How did you know when the end was nigh?

[dressedforcomfort]

Am 49 and have been in peri for about 5 years.

Was having periods fairly regularly until recently. The past couple of months the bleeding has practically stopped and all I have is half a morning of spotting. Plus the HRT doesn't seem to be hitting the spot as much any more. Tiredness, vertigo, migraines anxiety all returning. I'm guessing the estrogen my body was naturally producing is seriously on the wane.

I thinking moving out of peri and I'm approach full on menopause. But not sure what to expect. Did your periods stop all at once, dwindle gradually, get lighter? Did your symptoms change?

Basically, how did you know you were nearing the big M?

If you use sequential hrt, you will have a withdrawal bleed every month as long as you carry on with that type of hrt.

You can't tell if you have natural periods any more.

Are you not getting a withdrawal bleed 3 -ish days after your last patch/tablets?

If not, it suggests you HRT estrogen dose is too low.

My periods stopped. Two and a bit years later, still stopped. That's it. So I assume that was menopause.

I’m not sure if I’m at the end or not. I have a mirena coil so only get a tiny bit of spotting. I haven’t noticed any ovulation pain for months. Lately, my boobs have deflated (big relief) and I seem to have more energy, less brain dog. Am 48.

Previously, PMT literally ruined my life so I welcome menopause with open arms!

I question that a lot of these alleged menopause issues are not actually related to the menopause and are to do with other health problems such as being overweight and stress.

I went through the menopause with no problems whatsoever and I don't know of anyone in my family, friends or ex colleagues who have been through the menopause who has suffered in the slightest.

My periods also just stopped and I haven't had a period for more than a year now (48)

They became more irregular and lighter gradually over the 2 years before that and then just stopped but I didn't know the last one would be the last one IYSWIM. I have loads of packs of Tampax gathering dust in drawers.

I had very few other symptoms. Some hot flushes at one point but that was short lived. I vaguely considered if I should get HRT but in the end CBA to make a GP appt so I haven't.

It's nice in many ways not to worry about periods but it does make me feel old and past it.

Following with interest, but don't have anything useful to contribute, as I am still in peri.
@Hippodogamus , "brain dog" describes is perfectly! I might refer it as such from now on.

I suddenly stopped wanting to kill people.

Never on hrt so my experience might mean nothing.
no change in the actual quality or bleed quantity from peri, just widening of dates till the next period. Every 3 months over time became every 6 months then 12, then none.
hot flashes decreased with time so that eventually I have none.
i attribute the decrease in rage to the children leaving home and retirement bliss.
my 40’s were full on, any moodiness was most likely life shit vs hormones.

Basically, how did you know you were nearing the big M

I didn't. Still don't !!

"I went through the menopause with no problems whatsoever and I don't know of anyone in my family, friends or ex colleagues who have been through the menopause who has suffered in the slightest."

What staggering good fortune @ChateauDuMont. Not one single person you know? Amazing.

I am less overweight now and less stressed than when I started peri.

The hot flushes, scratchy vag and absence of sleep were not my imagination. Nor the endless migraines.

All disappeared with a month of HRT.

Conversly there are 4 women on our team (including me) aged 55-61. One is overweight, the others are fit and healthy and we have all had similar issues (flushes, insomia, brain fog, itching, flooding) and also individually had other symptoms commonly attributed to menopause (dizziness, mood swings, vertigo).

My mum says she went through it with no issues at all, I was a teen/early twenties at the time and I must remember it better than than she does! I remember me and dad talking about it too! Maybe the brain fog got to her 🤣

Working on upping your fitness level, general health, national, mental well-being is advisable at any age, but especially when moving towards the age where lots of things can start going wrong.

My sister & I did it together during the pandemic. She did it to distract me because I was in full on headless chicken mode (I live near Codogno, the first place to be red zoned in Northern Italy) when it all went tits up over here just before Carnivale.

She has a treadmill and I have Il Parco Ticino. So we got ourselves up to 10k a day. We cooked from scratch together over zoom, cos I’d been stockpiling lentils, olive oil, wholemeal flour etc. since my ex in Asia sent me some link the previous year saying “this could get bad”. It had to get used and the queues outside the supermarket were too surreal for me to cope with as long as the cupboards and freezer were full of basic “one ingredient” foodstuffs.

Between all the being frogmarched about outside endlessly either by my sister on line (or my fitness-militant-and-missing-having-a-team-to-coach adult DS), the vastly improved diet, new slimmer (with discernible muscles !) I was in the best mental & physical shape I’d been in since the mid 80s by the time Covid was no longer public enemy number 1.

Still didn’t stop me having an overwelming S-word compulsion alone in the woods. I needed the Samaritans safety plan for a good while. And it didn’t stop my ambitious, high level top job sister from suddenly falling apart at the seams with exhaustion, migraines and brain-fog.

