Well this is fun...

[DarkForces]

Mid 40s and wide awake at stupid o'clock, every time I try to fall asleep I boil in my bones, meanwhile dh snores beside me. I'm exhausted and fall asleep every time I sit on the sofa then wake up boiling, then try to sleep in bed and the whole bloody cycle starts again. By day I'm ok so I get too absorbed in work to remember to call my gp during the 5 seconds they release appointments. I'm too young for this shit. After years of endometriosis I had an ablation and coil and 5 years off and now I'm back at the mercy of my fecking hormones again.
Arghhhhh!!!!

So sorry to hear the shitty club has additional new members who can't find the exit sign but glad I've found my people. I'm still in the denial phase @piscofrisco but the bone density issue has moved me to being determined to take action!

I hear u OP. I sometimes have uncontrollable itching too. Went to doc for HRT. Fully expected to get it. Blood pressure too high. Most people i know are on it and they say it's a game changer

I'm in Wales so it's a different system. The receptionists are fab though so going to start there and get begging for a route in!

Oh that's rubbish @BCBird . I hope they're sorting your bp at least 🤗

Yes. I work on a sort of therapeutic farm (where mentally ill people come and the farming is part of their therapy but there is a lot of working with animals and running around the farm) and for the last few months I’ve been getting home from work and having to sit down for an hour because everything hurts-which can’t be right can it, at 45. Plus the sleep thing is making everything else feel like walking through treacle. So I must take action.

'so I’m wondering about just paying for a menopause specialist-has anyone any experience of using one?'

Yes! Previous GP was useless so I decided to go private via Newson Health. Can't recommend enough. They do video consultations and I only had to wait about a week for an appointment. Had a 40 minute conversation with a specialist doctor who was empathetic, listened, took me seriously, gave me TONS of info and prescribed HRT. I had the drugs in my hands the very next day. Not cheap, but worth every penny

Another vote for HRT. So many things disappeared which I hadn’t even realised were connected to perimenopause.
I don’t know if it’s an option for you but there are plenty of private GPs who will prescribe HRT. I don’t know, though, if that would have an impact on whether you can still get the HRT certificate which means reduced price prescriptions.
I am so bitter about perimenopause. I had my DC in my early/mid 30s and, during all of those years of not sleeping due to being pregnant, breast feeding, generally having non-sleeping children and then dealing with bouts of illness as they got older, I was looking forward to finally catching up on sleep as they hit the teenage stage. But no. They sleep
all the time and I’m wide awake. And I can’t even catch up on sleep by dozing in the evening as their clubs go on until 9 or 10 these days and they need picking up. Or they’re at parties at the weekend.
For me, there was a definite correlation between how much sugar & alcohol I’d consumed and how bad the hot flushes were. And magnesium generally helped with the sleep.

That is beyond awful. And contrary to NICE guidelines. I was 41 when I went to the GP with all the symptoms listed here, and my GP immediately suggested it might be menopause. She encouraged me to go on HRT, because early menopause put me at increased risk of osteoporosis.

I’m sorry you were so poorly treated 😠

I'm in Wales so get free prescriptions @RedwallMattimeo so definitely want to go via NHS if possible. I'm already paying for Mounjaro and that's going long term cost and just reached maintenance before bloody perimenopause hit like a train. Didn't even get a week off! 😖

The GP who basically said i was too young to be tested for the menopause was a female.

That's ridiculous @Shedmistress . So depressing to be dismissed like that 😢

On the being fobbed off thing, that's why I mentioned asking about menopause specialist docs/nurses at your surgery and only seeing them. I must have seen at least 6 other GP's about menopause symptoms over about 8 years (!!) and none of them did anything to help me.

I ended up so sleep deprived and miserable I rang for an emergency appointment one morning at the absolute end of my tether and (after embarrassingly crying down the phone) the lovely receptionist finally took pity on me and told me there was a menopause specialist doctor at our surgery (why did no one tell me that before?!!) and booked me in with her. I left the surgery with a prescription for HRT that day which was wonderful but I'm (still) so angry I was left struggling for all those years simply because most GP's don't have a clue about menopause. So yes, ask your surgery if anyone there specialises and if not (and you can afford it) see a private specialist.

