Perimenopause is wrecking my mental health

[Holeinmywellies]

I would say that I have been in peri since the age of 45, I am 52 in March.

I have always had issues with my mental health and have suffered from anxiety, ocd, panic attacks and depression for decades but have always been able to keep it controlled with healthy living, exercise, talking therapies, hypnosis and meditation.

However, the last 6 years have been hell and it's getting worse no matter what I try. Not helped at all by outside stresses such as helping my father and sister to care for my elderly mother who has dementia (since 2018) and a breast cancer diagnosis this year.

I am exhausted, frazzled and bone tired.

I sleep through the night (thankfully) but wake every morning in a major panic, this sets off my IBS so I end up with an upset tummy for hours which makes eating and getting on with life very hard work. I feel wound up and very anxious all day, this feeling (no matter what I do) does not ease until the evening when in general I will feel a lot calmer but it starts all over again as soon as I wake up.

I simply can not carry on like this and don't know what to do. It has thrown me into a deep depression and I cry on/off all day. It is wearing down my dh too and I am worried it is affecting my teen dc lives.

I am slim, I exercise, have never smoked or taken drugs, I don't drink alcohol or caffeine (in fact I only drink water), I am careful what I eat due to my gut issues. Every night I stretch, do a yoga routine and listen to the Calm app. I practise deep breathing. Basically all the things you are supposed to do for good mental health but nothing is over-riding this awful peri anxiety, nothing.

I tried hrt patches and then Utrogestan and Oestrogel but they exacerbated my endometriosis and adenomyosis pain and made my aura migraines worse. I also suffer from a failed uterine ablation so any additional bleeding causes a huge amount of pain as my messed up uterine lining goes into spasm when I have my period (no blood comes out), patches made this worse. I have been advised by my gynae not to take hrt. I am on a 2 year waiting list for a hysterectomy and simply can not afford the op privately as I am not working due to my issues, so that's not an option for me at all. I am under the mercy of the NHS right now which as we all know is not great when it comes to gynae waiting lists. Gynae has just left me to it until an appointment becomes availale.

What can I do, how can I go about my day to day life whilst suffering from such awful mental anguish all the time? It is affecting my physical health and my life in general.

I hate this time of my life so much, it has clouded my vision of my future as this is all I see from now on.

I'm sorry to hear this.

Both your GP and the gynae you're seeing should push for an early operation.
The 2 years wait is presumably for 'routine' surgery and not calculated around more needy cases. You need to keep asking and going back to your GP to ask them to advocate for it to happen sooner.

Your GP can also search for any availability anywhere in the UK- you no longer are tied to your local NHS for treatment.

If none of this happens, could you take a loan or use a credit card for the op? Probably around £7K?

Try some CBD oil. My anxiety can be dreadful and this is the only thing that helps.

According to my gynae, I am not classified as anything other than a routine case but I will make an appointment to see my GP next week and will speak with her, hopefully she can refer me to a different hospital as you say.

I don't work atm, I care for my mum so any treatment privately would be out of the question.

I will try some, thank you.

Would you consider antidepressants? It may be worth discussing them with your doctor. I know a lot of people seem to push for hrt ( which you have covered in your post) but perimenopause isn't an immunity from depression occurring.

Digestive issues are often related to mental issues too so those may be hand in hand and it's a viscious circle.

Be aware that a restricted diet may mean that you are missing out on nutrients. Low protein can have a negative impact on mood.

Then of course, you have a busy and stressful life , being a carer for your dm .

Thank you. I have turned down the offer of antidepressants many times for fear they may exacerbate my gut issues but in all honesty I am feeling so constantly anxious and low that I think it is something I am seriously going to have to consider going into the new year. As you say, it's a vicious cycle and I am constantly aware that my restrictive diet is most probably causing further issues which is not going to help as I go into my 50's and beyond. I do need to break this cycle somehow.

No advice but solidarity! My anxiety had been better but since a big family event this year it's really been ripping along. It's so hard to work out what's real and justified by stress and what is disproportionate peri motivated. I am 48 and it had been better over last two years. Not sure whether it's the hormones ramping up or whether it's because of the stressors changing. Either way it sucks.

