Is this it??

[mincepieprivateeye]

I'm 48 and I've been taking the mini pill for quite a few years, for the first three I didn't bleed at all. After that it was hit and miss and it's been around two years since i last did. Just before Christmas I started having sweats at night, I'd had a stinking cold so put it down to that at first. The trouble is though I'm still sweating every night, maybe once maybe three or four times, it seems to come out of nowhere and is quite prolific, I mean who's shoulders sweat but it only lasts a minute or two. No day sweats and nothing else going on. I could do with some more sleep as they tend to wake me up but I've also had quite a lot of stress due to elderly parents so that doesn't help. Should I troop off to the doctors, my non favourite place??

Does sound like IT.

Only go to drs if you fancy HRT otherwise there is no point seeing them- you are bang in the middle age wise for meno / peri.
Average age of meno is 51 with the range from 45- 55.

Thanks Polly. I'm due a smear test so I'll mention it to the nurse then. Nothing more going on other than night sweats at the moment so I'm not thinking of hrt just yet and I don't even know if it can be taken with the mini oil. I'm a bit clueless about it all really!

Sounds like it to me. I'm 51 and sweats and hot flushes have been going on for about a year. Hasnt bothered me really. I don't want to use HRT. II do feel more anxious in general, but only recently put that down to a menopausal symptom when a friend did!

If you have a mirena fitted, then you can add patches/gel to deal with the night sweats. This neatly covers the interim contraception problems, as well as hrt. You would probably have to troop off the the FPC, and the doctors too. The Mirena is licensed for 4 years for this, but you can go 5 years.

With the mini-pill, there is no way of telling unless you come off and see (either by waiting, or by a blood test, which is not all that reliable anyway). Then you would not be covered for contraception. It is not usually used as the progestogen part of hrt. People are sometimes given hrt on top of the pop which sounds far from ideal.

I did the come off and wait and used condoms - and ended up having loads of periods. Now on hrt and fed up of the condoms but have no idea when to stop. It is muddly.

I think I've possibly been a bit up and down mood wise but due to having both my dad and step mum with Alzheimer's and my poor dad got sectioned it's not been an easy few months so I couldn't say it's down to being meno but who knows

I had sweats for years on the pill. It is hard to keep up with the laundry

It's a very odd feeling I know that much

I really don't fancy the coil one bit, makes me shudder. I even told the nurse at the doctors to stop asking if I wanted to try it

I know, that it why I am stuck with the condoms and tablet hrt.

It would be so much easier and transdermal is supposed to be safer ...........