What were your early signs of menopause/early menopause

[Rubyshoes12]

Can you please let me know your early signs of starting the menopause

Raging anger.
Change in PMT symptoms (sore boobs was new to me)
Really heavy periods.
Forgetting words, names, the day of the week

UTIs were the first symptom, about a year before everything else.

Then my sweat stank and I hated the smell of myself an hour after a shower using soap.

Then the fury. Oh my god, the unbridled fury. I begged the GP for help because I am afraid of going to prison. I've never been so angry in my life over minor things and I would be shaking with rage for a couple of hours over really small problems.

Itchy skin (thought I might have caught fleas or scabies from a holiday cottage!)
Joint & muscles aches that were severe
Gastric acid

I'm now on HRT and if these symptoms come back, I know I need my dose reviewing.

Were your heavy periods still regular?

I'm early forties. My periods are heavier sometimes, other times barely anything. They vary from being regular some months and then boom, 40 days go by and I panic I am somehow, miraculously pregnant.
I'm a horrible person now. I am angry at the world but my family bear the brunt. My shape has changed. I'm still slim, but I'm aging. It's like small things, probably not noticeable to others, changes to my skin, more wrinkles over night.
My boobs are always sore. It's the gift that just keeps giving. People say life begins at 40 don't they? What they fail to mention is it can be pretty shit.

43 and went 10 weeks without a period.......after that they were erratic, sometimes two in three weeks then few weeks with none until 49 when went 6 months without then a last one. Other than that a couple of years of hot flushes/night sweats but can't honestly remember when that was, later on I think. Nothing else.

Looking back, it was heavy periods, and mental burnout. (I have ADHD though.)

Rage, very dry skin/ vulva eczema, debilitating brain fog, sleep pattern interruptions, acne, short term memory loss.

Extreme fatigue, the type that no amount of sleep would help.

My periods became erratic, my internal body temperature felt like it increased and I'd break into a sweat at the slightest exertion, and I got awful brain fog so that I struggled to finish sentences.

I used to have five day medium flow periods. Then they changed to two days very heavy and that’s it.

When I was 40 my periods started becoming unpredictable - long/short/early/late/light/heavy. Over the years I've had a few other possible symptoms - brain fog, insomnia, itchy skin. I put this all down to perimenopause.

However, I'm now 51 and still having regular periods (still with the unpredictability mentioned above). The other symptoms have gone - I sometimes get a bit of brain fog / forget things, but I think a normal level for a woman or man of my age.

So now I'm not sure! Have I been in peri for 11 years? Or maybe I'm not yet in it and the unpredictable periods are just "one of those things"? Who knows?!

To begin with, yes.

A heartfelt desire to bludgeon idiots to death with their own briefcases, mostly. Constantly trying to keep a lid on my rage.

Insomnia.
Worsening PMT. I felt absolutely paranoid.
Memory loss. I still have to write things down. I can forget what I’m doing between bending down to pick something up and picking it up.

Anger.
loss of patience.
longer periods, changing to shorter.
an increase in migraines and a change in how they present.

I hadn't noticed anything until I saw my lovely GP 3 years ago. He said I know you like numbers so started to show me a visual of statistics re hormones and cancers.

I marched to the back of the room grabbing 2 paper towels to wipe the sweat off my face before telling him I didn't give a fuck about his numbers!

Bless him, he prescribed me HRT.

I can't remember the question.

Moody cow, womb shedding clots the size of large toads and losing half a pint of blood with it.

I always had very light periods then I had a year of extremely heavy clotty periods lasting a few days and then they stopped,aged about 46 .No other symptoms but in hindsight I was quite depressed but didn't link my mood with menopause Thought it was just having teenage children etc.

Hard to tell as I started having menopause-like symptoms in my mid to late 30s- heavy periods, red mist, hot flushes, bloating, several abdominal pain on day 3 of period, vaginal atrophy, pelvic floor issues, IBS - it turned out I had endometriosis, PCOS and large bilateral cysts.

After I had surgery, copper coil removed and put on the mini pill I had no symptoms until the age of 46/47 when I started to have low oestrogen symptoms vaginal atrophy/itching, less energy, brain fog. Went back on the combined pill for a couple of years and that sorted out those symptoms.

I've now (aged 49) been off the pill and have taken nothing for seven months as I wanted to see if my periods had naturally stopped and I was only allowed to take it up to age 50 anyway. No periods, no pain, no endo symptoms, no vaginal symptoms, no menopause symptoms at all apart from a little brain fog but I think that was stress/grief rather than menopause as it has got better. I'll see how I get on in another six months, but if I'm ok I don't think I'll bother with HRT unless things change or my bone density isn't as it should be. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Heavier, longer periods.
frozen shoulder
hot flushes

Everyone is different and it’s really hard to distinguish normal circumstantial reactions and symptoms. My marriage broke down and I suffered huge anxiety and burn out.

My periods stretched out and now they are closing in again like my ovaries are pinging like a tennis ball practice machine.

I had hot flushes for a few months and then they stopped .

I manage anxiety and the unspeakable doom with diet and exercise.

I can’t do hrt as I react really badly to hormone treatments and lots of my friends seem to really struggle with dosage and symptoms returning on hrt.

i find the obsession with hrt irritating yes it is a total life saver for some women . I don’t think gps are equipped to managing hormone treatments and the suck it and see approach can cause more damage.

Many of the above symptoms also but the most upsetting one was the loss of sensation in my clitoris and very weak, pathetic, unsatisfying orgasms, probably due to clitoral atrophy which I didn't even know was a thing. Realised this must be it and ive hit peri meno and now on my way to becoming a shrivelled up old prune!

Oh and body shape changing, definitely the "thickening around the middle" which is bloody impossible to shift. I look at my youthful dd with her lovely flat stomach and tell her I remember when I looked like that!

Hot flushes
No periods
Anxiety