Hi Lisa
You won't know me as I'm not around here much nowadays, but I totally recognise everything you describe. If you can be bothered have a search of my posts and you will read a very familiar story. Mine was a tortuous journey of worsening PMS as I turned 40 + my periods becoming very light + dreadful insomnia + crippling anxiety + suicidal ideation. No one knew what to do with me. Everyone assumed I was just having a nervous breakdown, although otherwise my life was very good. I went to pieces and had to be signed off work for 6 months, and my Mum basically moved in to run our home and take care of our DCs as I couldn't function. I was terrified all day, every day.
I also ended up under the care of a psychiatric nurse and started on a cocktail of various ADs + a low dose of Quietistic. Nothing worked, I just got worse. But very occasionally I would get a blessed few days where I would mysteriously feel 'normal' again. No one else believed it was hormonal, but I remembered feeling similarly desperate and despairing after my first DC was born years ago.
So I ended up at Prof Studd's rooms and he was quite abrupt but 100% confident and reassuring that he could cure me. He told me I belonged to a group of women who were too sensitive to progesterone fluctuations, and that the peri menopause was to blame for all my misery. He assured me he saw women just like me (and worse) every day. He started me on 3 pumps of Oestrogel + 100mg of Utrogestan for 7 days per month + little blob of testosterone gel. To be honest, it didn't do much. So 2 very long months later he increased my dose to 4 pumps - whilst, at the same time, my new GP changed my AD to a low dose of sertraline.
That was exactly 2 years ago today, and I have never looked back. Within 24 hours I felt something flicker back to life in my head. Within a week I felt able for my Mum to move back to her home again and could function better (albeit still quite limited). The anxiety just drained away. The insomnia just disappeared. I went back to work and just became 'me' again. There were a few setbacks, and some days I still struggled hugely and, like you, lived in fear of going back to that terrible black place I had been in before.
But, 2 years on I am back to normal and infact even better than before. Looking back, even before my full peri symptoms hit I had felt low and flat for years. Early menopause runs in my family, and from 35 onwards my lowering oestrogen had obviously affected me.
Today, I seem to have settled into a pattern of feeling great for 6-7 weeks, then every other month I get a dip of feeling flat and bleak for a week or so (but just like normal PMS again). So, I think my medication is controlling my cycle 95% of the time but presumably my own progesterone still causes problems sometimes?
I hope my story gives you hope. I am now evangelical about informing women of the potential dangers that hormones can cause to mental health. I am sure that with the right medication you will get over this.
Author
Topic: Cyclical depression and anxiety,John studd theory? (Read 11009 times)