So who would knows about perimenopause and menopause then .. and how come we aren't taught / don't discuss in advance

[Twiglett]

OK I'm 40 so possibly in reach of the perimenopause which I understand can start 10 years before the menopause

I've had a bug that is also giving me hot sweats, I've also been raging more than normal

I've ordered a book that has been recommended to me but I know nothing

(much as I knew nothing about my cycle 'til I read Toni Weschler's book)

I am about to be 40 and all of this alarms me. I have just stopped taking the pill after about 20 years on it, and I'm wondering if my doctor may have been right - she wanted me to stay on it until it was time to go onto HRT. Maybe it would have masked some symptoms and kept my hormone levels stable? I don't know. As it said in the Guardian piece, I bet if this happened to men, more would be being done to find out.

I've been (artificially) menopausal for a year and been on HRT and it's been marvellous .

There are quite a few specialists out there in this area now.

The hot flushes were something else though but I imagine that's because I 'got' the menopause overnight rather than gradually which is the whole point of the perimenopause I guess. There were also some other minor irritating symptoms .

I think it's a bit like reading a medicine insert and believing you'll get every side effect iyswim. Everyone will react differently.

Good information. I am 40 and well aware of hormones messing me up...increasingly bad pmt, migraines every mid cycle...
I found pregnancy(last year) to be an extreme but very good cure for all those symptoms but with a whole new set of separate symptoms instead
And Breast feeding has meant that 10 months later still no af for me...yippee though I am aware of my pmt coming back now.

My mother became a much more peacefull person after her change which started at 42 and went on for ten years....sigh

wanders off singing 'sometimes it's hard...to be a wooo-man....'

ooh peaceful, I could do with peaceful. My mother started going through it in her 30s (I guess why I'm starting to have problems now) so she had a hysterectomy (which was the done thing then I think).

I wish I hadn't opened this thread. Now I'm thinking about it and it really doesn't seem to be much to look forward to.

And when I was in my early 40s I wasn't thinking about menopause, I was busy having babies.

well i think i have to assume that i've done most of this already and have too much other stuff going on that i have just accepte it as normal...possibly

i think i just put up with things

i don't think you suddenly change over night do you

and how do you know when your mums had this mine certainly never mentioned it

and if i ever mention the word periods to my kids then they go qall tmi

ooh mine never mentioned stuff like this. I only know because the doctor asked me to find out so I phoned my mum's old doctor (abroad) and asked him!

lol, sobernow. My mind just goes completely blank, and I have to work my way round it 'you know that thing that's outside the back of the house....the garden, that's it' .

Not been on MN regularly for ages as most of thethreads no longer seemed very relevant to me but...oh shit...this one is hitting home big time. I've been too scared to look at list of symptoms but am bracing myself to do it now.

i do that as well but i think i always have done or ive been doing it so long that i think i always have done

i said at the weekend ergodynamic

and thought uhuh that doesnt actually sound like a real word so had to say er is that a word

it isnt

also couldnt remember david camerons name so had to say the leader of the conservative party whoever he is ive forgotten and as i was trying to impress a guy i failed somewhat..i did this all weekend actually, hopefully it was cndearing and charming rather than extremely irritating lol

I like ergodynamic - cross between ergonomic and aerodynamic, presumably. Definitely ought to be a word.

yep he thought it ought to be a word too

actually this is interesting i was nervous about my body failing to be up to the mark but actually it was probably my brain that failed miserably

there is more to this sex with young men business than i anticipated

is it to do with fatty acids or whatever they are in your brain getting depleted like after you goive birth

how young?

Sobernow and I are both married to younger men too. lol at these recent posts and HELLO SIS! How are YOU? Long time no see! Wb

too late,

I've been and gone and done it
without practically knowing about it
it was a breeze, which sounds like what you could do with to cool you down

Oh hurrah Nadine, you can be our mentor and voice of reason.

I can't tell you all how reassuring all this stuff with losing words is- I have been seriously convincing myself that I am going to get dementia even younger than my father and this is it starting.

Sis, lovely to see you back even if you would rather not be on this thread

my exdp was 11 years younger but we were together 8 years

i seem to have dropped down to 19 years younger at the mo...not intentionally lol

iota, I now realise you are an old bird but if it's any consolation I always took you for a young(ish), alert, sharp sort of person.

lol at old bird

if u called me that and id give u a smack

Reckon there's every danger of mine going through his mid life crisis as I come out of the menopause (he hits 40, I hit 50, scary). But we're 9 yrs off that yet. Oh lovely, just realised, dd will be 13, oh joy.

that's what happened with me and exdp he felt his 40 birthday approaching and sacked me after my 50th

so perceived wisdom is that i must have doen this menopause bsuiness thsn