Thanks to Tiddles and Kathleen for your posts. It's good to realise that I'm not alone in this. And I know what you mean about the difficulty of describing what's going on in your body during one of these waves. I, too, get the (loudly) gurgling gut thing coupled with tightness (primarily on the left side). Interestingly, yesterday was the first day of the one-week break during which I'll take neither estrogen nor progesterone (as prescribed by my doc). While I still felt hoarse and some tightness in my chest, it was the first day in about a week that I wasn't in the grip of this super tension. If my period comes during this break, it would match the pattern from before I started taking hormones: the feeling of release once the period came. Since I started this treatment only about a month ago and this is my first cycle, I'll give it another month. If the tension waves return, I'll see my doctor (she wants to see me anyway after max. 3 months on this treatment).
To Lisaclarke68: I feel like I've been in pre- and perimenopause for decades, with ever-changing symptoms! I know it's easy to say, but try not to be scared. It helped me to accept what was going on, to talk about it with friends (and, yes, even my partner) and to have a good doctor who understood and took me seriously. When you're sobbing in the bathroom or so tense and wound up you think you'll explode, it's of course hard to tell yourself "go with the flow". Breathing consciously and deeply helps a bit, but I've found moving my bum does too. Getting outdoors and into fresh air, even it's just for a brisk 10-minute walk around the block or sitting in a park or doing some exercise help. I've also found that watching a DVD, a documentary or an episode of a series I've recorded helps take my mind off me and what's happening in my body, esp. in the evenings. I've also got a great massage therapist I've been seeing for years who also does cranio-sacral massage. That helps too, at least for a little while.
