To be over having to give up EVERYTHING due to perimenopause

[Edenspirits]

• Can’t tolerate alcohol anymore- even a couple of drinks give me a massive hangover
• Bread makes me massively bloated and I have to really watch what I eat as I get piled really easily 🙄
• Chocolate gives me a headache
• Tea gives me a massive headache
• have to watch everything I eat as the slightest deviation and I put on half a stone by barely looking
• the slightest deviation to my routine and I don’t sleep 😴

I feel like I barely recognise my own body!

Sigh- it’s SO dull!
Aibu to be really really really over perimenopause! Waiting for HRT from the doc and ready hope it helps!

HRT has also been a life changer for me - been on the gel/utrogestan for 6 months now and almost all my symptoms have lessened. I was lucky, my GP was knowledgeable and receptive to my request for HRT (I did loads of research before asking for it), I really feel for so many women who are struggling with poorly educated GPs.

Dr Louise Newson has joined with the Menopause Charity to offer free online training to every GP practice in the UK so there are no excuses for GPs to be unaware www.themenopausecharity.org/training/

Other fantastic resources include menopausesupport.co.uk/?page_id=2 - Diane Danzebrink is a passionate advocate for women and has launched a petition (currently with over 146k signatures) to MakeMenopauseMatter

www.change.org/p/penny-mordaunt-mp-make-menopause-matter-in-healthcare-the-workplace-and-education-makemenopausematter

Oh, that's fantastic news @Verstappen. What a change of attitude in 24 hours! You must come back on this thread in a while to report if you've seen any improvement!

I'm finding this thread very useful and I am tempted to go and see my doctor.
I do feel a bit of a fraud though as so far I think the only symptoms I have us very sweaty and hot and night.
I do have a very itchy vag but again only at night time.
I've had two feelings of anxiety recently and that was about going into work after a few days off. I had no reason to feeling this even though the case I was working on is very complex and demanding. I struggled to get my heart rate down!

HRT started working. Got over the first month and already sleep better, better mood, less joint pains, less sweats. The best decision I've taken in a long time! I have a bit more energy, as in I can live after I get home from work. That was the end of my day before. I couldn't do anything else but vegetate in front of the TV, without even giving a toss about what's on TV. I would have forgotten it by next day anyway!

Thank you so much for this thread!
I feel emotional reading it. I have all these symptoms and am really struggling.
Complicated by Long Covid and possible Fibromyalgia but maybe all the other stuff will go away with HRT?
Making a GP appt as I can't go on like this.
Thank you again xxxx

I'm so done. Plus the GP s give less than a shit. Honestly just hope something kills me off soon.

@3scape

I'm so done. Plus the GP s give less than a shit. Honestly just hope something kills me off soon.

You need better treatment than that. Are they all completely useless at your practice?

A private consultation is about £250 and a lot of women say it's money well spent.

@Verstappen

Well, that was unexpected. Settle in this might be long.

I went in armed with the marvellous checklist from @Loudestcat14 along with highlighted parts from the NICE Guidelines and a printout from Menopause Charity in how to get your GP to help you. His attitude today was completely different, he listened and apologised. He said after our conversation he refreshed himself on the guidelines and called a Gyne Colleague to discuss. My symptoms checklist was brilliant and we went through everything. He called in the female GP as a 'learning exercise in the practice'.

I needed an abdominal exam and blood pressure which was done there and then. The result was I have been prescribed patches, he's kept the checklist with a view to using it as a tool for other menopausal women and has even decided after researching just how left behind menopausal women are after the breast cancer statistic misunderstandings, to approach the practice managers about a menopause clinic. I cant fault him at all.

The next battle is getting the prescription. When he said that there was always a shortage of prescribed patches he wasn't kidding. Nobody within ten miles has them in stock so he's had to tweak the prescription slightly, local pharmacy can get them tomorrow.

If you're reading this and suffering take that checklist in, write everything down and fight. I know without your help on this thread I wouldn't have got what I needed.
Thank you all

Fantastic update! Fair play to the GP for doing his research and taking it more seriously. Glad the checklist helped too!

@Verstappen amazing news. Wonder if the GP sounded out a few women he knew and learnt something too

[quote justasking111]@Verstappen amazing news. Wonder if the GP sounded out a few women he knew and learnt something too[/quote]
He certainly did his research somewhere so who knows.

Anyway, the pursuit of the patches he initially prescribed has failed. Surgery called me an hour ago and told me to go to local chemist as a different patch was waiting. I've got something called Evorel Sequi. I think I've got my head around how it works now, but there are 2 different patches in the box which confused me to start with. Going for a shower in a bit and stick the first one on. I'm actually nervous....

@3scape I'd said to DH when I went to bed the other night I was at the point where I didn't really care if I woke up or not. All the joy is gone. I used to jump in the car and head for the garden centre for a wander but even that I really cant be arsed to do any more. I get you, I really do.

Cant emphasise enough. Write stuff down. If you're anything like me you get a fog or emotional and that doesn't help. Use this and fill it out:

menopausesupport.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MENOPAUSE-SYMPTOM-CHECKER.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1xlreHTO7YkdpKNQ4iLftP3QmGoY_9p-5AkjJVpVL5evgDJmnfHFJZm78

Print out this and highlight the bit about diagnosing based on symptoms in over 45s. A blood test is a good idea to rule out diabetes etc, but don't let them try and diagnose on hormone levels like they did with me.

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng23

This also helped me greatly and I took a copy of this with me too.

www.themenopausecharity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/How-to-ask-your-GP-for-help-rev.pdf

You shouldn't be left to suffer.

