How do you even know if your in perimenopause?

[Afternooninthepark]

I’m 46 next month. I’ve been feeling crappy for a year or two now. My GP says that as I have a regular 28(ish) day cycle I am not in perimenopause.
These are the regular symptoms I’m getting,
Really bad, daily anxiety which is currently my worst symptom
Depression
Very heavy periods (I do have several reoccurring uterine polyps)
Bad PMS the week before period (never really suffered before now)
Aura migraines, on 3rd day of my period
Lack of libido (happy never to have sex again 😟)
Dry down below and really itchy a week before period
Really itchy skin (especially on torso and scalp)
Aching muscles and achy joints
Fatigue (I am anaemic due to years of heavy periods)
Night sweats a week before period
More body odour than I ever had before
Lots of wind and bad indigestion
Can’t concentrate

Most of these things seem to be caused/exacerbated by my hormones as I feel worse a week before and during my period (absolutely dread having periods now) and feel shitty during mid cycle too. I only get a few days a month when I feel ok!

Anyone else get any of these? Feel my gp just doesn’t want to know tbh!

@lljkk

please could you tell us where you get information on this? Thank you.

jingling I’m afraid you are completely correct, I have no faith in my gp, unfortunately my fabulous life long female gp retired a few years ago and I haven’t yet found a decent replacement!
The gynaecologist wasn’t anymore helpful either. I waited almost 2 hours to see him (he was delayed on the day of my appointment with an emergency c section) by the time he saw me it was a very rushed appointment, I had several questions to ask but he was very brusque and shock his head to most of my questions (including a request for an ablation) and said it was the Mirena or nothing!! HRT of any kind wasn’t offered at all. I was so upset I just sat there and cried, I felt such a fool tbh! I suppose I’m going to have to go privately although I can’t really afford to, so frustrating.

Twitter, random web pages, Radio 4 Women's hour, other R4 programmes, sometimes R5 programmes, BBC world service, MN threads, reddit threads, occasional magazine article, occasional newspaper articles, chitchat with colleagues or friends, Facebook jokes, Cousin commenting about her hot flushes, colleague making comment about her hot flush while we were doing heavy lifting, colleague making comments about ovarian cancer in her family but can't function without HRT so take it anyway.

Being curious what people said so internet searching afterwards.

Older relatives & friends of family who often visibly (with much stress) went thru 'the change' about the time my children were born. Long time cultural comments, jokes, Golden Girls & other TV sitcom shows, random internet searches, school biology & PSHE lessons about what it means to be a woman and have periods & how long we would be fertile for. My mother only mentioned menop once, to say she didn't want HRT. Family gossip about aunt's relief about hysterectomy after yrs of heavy periods.

I don't understand the specific drug combos. That seems to be huge & may require trying dozens of things before anything if anything works. I don't need drugs so I don't try to understand the combos.

But information about this shouldn’t come from passing comments, jokes and Woman’s Hour.
This is part of the life of every single woman yet we have to scratch around for information. Why isn’t it talked about at the 40 year old check rather than just hushed conversations about ‘the change’ like it is something to be embarrassed about.

BBC has an educational role.
I never had to scratch around to get info. Buckets & buckets out there if you even half-look for it.
Menopause was covered a lot in my school lessons, even.
I didn't go for the age 40-70 checkup. I guess I feel like poor NHS is already asked to do so much, I resist supporting demanding that they do even more.. if people don't want to make an effort to understand their own bodies, I'm not much of a nanny state person, I guess.

Fair enough they need to support illiterate people, I guess, who can't do their own searches in privacy.

I never felt ashamed talking about it, or sensed that others were.
Some men I know would prefer to crawl under a table then continue the conversation -- they'd be the same if discussing prostates, tbf.

Anyone who has had meno education at school must be quite young (not in the 50-60+ age group I imagine.)

I had nothing- we had a talk on periods when I was 13. I taught in sec schools during the late 70s and early-mid 80s- there was nothing about menopause then.

You may or may not be aware but there is currently a LOT going on, at a political level, to bring a petition to parliament so that employers are aware of the impact of menopause. This has now reached ministerial level and discussion in the Commons- last week I think.

