Hello everybody!
I first visited this site when it was a mere infant and have been only a rare visitor since - so I thought I would say hello and encourage all visitors to read and keep on reading....Not just me (though it would be nice if you did read what I have to say...) but everyone here. You will find wonders therein.
Before finding MM, I had honestly begun to wonder if I had some insidious disease. I was always tired - though some days more exhausted than others - slept very poorly, could hardly get out of bed in the morning for the debilitating joint aches and pains, had poor skin, lacklustre hair (which was also falling out) AND....most distressing of all, I thought the disease was in my brain.
Having considered myself an intelligent, articulate woman, I found myself progressing from mild spelling, memory and coherency issues into deep, mental trauma. This last because I found that, whenever I opened my mouth, I had almost no control over which word would come out! That's when I could actually think straight enough to formulate a sentence in my head in the first place. I thought I was heading for early dementia or had some problem with my central nervous system. And in addition to all this I began to have panic attacks because I would go into a shop and emerge to find I did not recognise my surroundings at all. (This is like the moment when you forget where you parked your car but imagine if you suddenly find you don't even recognise the shop from which you had just walked out!)
But then a friend, who had visited the menopause clinic in Aberdeen and come back with various, very helpful, recommendations, pointed me in the direction of this website. Not directly, but her words led me to google information and Menopause Matters popped up high on the list. For which I am truly truly grateful.
For within the website, then just a few months old, I found woman after woman who was experiencing the same symptoms as me - plus others that I would never have guessed could be associated with hormonal changes.
And not only was I not alone in my suffering but I was not alone in my inability to connect these symptoms with my hormones. By the time I was sent to a neurologist by my GP (who had obviously been thinking along the same lines as me previously), I was pretty sure that HRT might be my salvation. The neurologist could not condone my perceptions about HRT (not his speciality he said) but he certainly could not recognise my many and varied symptoms as pointers to any neurological disease in his experience! Phew!
At which point I reverted to my GP pleading for HRT; he obliged with a six month trial and within two weeks of starting on the pills, I was much more like my old self. Most dramatically, I recovered my language and syntax and could start to sound articulate again and my lapses of memory vanished almost entirely. No more panic attacks.
I perhaps ought to say that I had been on HRT formerly from the age of 43 to 52 (having had a hysterectomy at the earlier age)...but after nearly a decade, my new GP had persuaded me to come off the HRT. In the four years without it I declined rapidly into the withering, blabbering, hobbling and panicky woman I describe at the start of this post.
HRT may not be the right move for everyone but without the recognition that it WAS indeed my hornones - or lack thereof - that was provoking all those disparate problems - who would have believed it? - I would not have had the confidence to ask to go back onto the HRT. I tried patches for a while but they proved that I reacted allergically to the adhesive, so I am back on the pills. And yes I Have varicose veins, a family history of stroke, heart and circulatory problems - but, hey, what price longevity if it is spent as an anxiety ridden husk of a woman. At least now I can enjoy life again!
Having been back on the HRT now for another four years, I did try earlier this year to reduce my dosage but found that some of the bad symptoms were still present. So I am pretty much resigned to staying on HRT unless someone comes up with something therapeutically as effective.
So thanks to Dr Currie and her colleagues - three cheers!
Gloria
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Topic: HOW MENOPAUSE MATTERS CHANGED MY LIFE (Read 28041 times)