his . His has now returned. I feel like I've had part of me amputated.

None of it really feels bad enough for hrt though.

I thought my self esteem couldn’t get lower until I hit perimenopause, just feeling absolutely worthless and useless. HRT helped with many things but not that

Joint pain and stiffness was awful. Also dry eyes and thinning hair. I'm on hrt now, and also post meno, and those things have improved but I don't know if it's because of the hrt or because I'm post meno now. The heavy, flooding periods were also awful until I had a mirena coil.

If you're wondering whether it's time to start HRT, it is

Has cleared up my joint pain, volcanic rage, most of my hot flushes and various other symptoms. I know not everyone can take it, but if you can I think it's worth persisting with, even if you have to try different formulations or doses.

It has done nothing for my newfound 'I don't give a shit about people pleasing' mode, which is a delightful side effect of my perimenopause.

I’ve always had ‘period colds’ with feeling a bit under the weather, but didn’t expect them to turn in to full on period flu for 24 hrs each month. Fever, headache, neck ache, sore throat, fatigue… bad enough to want a day in bed each time but can’t justify a monthly sick day so I wfh and push on through. Not sure how else to deal with them!

Yay, I'm not dying or getting crazy at the moment, there are others!
Sorry ladies, I genuinely thought I was on my own checking out of my former self for some scary health reason.

Ugh. ☹️

I'm 39 and I've got almost all of these.

Crippling anxiety.
Athletes foot (first time ever, so random)
Palpitations
tearfulness (very unlike me)
fatigue and brain fog

take herbal supplements but not sure they help much.

Me too! I go to bed relaxed and I'm not consciously worrying about anything but I keep waking up in the night in a panic, with inner tremor and muscle twitches, heart pounding. I don't understand it as I'm relaxed when I go to bed and not worrying about anything but it seems like my body is!

The bloody itchy ears drive me nuts sometimes, but I find something like hydrocortisone cream does help it. I only found out recently it's a peri symptom/

I have also become totally allergic to in-ear headphones and earplugs, which is quite annoying.

No hot flushes exactly but I'm just hot all the time. The worst thing is boiling hot feet, especially at night! It feels like they're throbbing. I get an ice pack from the freezer and wrap in a teatowel and have it in the bed to put my feet on! Also getting reflux, aches and pains (back, hips, knees) and brain fog. Don't sleep well these days either so always tired!

I think the worst thing for me is just not being the person I once was. I've really struggled with that. I've lost every ounce of self confidence. Someone else here said about health anxiety and it's the same for me. I've gone from being this care free person to this picking every little symptom apart. I spent two weeks panicking that my teeth were going to fall out; I have no idea why. I've been to the dentist and have great teeth. The next week I was on to worrying about something else on my body obsessively.
People did tell me about peri and I thought I'd done my research, but it's absolutely not what I was imagining at all. So much worse.

HRT really helped me with the anxiety and made me feel more like me again. I've had to come off it now in my mid 50s and most of the really awful stuff seems to have passed and I'm entering the 'don't give a fuck' stage that other people have mentioned when the oestrogen levels have dropped! It's rather lovely.

I can't wait for the no fucks given era!
My GP isn't the most supportive of HRT (or anything really) so I'll have to keep pushing for that.

@ToxicChristmas sounds like HRT would help you. I went in armed with the NICE guidance and ticked off every symptom and said if they wouldn't give me HRT I'd like a second opinion please.