Getting as well as you can be, mind, body & soul is absolutely the biggest thing you can do to help yourself over any hump in life, including, perhaps particularly, the menopause shaped one. I’m glad I did it. (Albeit accidentally as an anti Covid-Headless-Chicken coping mechanism rather than mindfully and on purpose)

But, if you are one of the women getting a worse deal in the peri menopause stakes, it’s not necessarily going to be all “Shields Up & Holding Captain” just because you did all the right things before BigHormone came and starting hurling alien feeling missiles at you, from directions you weren’t expecting them in.

My sister, who encountered BigHormone a good six months after me, was somewhat disquieted by me being on HRT. I get it. She knew she was entering the phase due to cycle changes. She had had an unexpected level of work stress as a perfectly reasonable explanation for quite a lot of the issues she was dealing with. But she wasn’t feeling like a zombified ant who’d been taken over by god knows what. She still felt like she was herself and largely in control of her outcomes.

Right up until she didn’t.

So yes, you have a point. Prevention, or even “right ! fuck you menobastard!”retaliation in terms of mental, physical & spiritual upgrades can go a long way in making some bumps smoother, less jarring, or as much of an issue. It’s just that some women get some bumps that can knacker even the best self-made, quality suspension system.

Hang on, you question other women's symptoms because you have never had any? Wow.

I hope you are not in a position of power over other women then. If you are, it would be good if you did a bit of research.

It's a scientific fact that lack of oestrogen causes a huge raft of symptoms, but not in all women. Nobody seems to know why some women get through with no symptoms and some get every symptom going.

Out of interest, what do you think vaginal atrophy is caused by when the medical profession says its oestrogen depletion?

Basically, how did you know you were nearing the big M?

@dressedforcomfort While you are on HRT (which you are) you won't know when your own periods stop.

This is because HRT (when started in peri when you're having periods) gives you a withdrawal bleed each month .

It's a very different situation to asking when periods stop forever when someone isn't on HRT.

The fact you are only have a minute blood loss on HRT possibly means that the dose you are on is too low (because blood loss is usually related to the estrogen dose - and the amount of progesterone to offset it.)

The only way you will know if your natural periods have stopped, is to stop HRT for 12 months and see if you have any more periods (and I assume you'd not want to do that.)

Thanks for those people who've flagged that my estrogen level on HRT might be too low. I think I'll chat to the GP.

As for the sneery comment along the lines of "I'm alright Jack it must be because you're overweight with a shit lifestyle." I should point out, I'm a size 14, I don't smoke, I barely drink and I go to the gym 3 times a week. Menopause still hit me like fucking truck. (Vertigo daily, migraines, anxiety, sleeplessness, muscle pain etc etc.) Bully for you if you made it through unscathed but not all of us are that lucky. As many lovely ladies have responded and noted, there's
a huge element of pot luck involved with hormonal crap....

When i finally stopped having severe Pmt , if i had known how good life was without Pmt i would have asked for a hysterectomy years before the menopause

@ChateauDuMont Your small circle of friends and colleagues who never had symptoms must fall into the very small percentage - about 15-20% - of women who have barely any symptoms.

75% of women do. (This isn't my own anecdotal opinion, it's based on research by medics and scientists.)

Bear in mind too, than many women don't share their symptoms (especially more intimate ones, like painful sex, sore 'bits') and a large group of women never link their health problems with the menopause.

There's enough misogyny already amongst some of the medical profession, without other women minimising or denying that meno symptoms can be very debilitating.

I sailed through my menopause but suffered terribly from PMT throughout my fertile years .

jinglingspringbells
I'm not sure at all about the "sequential HRT = a monthly bleed forever so you'll never know" thing.
I'm on sequential, and I regularly miss periods- this month, for example, I have had just a very small amount of spotting. I certainly know when I've had a "proper" period (had an accident at the swimming pool last month- my tampon wasn't enough to stop a sudden unexpected flood and I dripped blood all over the poolside 😳).

My GP says the same- periods can stop even if you're on sequential.

@crackofdoom We're talking about two different things I think.

Natural periods and sequential withdrawal bleeds are not the same thing.

Most women on sequential hrt have a withdrawal bleed. This is described on the patient leaflets of the progesterone (whichever type you use.) Sequential is designed to give a withdrawal bleed. In most women it overrides their own cycles in peri and regulates them.

It usually comes 2-4 days after stopping progesterone.

Some women (about 20%) never have a withdrawal bleed and this is usually because their womb lining isn't stimulated enough by the estrogen dose. And yes, it can vary according to whether women are in peri (having some natural periods) or post meno.

However, women who are post menopause and use sequential with have a withdrawal bleed. I am 15 years post meno, use sequential, and have a withdrawal bleed. I have a friend of 70 who is using hrt and has a withdrawal bleed, each cycle.