Is suddenly disliking my husband enough reason for HRT?

[catonthebeds]

A somewhat light hearted way to ask what made you decide to go speak to GP about HRT?

I'm 44, for the last few years have had various mild symptoms like increased anxiety, irritability, different pattern of insomnia to the one I've had most of my life, reduced ability to cope with stress or noise. Periods changing a bit, getting heavier, cycles getting a bit shorter, but not yet at the stage where I'd say they are 7 days different to my previous cycle which i had read is the point where you are definitely in peri menopause. In the last year I've had weight gain even though I've not changed my eating or exercise patterns, reduced sex drive and now for the last few months I just find I am always annoyed with or even slightly dislike my perfectly lovely husband, who has not changed in any particular way, and to whom I have been happily married for 17 years.

Appreciate it could just be that we have hit a tough patch after all these years, and we're now parenting teens plus ageing parents etc. but this change in my feelings to him is probably the biggest shift I can point to which has made me feel like I'm not myself. would it be unreasonable to go speak to GP at this stage to ask about HRt

Not unreasonable at all, you have a lot of symptoms. I’ve never heard the ‘7 days difference’ rule and don’t fully understand what it means, but I’ve been on HRT since I was 45. The symptoms that prompted me to go to the Dr were:

-extreme anxiety and sense of impending doom
-stiff/achy hands
-rage

That was it, just three symptoms but they were having enough of an impact on my life that I felt something needed to change.

(And the HRT has helped a lot but is not a complete cure. Just now my 18 year-old DS who really is a lovely young man was just making a hot chocolate in the kitchen where I’m sitting, and the amount of time he spent stirring it drove me so potty I had to leave the room for fear I was about to shout obscenities at him).

Been on it since 42 after years of increasingly worse mental health that ended up with constant suicidal thoughts. One week of HRT and the panic attacks stopped. 3 months in i came off the anti depressants.
Don't fuck about. Take the HRT. If they don't help, you come off them again, no bother.

This is very familiar, I try not to be in the room.while.my eldest eats his cereal because the noise drives mad though it is not especially slurpy

Funny I have recently started being driven mad by noises. I was in Sainsbury's and there was a beep constantly going off as I stood at the till it's apparently an alert that just eat or someone is waiting it drove me mad to the point I can no longer go in.
and then other noises are driving me insane. The rage is a nightmare worse than any PMT.
pouring with blood constantly given different things off GP to stop bleeding nothing working I'm 54 and apparently 55 is the magic age before they will do something whatever that is it will be a waiting list.
breast cancer history so won't give me hrt.
No fucking help whatsoever to be honest. So if you can get on her cos this is the worst part of my life and it hasn't been the best in the first place.💐

So sorry @Luddite26 , that sounds really tough. 💐

Thankyou for kindness @Waitingfordoggo .
much appreciated.
I didn't mean to hijack light-hearted thread.
just been to the docs this morning - they may do something when I'm 55! it's two months off. and what get me on a waiting list for nothing !

All these bloody years hormones dominate and drain you

That does sound really frustrating and disheartening @Luddite26 - the bleeding must be so hard to cope with and surely impacts your health too. Really hope that you do get seen by someone helpful and make some progress soon after he refers you on. Or could you face speaking to a different GP at the practice for a second opinion?

Why would you not talk to the GP?

I hear you @Luddite26 . I have felt at the mercy of my hormones too many times in life- I hate the feeling of loss of control.

I’m glad a referral is on the horizon and I really hope you don’t have to wait too long 🙏

Pretty much sums up why I went on HRT. Pretty much only symptom was a huge irritation with my husband. HRT has reduced this down to a manageable level and I hope to remain married.

It are husbands just really annoying? Are we just realising it?

Because until recently it hadn't got to a point where I felt my symptoms needed a GP - I adjusted diet or lifestyle stuff to manage the anxiety and insomnia for example. Now I feel I probably do need to explore hrt, but for whatever reason I feel somehow like i.shlildnt, or shouldn't yet. Probably all kinds of social and personal reasons why I feel like I should be really really ill or impacted before I go to a dr

There is also this possibility. But then I find almost all men annoying at the moment, maybe I forgave my husband more when I also wanted to have plenty of sex with him and now although I do enjoy it when we start and want to do it for the connection, I could take or leave it a lot of the time

Yes, it’s a realisation I think. I have seen quite a few women describe menopause as a time when the scales fell from their eyes!