You have described exactly what I have been experiencing. Waking in major panic, upset stomach, sometimes being sick, great difficulty eating, feeling anxious all day long and then feeling calm in the evening. Every day for 2 years. My mental health had never been strong but I managed fine without medication for years until the peri menopause. It has been hell.

What I have begun to realise is that menopause is a phase of transition into the next part of life. It is a time to come to terms with trauma and fears that are trapped in the mind and body. I kept saying to my husband that the awful anxious feelings are in my body (he didn’t understand what I meant). I learned that past “stuff” does actually get stuck in the organs. So I have been practising a meditation where I pinpoint where the anxiety is coming from. So far I have learned about childhood difficulties that I hadn’t acknowledged before. All well and good but there is so much trauma for me (unloved childhood with poor coping strategies) that I needed help. I used EFT. Look up EFT (emotional freedom technique), it’s so quick to learn and has been incredibly helpful. It still wasn’t enough though. The one thing that has given me much relief is acupuncture. I would only recommend Traditional Chinese Medicine with a qualified doctor who prescribes herbs, you need daily herbs. It has cost me a fair bit of money but it has stopped me feeling awful. I can cope and most of the time I feel well.

Oh, one more thing. Make sure your iron levels are high, low levels makes anxiety much worse.

I wish you well, I have been where you are, there is help out there.

Also I did go on anti depressants for a while, citalopram. That did actually help. HRT didn’t help at all unfortunately.

I’ve been prescribed low dose amitriptyline for IBS and it’s really helped with the early morning symptoms which in turn has improved my life and therefore, my mental health

Thank you, sorry you have suffered with similar issues.

I do think there is a lot to be said about stored up trauma, I too have some issues from my childhood which I do believe have lodged themselves deep within me. I used to practice tapping some time ago, I should try it again and I have been interested in trying acupuncture for some time, maybe I need to explore that into the new year.
My iron levels are fine now but hadn't been for many years, I had infusions two years ago and thankfully my levels are now good.

Hi There @Holeinmywellies
I realise it’s been quite a while since you posted this - so your circumstances might well have changed - but I came across your message this morning and want to respond incase it helps. I really feel for you. It sounds as though you’ve been suffering so much and I hate to think of others struggling like this. I have had a couple of years of severe and relentless perimenopausal anxiety combined with a flare up of OCD symptoms and depressive episodes - lots of rumination and health anxiety that was persistent and made day to day life almost an unbearable. However I have found that 100mg of Sertraline daily alongside L-theanine for anxiety has helped a great deal. I now take HRT for physical symptoms - but actually the biggest difference I have noticed in my mental health happened about 6/8 weeks or so after beginning the sertraline and very slowly building up from 25mg to 100mg daily. Honestly there is nothing to be afraid of with SSRIs. I had mine in the cupboard for months before I dared to take them. But they have been an immense help. Actually I find my IBS is also reduced with the sertraline - possibly because the anxiety is reduced so my digestive system is a bit less over-active. I used to have constant pain/gurgling/ tightness under my rib cage but it all settled a bit after the first 6 weeks of taking the sertraline. I would say that during the first month of taking them I became much more anxious and jittery - I had increased feelings of panic and felt like I was really going mad. I had to keep grounding myself and reminding myself that it was the drugs settling in. It was very difficult but I felt so much relief once things began to regulate and my body adapted to the Ssri. The other thing that has helped me is taking x2 valerian pills at night - sometimes alongsie a cetirizine antihistamine if I’m feeling on edge. It really makes a difference to how I feel when I sleep well and the relief of the drowsiness as I drift of is a really nice feeling. I’ve also had to change my diet a lot with digestive symptoms since peri - but I think adding in eggs and nuts has made the biggest difference. I try to keep eating nuts throughout the day to keep my protein levels up. I’m vegetarian so I do think that sometimes my protein levels plunge and it makes me more jittery and on edge. Anyway, I do hope you are feeling at least a little better! It’s so hard but things can get better I promise :)