'told me there was a menopause specialist doctor at our surgery (why did no one tell me that before?!!)'

Well, why not indeed?! Joined up thinking is a rare skill in healthcare sadly (I'm an NHS worker)

Totally agree with the advice to ask about a specialist menopause practitioner, but wanted to add that the sex of the practitioner is irrelevant. Some women feel that they will have more success with a female practitioner, but not necessarily. My female GP was not following guidelines and didn't know her stuff. I've heard excellent reports about male GPs who were clued up and empathetic. An informed HCP is an informed HCP, whatever sex they are

As a long time sufferer of endometriosis, it is absolutely worth the shit you’re going through now to get out the other side with no more periods and all the endo horror that goes with them. If you’re considering HRT, make sure you talk to a GP who knows what they’re doing. I was put on it by a young GP and then later told by an experienced gynaecologist that the GP was totally wrong to have put me on the one they did, as it actually increased my cancer risk due to the endometriosis. Make sure you get some good advice.

I had an early MP missed by GP as he kept saying I was too young, and fobbing me off. By time another doc said I was post meno my mental health was in the pits. Only had about five hot flashes, but not nice. I suffered with joint pain though and horrendous brain fog.

Within two weeks of HRT I felt like a different woman. It took a while to find the right dose but the right GP will help too.

Lack of sleep was horrendous. HRT really sorts that out. I’m a massive advocate for HRT if you’re suitable for it - I realise not everyone can take it.

I don’t even know where to start with HRT when I need it
gynae have said no oestrogen as I’ve got endo that will be fuelled by it. I’ve got a mirena coil

had huge excision surgery in May and since then (they kept everything though) my legs ache, I’m hobbling and having hot flashes that make me feel panicky

Such great advice and support here. To think I just posted for a hug at 😢 o'clock in the morning. Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to kindly wake me up to needing to take this seriously and accept it.

Argh. Hopefully they'll prescribe something. I'll update when I make progress but may be a while.

Current guidelines are to diagnose peri/menopause on symptoms, Not blood tests. This is because your hormone levels can fluctuate widely during peri, and some days testing will show that your pituitary is pumping out hormones trying to get your ovaries to respond (peri), other days all is as expected (apparently not in peri).

At my surgery you don’t necessarily get to see the same GP each time. The GP I first saw, who thought it was probably peri, had ordered a whole raft of blood tests to make sure she didn’t miss anything. The follow-up was with a different GP (male), who decided that I was depressed. (As we all know, depression causes hot flushes!)

Fortunately, when I managed to see the first GP again, she had a FFS moment and made a note that I was always to see her if I requested her. She’s retired now, and I miss her.

Having been on HRT for nearly ten years, I’d recommend asking the doc for melatonin and getting Ashwagandha for mood.

I’m going to give this a go I think. I was up from 2-5 this morning, boiling hot, then cold as I took the covers off, and repeat. Plus all the other rubbish symptoms I’ve had for the last year or so and done nothing about. I can’t go on like it. I did try to go to the gp a year ago but they would do nothing without bloods and then forgot to send me the form for it and I couldn’t summon the energy to attempt to get through to the gp for hours again to get it 🫣

😨 another rubbish night between hot flushes and dh snoring. Maybe I should rub some hrt on him if I manage to get my hands on it. Will he vanish like a my sore knees? 🤔

Oh no did the antihistamine not work for you?

@DarkForces , I highly recommend separate bedrooms if that's at all possible for you. We sleep separately because of snoring and insomnia and it's bliss. We get into bed together and read, then when he's sleepy he goes to the spare room (which has a lovely comfy double bed) and we both get undisturbed sleep (sometimes).

Honestly, night time peri shit is awful enough without having someone snoring and roasting right next to you

I forgot 😭 blame my rubbish menopausal brain. Trust me I was cursing myself at 2am!