Hormone crash? after cyst rupture / ending breastfeeding

[Pelvicpaininthebum]

Shamelessly posting in AIBU for traffic.

I've a few posts lately about my health... I'll bullet point to keep it as brief as possible:

• symptoms of an ovarian cyst rupture
• fatigue, thirst and low level anxiety followed this.
• 6.5 days after the cyst rupture my heart rate shot up, anxiety ramped up and I was waking in the night with a racing heart and panic attacks. Still very thirsty.
• insomnia since then has continued. Can sometimes get to sleep fine but wake up and can't get back to sleep. Resting heart rate is high.
• now 3.5 weeks after the cyst rupture. My GP put me on Mirtazepine to help my appetite, sleep, and anxiety. Also Bisoprolol to lower my heart rate but it's still higher than it used to be. I feel much less anxious generally but still worrying about what has happened to me and if it will reoccur.
• still not sleeping well even with the Mirtazepine before bed. I just had two nights of sleeping ok but fitfully. Last night couldn't get to sleep, ended up taking half a lorazepam after midnight.

I'm posting to see if I'm just mad or if it's reasonable to think all of this has happened because of the cyst rupture. I think the cyst ruptured caused a hormone crash which made my DS feed less which caused more hormone issues. I've then decided to just bite the bullet and stop breastfeeding him completely. Stopped 6 days ago (DS is 18 months).

Could all of these issues be down to hormones?

YABU - you're just mad / it's something else
YANBU - you're probably right (if so when will I sleep again 😭).

Oh and just to add my period arrive a week ago, which was a whole week early which has never happened to me before.

Bump

I have no idea, though I'm interested since I'm pregnant with a large ovarian cyst that I'm really hoping won't rupture.

Hope someone comes along with some insight! And hope you feel better soon, OP.

Thank you. Best wishes for your pregnancy!

It sounds connected (but I’m not an expert). From my own experience, my body went haywire after finishing tandem breastfeeding (nursing for over 3 consecutive years!!). I would not stop bleeding and the GP had to prescribe something for it. It was all sorted in a few weeks luckily.

I'm not much help but when I stoppe do breastfeeding it was the worst hormone crash I've ever had! So much worse for me than pp.

Thanks for your reply. Wow well done on the 3 years!

Do you remember other symptoms you had?

Thanks! I had a terrible time mentally post partum with my first and was expecting it with my second but it never happened. Now I think I'm having it, just delayed by 18 months.

What symptoms did you have from the hormone crash?

Stopping breastfeeding with my first child was absolutely horrendous for me, incredibly anxious, panic attacks, I couldn't sleep, zero appetite and I lost a fair bit of weight. It took 5 months to settle down and at times I seriously questioned whether I was loosing my mind. I'm approaching stopping with my second and slightly worried about it to say the least.

To add, from my experience yes I would say it sounds connected. My GP told me that it can take six months for your hormones to sort themselves out post stopping breastfeeding and it's quite normal for a serious imbalance to have occurred which your body needs to re-balance.

@Stripesarethethingforme 5 months?! Oh my goodness! Those symptoms are all my main ones. Thank you for your reply.

The thought of 5 months of this is horrible. How did you cope during that time? Did it get better slowly over that time or was it awful for all of it?

The first two months were the absolute worst but it got slowly better and then one day I woke up and felt so well and I realised oh this is what it's like to feel normal again! My GP refused me any medication which at the time I was quite angry about but I think in hindsight I don't think either of us expected it to go on so long and things did improve so perhaps she was right.

Were you feeding in the night until recently?

Thanks. Yeah I'm already worrying about how I'm going to come off the Mirtazepine, but I don't think I'd be sleeping at all without it. (I'm not sleeping much with it).

I just don't know how I'm going to continue managing day to day with these feelings, I'm really struggling. I'm signed off work at the mo but have to go back soon.

How did you do it?

I've only been feeding first and last thing for about 3 months. Then cut out the evening feed for about a week, now stopped completely.

Should also say my cycle got silly short as soon as I stopped breastfeeding and then it slowly lengthened out to normal again over the five months. I think it's something that no-one really talks about probably because of our low breastfeeding rates and the loss of community knowledge if you like as a result. Plus I suspect most people don't have such a turbulent return to pre-breastfeeding hormone status quo.

I coped very badly, I'm lucky enough to be at home with my kids but yeah - total mess. Almost divorced my husband. It was awful.

That's interesting because my last cycle was 23 days, I was 7 days early!

But you went on to have another child and you're breastfeeding again.... Wow! I wish you so much luck when you stop this time.

I really appreciate your replies. Thank you.

In the interests of contributing something to the knowledge bank, my DC self-weaned between two-and-a-half and three. It was a really gentle transition (one evening feed for ages) and a few of those last feeds were some of the most blissed-out that we had together. They could express their appreciation in words too by that stage! Thankfully no hormone crash, I think because I was so far post-partum and my cycle was already re-established. Just to put forward a slightly different experience as I wouldn’t want a mum considering full-term breastfeeding to be fearing that a hormone crash is always inevitable. Hope that helps someone further down the line.

Oh dear, that's an excellent point! I hope my experience hasn't/ doesn't put other people off full term breastfeeding, I fed my first until 2.5 years and now up to almost 3 years with number 2 so it clearly didn't put me off that badly and I would absolutely hands down do it again.

Congratulations @BadSkiingMum and @Stripesarethethingforme for breastfeeding for so long. I know how hard it is!