We touched on this subject in the hideous wedding story thread and I think that the responses and shared experiences warrant their own thread.
I believe that I started perimenopause 5 years ago aged 35. My periods became heavy and erratic. I was ttc and the only solution GPs could offer for the erratic bleeding was to put me on the pill.
Luckily I saw an amazing locum who referred me to the fertility clinic and I now have two beautiful children.
Since having the kids my cycle has got worse, periods are either really late or bunched together. I have embarrassing flooding, crazy mood swings, inappropriate crying at work and in public places as well as 'middle aged spread' dry hair and skin (dry everywhere...) and the list goes on.
Once again the. surgery has been unsupportive, my GP says that I'm too young for menopause and I'm only presenting with PMT and it is the same for all women!
I resorted to private hormone testing which showed that my oestrogen is persistently low. The GPs won't acknowledge the tests as they are notoriously unreliable and have offered me anti Depressants and the pill to counteract the mood swings and irregular cycle.
Has anyone else tried these methods and found them helpful or do you have any experience of other things which helped you?
Please wade in with your tales and help me to see I'm not alone!
AIBU?
To ask for Perimenopausal horror stories and ask if there's any respite?
celestialbows · 27/08/2013 10:57
OMG this thread is scaring me. I want to go and live in a cave until I'm 60.
I'm 51 and have had erratic periods for the past year. I'm now having one that hasn't stopped - day 12. The stories about flooding on this thread have scared me so much that I went into a public toilet today just to check I wasn't dripping blood.
Douglas Adams was right about always carrying a towel. I might try it. 
I get that buzzing thing too sometimes, in my fanjo. 
Most odd.
Oh, yes the buzzing.
I could count along to it
1
2
3
4
5
Buzzzzzzz
1
2
and so it went on.
By coincidence I had to have a smear test and found that I had an infection, but I never got to find out exactly what kind as the GP sent me a prescription through the post.
Got rid of it, in the main.
I just feel uncomfortable, in a weird kind of wet way.
I hate this !
Hope you don't mind me joining in but I am 47 and probably peri-menopausal too. I have been reading all the stories of flooding with horror. I have always had completely regular periods until the last couple of years when they have started to become more erratic. So far they have been a few days late, on one occasion a whole week. I have always had a very short cycle anyway (23 days) so I don't really want them to be getting shorter so being longer is OK just a bit difficult because of the PMT! The thing is, my periods have been getting lighter and shorter. They used to last 4 days and the first 2 used to be reasonably heavy, followed by 2 days of light and a final day of spotting. Now they can be 3 days long and light the whole time.
I am a bit worried, after reading the flooding stories, that I am a time bomb waiting to go off! Has nobody else managed to get through the menopause with lighter not heavier periods?
I totally get the achy joints. I am over weight and have been for ages but in the last few months my knees have started to click when I stand up and various joints in my legs ache at different times. Getting out of the car after a long car journey last week I was walking like an aging cowboy, all bowed legs and no flexibility. I thought it was just the weight but I wonder now, given that it has just started, if it isn't the peri-menopause although I know the weight doesn't help.
I also have PMT for the first time in my life. Never had it before but invariably, if I notice I have no patience with anybody I look at the calendar and sure enough a period is due. It isn't good. I seem to spend a few days every 3 weeks wanting to divorce DH. I mean literally too. 
I look at relationships threads on here and wonder if I will ever have the bravery to start again. Everything he does and has ever done irritates me. The rest of the month everything is fine and happy. Poor man. Thankfully he knows nothing about this but I dread the possibility that I might really throw my toys out of the pram and tell him I have had enough one day.
I just wanted to ask if anybody has read any good books on the subject. There are loads of supplements and things being bandied about on here but I know nothing about any of them except evening primrose oil so I wanted to read up on what might be happening and what might help. TIA.
You could try the Mirena coil it seems to work for other women I know who have been through the peri-menopausal stage. Apparently it regulates your hormones and although most of my friends are past the child-bearing age (or want to be!) they have said that it did make them feel much better. See your GP and ask for a blood test to check for signs of menopause and ask for ultra sound scan to be sure nothing else is going on. (fibroids etc can leave you feeling awful). Good luck 
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Bertha my periods have been pretty much normal, just much less frequent, a few heavier days but nothing that I would describe as flooding.
Gettingeasier was there are specific point at which the hormonal mood swings stopped?
I really like the idea of change in temperament am in 'rather cross and negative' mode for much of the time
Then again maybe that's the way I always was
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