Yeah, but just......no. I am not medically qualified but I am far more knowledgeable about hormonal/reproductive depression & anxiety than most. I had to educate myself because none of the GPs I saw had a clue.
These symptoms of intense anxiety, agoraphobia, panic etc are caused by the fluctuations of oestrogen and progesterone. It is a chemical reaction. I'm sure fellow sufferers on here will recognise when I say it feels like you have been injected with a powerful dose of anxiety & fear. Nothing to do with your childhood, or traumas or any of that woo nonsense. It's chemical and should be recognised as such. Have therapy or acupuncture if you fancy it, but no amount of talking or inhaling hemp leaves is going to control this chemical chaos.
It's like suggesting that talking therapy is going to cure your diabetes.
Women who suffer in this way are severely progesterone intolerant. They cannot tolerate the fluctuations in their own progesterone, particularly when their oestrogen levels are fluctuating and ultimately diminishing. The highly synthetic progesterone present in oral HRT can be pure mental poison for progesterone intolerant women. For women who are hormone sensitive (and not all women are), good levels of oestrogen are vital for your mental health. Oestrogen is your happy, feel-good hormone.
Did you know there is a direct correlation between women who suffer with PMS/PNDD who then go on to suffer with PND and eventually end up suffering those same PND symptoms again, years later, during the peri menopause? It's a classic progression that is common to many women who are progesterone intolerant.
More women commit suicide between the ages of 48 and 52 than at any other time in their lives. This is the typical age of when peri menopause is at it's highest. This. Is. Not. A. Coincidence.
I suffered like the damned with peri menopausal anxiety and depression. I went from being outgoing, busy and full of life to a terrified husk of my former self. I had the classic progression from severe PMS to PND to peri menopause Hell. My PMS had been getting much worse and lasting longer since I turned 40, at the same time that my periods had got much lighter. Then in October 2014 the PMS didn't go away once my period started. It just got worse and worse and worse. I was only getting a few good days per month.
The next two years were incredibly difficult. I knew my problem was hormonal but every GP I saw told me I was far too young for peri menopause. I was 43 FFS. Not one doctor was prepared to recognise any connection between my PMS + PND and now peri menopausal anxiety/depression. Not one.
Finally through a lot of research and reading I found my way to Professor John Studd. At the time he was considered a world expert on menopause and was Chairman of The Menopause Society. He saved my life. He told me I the classic poster child for what he termed 'Reproductive Depression.' If any of the sufferers on here have a look at his website I think they will all recognise themselves in the case studies he writes about. I know I did. I read his website crying the whole time because FINALLY an actual doctor knew exactly what was wrong with me.
Prof Studd was a huge advocate of HRT. His gold standard was Oestrogel (as much as you needed to feel good again) balanced by as little progesterone (Utrogestan) that you could get away with. His doses were often much higher than anything a regular GP would consider. But in his own words "All women need different doses to feel good again." He liked his patients to have a p/mol level of 800 or higher of oestrogen, he deemed this a decent therapeutic level.
However, he also said that anti depressants can also have a role to play in women who are especially progesterone intolerant. He told me that the reason that ADs alone don't work well for hormonal anxiety/depression during peri menopause is because they need sufficient levels of serotonin to interact with - and that oestrogen plays a big part in serotonin production (I am paraphrasing what he said).
It took roughly 3 months on his HRT regime to fully recover. But there were definite signs of improvement within the first fortnight. Once I was stablilised he wrote a letter to my GP explaining exactly how to prescribe for me, on going, on the NHS.
So, sorry for the long diatribe. But I promised myself that if I ever recovered (and I did) I would do my very best to pay it forward and help other sufferers of progesterone intolerance. It's a terrifying and horrible condition that can ruin lives and wreak women's mental health to the point where suicide seems the only option. It's astounding that it is virtually unknown and unacknowledged among the general medical profession (yes, even in some supposed Menopause Clinics which are often staffed by doctors with no background in gynaecology or menopause).
But the right medication and help is out there for you. And you can and will recover from this.