There are not 'dozens' of HRT products. There are 2 types of estrogen (one which is hardly ever prescribed now) and 4 types of progestogen. There are several brands of HRT which are all the same except for the name - they have exactly the same ingredients.

Within these brands there are various doses- low, medium high.
They are all listed on Menopause Matters and anyone with a bit of intelligence can read the lists and see which are the same but different names, which are different etc.

I agree though that there is a HUGE amount online and in women's mags . In fact you can't escape them if you read women's mags.

There are the NICE guidelines, the BMS and websites like those of Dr Louise Newson. All are very informative.

You can also be prescribed birth control pills instead of HRT for peri-menopause, which is what seems to be quite common here in Los Angeles.

lljkk the problem isn't so much the lack of information, but rather that the medical professionals who can prescribe the solutions and who don't have enough training and knowledge to do so and aren't willing to admit that they don't.
OP, try to get yourself referred to a urogynocologist. They seem to know a whole lot more about pelvic floor issues.

Sorry, posted too quickly...Pelvic Floor issues AND all the other symptoms of peri-menopause and menopause.

I think that it is all about money!
They don’t earn from us, so they have no motivation to care or to educate themselves.
There are more risks from fertility treatments but they push the treatments like very safe practices and they don’t inform us about the risks.

This is a really really good podcast (is that the right term when it’s a video on YouTube??) by a GP who does loads of stuff about the peri menopause and the menopause.

My experience was that I was unaware of the breadth of symptoms. So I was waiting for my periods to become lighter or further apart, to have hot flushes, and to be bad tempered.

None of that happened. My periods got closer together and heavier, I had unbearably hot feet at night. Aches and pains, exhaustion, and poor memory.

At the same time I suffered a bereavement, which muddied the waters.

I asked the GP about menopause and he said I was "approaching peri", but not in peri because I wasn't getting hot flushes.

There may be a lot of information floating about, but "what you hear" is very inaccurate and the internet has so much it's hard to navigate.

My GP (female, circa 50 years old) said perimenopause straight away when I went for insomnia and sweating plus odd periods (regular but lighter). I was 44, but she cautioned it can last 10 years!

I have been to the GP twice in the last 5 years - once because I experienced a couple of panic attacks and secondly because every joint/muscle in my body ached and I have been doing regular exercise for 20 years! I saw 2 different female GPs and on neither occasion was the menopause mentioned as being a possible cause of the symptoms - which as I'm coming up to my 55th birthday is a little surprising! I have little faith in GPs - female or not. The worrying thing is that ours is a training practice and on the 2nd visit I was seen initially by a student dr who was then joined by the GP for an in-depth discussion about my symptoms and treatment!

Your symptoms sound very similar to mine - thankfully I had an understanding GP, blood tests did show I was perimenopausal at 48 - not sure if this had anything to with having IVF and the associated drugs! I am on HRT now but found in the early days after sampling many supplements the following worked - Menomin for perimenopause (bought on amazon) Zinc, calcium and magnesium by Solgar 3 taken at bedtime and just started taking a turmeric capsule which is good for joint pain and depression I'm told. Going for a daily walk first thing with my dog has helped immensely even though I wake up feeling low I often feel brighter after that even in the freezing cold. Good luck

I am 51. Thanks for calling that young! Not that I mind being old, either, though. I did go to school outside UK.

I had terrible terrible SI joint and finger joint and hip joint issues in my early 40's which turned out to be peri-menopause issues and I discovered that they were because when I went on the pill (per the hormone specialist obgyn's recommendation) all the symptoms went away. And then when the idiot male obgyn switched me to hrt at 53, they all came back and then when my lovely female Physcian's Assistant agreed to put me back on the pill (and sent me to a female urogynocologist) they all went away again.

I intend to stay on the pill until I die.

Even if it means becoming a doctor (at the ripe old age of 55) to prescribe them to myself.

thanks for replies
probably was the sporadic pill taking - I am back on track now so hopefully all will be well

I too love love love the pill!