@Verstappen, Evorel need to sort out their packaging. You put the patches that say 'Evorel 50' on for the first 14 days, then ones that say 'Evorel Conti' for the next fortnight. Otherwise they just look identical. My eyesight is so bad I got them mixed up last week & wore the wrong patch for two days...

[quote junipertree2]@Verstappen, Evorel need to sort out their packaging. You put the patches that say 'Evorel 50' on for the first 14 days, then ones that say 'Evorel Conti' for the next fortnight. Otherwise they just look identical. My eyesight is so bad I got them mixed up last week & wore the wrong patch for two days...[/quote]
They do! Not helped by the fact I was given zero instruction anyway and the included leaflet, once I'd waded through 200 ways this will kill you, was a bit small. Googled it.

I'm the queen of not reading things so will have to watch for this one. Be so much easier if they were just different colours or something.

@Verstappen Remember to set a reminder on you phone, for the days you need to change patches, set the alarm for a time when you can change it as soon as the alarm/reminder goes off.

I once went 11 days with the same patch on and only realised when I started getting night sweats again.

How interesting that so many have mentioned that their alcohol tolerance declined in peri-menopause, I had to give up alcohol completely at the age of 43, just a small glass of wine would trigger the worst migrane attack. I did drink like a fish in my 20s and 30s, so I think it was about time to give up! I have been tee-total for the past 3 years, sometimes just the smell of alcohol can trigger a headache. I never made the connection between my alcohol tolerance declining and perimenopause.

Verstappen, so glad your doc has listened and you are getting help.

As far as going the non-HRT route: I've been feeling better since: eating far less processed food, prioritising sleep; Vogel Menopause support tabs; kelp tablets; exercise; less booze, LOADS more water. It's shite hard work all this being healthy, I'm not naturally inclined to it, but hopefully this will work longterm.

Would hrt kill fertility?
I am 47, and have PCOS. I know I need progesterone in my luteal phase, but am wondering if estrogen in the follicular phase would help or hinder? (I would love another child if I could fall pregnant again!)

Amazing thread, very useful and, in spite of the ghastliness of it all, some of you are very funny.

I'm 49. No hot flushes yet, but I have:

Heavy, longer periods
Waking up at 4:30 a.m.
Skin getting worse
Thinning hair
Aches and pains

And food intolerances - I had no idea that perimenopause could cause those! I've been driving myself crazy for months trying to work out what does and doesn't trigger my symptoms. Lactose definitely a problem. Maybe gluten. Possibly nuts and tomatoes.

One thing I am managing to do is lose weight. Partly through various diet tweaks, but I'm finding exercise really good for my general feeling of well-being and weight loss. Fast, hilly walking, plus alternating days of yoga and weights. The weights in particular are making a difference.

By way of a small update. Probably too early to tell and absolutely mind over matter, but I feel calmer. Put my first patch on last Tuesday. Night sweats are still the same at present but I feel better in myself and I’m more cheerful.
Interestingly, I stopped taking the cerazette on Monday and still haven’t had a period. I was expecting to be very heavy and very miserable but nothing.

I agree about losing weight @lazylinguist trouble is you have no motivation or push to exercise because you feel so low. Hopefully I get to the stage where I can be arsed at some point.

Good stuff, @Verstappen. HRT does work to help quell those volcanic rages you were describing!

It is really hot at the minute so flushes and sweats will break through initially. I have always been a winter person but never more so than in these last three damn years...

Btw I meant to add... I was convinced for a while that my possible food intolerances were something more sinister, either stomach-wise or gynaecological. However, I discovered that my stomach symptoms were partly down to the magnesium supplement I had been taking for 7 months to help me sleep! As soon as I stopped taking them, my daily stomach/bowel pain stopped and I now only get issues when I eat certain things. I can't even use spray magnesium without the pains coming back! Magnesium supplements also gave my DM horrific sickness and diarrhoea. So watch out if you try them - they work, but some people can't tolerate them!

LizzieMacQueen

Anyone mentioned the brain fog? The eye sight and hearing deterioration about the same time. Maybe that's just me?

No it isn’t just you. Brain fog is my biggest issue and in the last few months my eyesight has very suddenly deteriorated and I’m having to wear glasses. My hearing is too ! it’s embarrassing in meetings either I can’t hear what is being said, I get confused or in mid sentence I forget the most simplest words or the point I’m trying to get across

Weight gain has been an issues for 10 years now (by also have under active thyroid it piled on within a few months, many symptoms overlap but I think they are more peri menopausal now)

@lazylinguist thanks so much for mentioning the magnesium connection with stomach issues. I'd never heard of it.

I've had morning diarrhoea on and off for a while and I now suspect the magnesium I take at night might be causing at least some of my issues (I think there's a hormonal side to it too).

I'll now stop taking them and see what happens.

Great to read your update Verstappen, I've been wondering how you were getting on. I'm six weeks ahead of you and I can confirm the urge to be more active does kick in. I'm walking everywhere now – on Thursday alone I did over 20,000 steps! – and next week I'm going to start resistance training because I feel much more energised. I'm also eating better so I have high hopes for losing weight too!

On going to have to re read the thread but I have finally made a doctors appointment. I'm a bit concerned that it's not my regular female one who is the same age as me (we've gone through similar life experiences at the same time including children at the same age)
It's a phone call so I hope I can convey how unhappy and uncomfortable I am.
Fingers crossed for me!🤞

if you can take HRT, don't hesitate.

I am peri and started HRT in February after insomnia, joint pain and anxiety.

It really is life changing and I haven't had to change my lifestyle at all!

I've just turned 50 btw