Perimenopause anxiety - can it be this extreme?

30 replies

ByeByeBabyBabyTooth · 06/10/2024 11:59

Not asking for a diagnosis as will see GP next week but would appreciate views around anxiety with menopause - to understand how bad it can be!

I posted recently about overwhelming guilt about my kids, bottled water and microplastics thread here. I’ve always worried about their health but this is a whole other level and I am struggling to function with an all consuming guilt, can’t concentrate on work, thinking about the diseases growing in their body. I believe that they are damaged for life now and this was within my control to not have happen.

DSis suggested anti-anxiety meds as OCD runs in our family and they’ve been life changing for her.
However a friend linked me to Davinas menopause documentary and that has lots of mention about anxiety and mental state changing. Am late forties with no other symptoms, nothing showing up on blood tests, so hadn’t thought of menopause at all.

AIBU to think that this is too extreme for perimenopausal anxiety and it’s something else?

Thank you for replies - I’m the first of my friends to go through this so no one to ask in real life.

OP posts:

Chipsahoy · 06/12/2024 13:10

I’m currently having tests for similar. Very very anxious. Also heart palpitations and vaginal dryness. I’m 41. They are looking at anemia and thyroid. If those are fine then I’m to be going on HRT. My Gp said to rule out other things and then try hrt

Pompeyssy · 06/12/2024 13:11

Peri menopause is a bitch.
15 years ago mine started and one day out of nowhere my chest got very tight, I felt panicked, difficulty breathing, thought my head was going to explode. Awful.
By luck my friend rang and told me it was a panick attack.

I never had one again, but had loads of flushes, night sweats, very low mood, anxiety about dying, my children dying. Nightmare. Couldn't risk hrt because it was supposedly risky.

I took a B vitamin complex and star flower oil capsule and sage tea and it helped me enormously.
Its a dose.

Lunellle111 · 06/12/2024 22:14

Chipsahoy · 06/12/2024 13:10

Good luck with the tests. I had them done about 6 months ago and everything including my hormones were OK but I'm 39 so wouldn't expect too much to show up in that department on the bloods. I have been taking FabUShrooms Meno and Peri, and they are good but definitely think I'll make another appointment and have a chat with the GP. She's very open to prescribing HRT and I feel quite lucky having read so many stories about women being declined HRT from a GP.

Wefellinloveinoctober · 07/12/2024 12:59

Wefellinloveinoctober · 06/10/2024 13:28

Hi OP. I don't think any level of anxiety is too extreme to be caused by menopause. I lost 3 years of my life living like you are now. I was convinced I was dying, my children were dying. I was only 40 and according to the (male) GPs, it was too young for menopause (I'd been on the pill and they thought it was just taking a while for my cycle to return after coming off it).

I was acting normal in front of my children because I obviously didn't want to worry them, but it was killing me. Every time I went to the supermarket I was convinced there'd be a terrorist attack (supermarket in a very small, insignificant town, hardly prime terrorist spot). I'd get back in my car and couldn't stop visibly shaking. I was having panic attacks all day long without realising what they were, dizziness, shortness of breath, consistent palpitations. I used to be too scared to go to sleep at night because I was so sure I wouldn't wake up and then how would my children cope without me?

It was only after having a phone consultation with another (wonderful, female) GP about an unrelated issue that I brought up not having periods for so long (I'd convinced myself it must be caused by cancer and the secondary issue was a spread of the disease) that she said she thought I was in menopause. Blood test a week later and I was put on HRT patches, I was actually postmenopausal. It was only a month or so after being on the HRT that I woke up one day and realised I hadn't been worrying about my health. Everything completely vanished, physical symptoms included. I was able to look back and realised how it had controlled my life, the things I was thinking were crazy, but at the time it all seemed perfectly logical.

Luckily I have an amazing husband who was fantastic throughout, it must have been hard seeing his happy, always fun, cheerful wife turn into a shell of herself who was scared to go to sleep at night.

This was 8 years ago. Over the past 6 months those feelings have been slowly returning. The last few weeks my breathing has been terrible and the intrusive thoughts are back. I've a call booked with the same doctor in a weeks time to see if I can have my HRT dose increased, because, even though my mind is telling me I'm dying again, my logical side is trying to believe it's more likely to be the anxiety back.

Good luck OP. Please, please speak to a GP (and another if you are dismissed). I am petrified of going back to how I was before. For both my sake and the sake of my family too. We all deserve a happy me in the house!

Edited to say one male doctor told me I had anxiety (fair enough) and put me on diazapam and antidepressants. The same one who said I couldn't be menopausal. I didn't take the antidepressants but couldn't leave the house without the diazapam in my bag or I'd panic more. All I needed was HRT to fix the cause of the anxiety.

Edited

I've just noticed this thread is active again, thought I'd update.

I returned to my GP a couple of months ago and was given an additional 25micrograms of Evorel patches to add to the Evorel Conti I already use. The symptoms that were creeping back in (intrusive thoughts, severe anxiety, palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath etc) have all disappeared again.

Please seek help those of you who need it. You don't need to suffer in silence xx