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[Kathleen]

Hello Ladies.

I'm worried about some stomach issues which I think are menopause related and I wonder if any of you have had similar experiences?

My HRT regime is far from perfect and I still have problems with flushes, anxiety and  sweating however the last few days my flushes have stopped and I have felt much calmer, I have also had an enormous appetite.  I hoped this nightmare journey was coming to an end but today I am back to square one with nausea, jitters and anxiety.

 My questionis is  ladies has this sort of thing happened to you and do you think it is really a hormonal swing or a digestive issue? I hoped to get a GP appointment but that could be a month away and I'm worried that I may have a serious stomach problem. To go from calm and really hungry to jittery and  nauseous overnight seems so extreme!  I know hormonal changes can be dramatic but as we often say here on the forum, it can be a mistake to blame everything on the meno.

Thank you everyone for reading this and I truly value your comments and opinions.

Take care all.

K.

[CLKD]

How is your diet over-all?  Do you feel jittery at any particular time, i.e. first thing; late at night; after exercise?

I get nausea when my body is hungry.  As a recovering anorexic it took years [until 2015] B4 I recognised that what I felt was hunger.  If my body gets hungry then I shake.  This then settles into anxiety so I have to take my emergency pill.  Which works within 20-45 mins..

I have to start the day with a breakfast however ill I have felt the previous day or in the night.  Otherwise by mid-morning I would be on my knees  .  I have safe foods to hand: bananas, Dextrose tablets, recommended by the Rambersl Association as a quick pick-me-up; dried fruits and nuts, crackers, chocolate biscuits ......... and I have to remember to munch B4 my body requires sustenance.  Not easy!  I find that soups make me feel bloated and sick  .  I find that I have to fancy food in order to face eating it  .  When I am well I stick to a 'usual' diet for me and sometimes I even have chips or cheese cake .........

I doubt whether you have anything serious.  Would you find keeping a food diary of use?  Jot down everything you eat and drink and the times you  have food, you will see if there are any gaps.  Hormonal upheaval can use up energy B4 we realise and certainly when I had regular periods I would feel sick prior to a bleed 

[CLKD]

Also pancake mix in the fridge to be made immediately you feel hungry!  Keeps a couple/3 days with a cover over it.  Quick fix 

[racjen]

Absolutely you can have dramatic hormonally induced changes that quickly - definitely from one day to the next, or even within the same day. I have acute anxiety first thing in the morning which is definitely hormonal, and I really struggle to eat anything much before mid-afternoon. But usually around lunchtime the anxiety fades, and by evening I can eat a normal meal. When I'm on progesterone I really really notice an increase in my appetite however I'm feeling emotionally, and particularly a craving for sweet stodgy foods which I wouldn't normally eat. Hormones are incredibly powerful messengers in our bodies and generally they act very fast.

[jules55]

Hi Kathleen. I have also had stomach issues , having days with running to the loo, feeling lightheaded, and have general anxiety , and feel jittery most days, going from hot to cold.
, but then have a week of feeling normal, where i can eat or drink anything, and it doesn't affect me. It's totally weird, I've been to the docs who keeps insisting its all anxiety related. I had blood tests which all came back normal, so I just stick to my propranolol, (anxiety meds) I've never had hrt, and have been 3 yrs without a period.  Like you I do wonder if it's hormone related. Sorry I can't be anymore helpful than that, but there seems to be a pattern especially in my case. xx

[AgathaC]

My perimenopause started with digestive issues (GERD, burping, pain, wind, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea - you name it). I still have these issues periodically. Today is a bad stomach day and it definitely is also a bad hormones day (sore breasts, weepy, anxious) and I definitely see the two going hand in hand. I have a big appetite and have had and still have weight gain. I definitely see hormones affecting my digestion.

[Kathleen]

Hello ladies.

Thank you all so much for your posts.  It helps so much to know other women feel, the same way even though I wouldn't want to wish this on anyone. I will try and see a doctor asap about my digestive issues but your comments have made me think it is all menopause related so I am not so worried now!  Just need to get my hormones sorted out. How hard can that be lol.

Wishing you all well and sending hugs to you all.

K.

[CLKD]

Maybe keep a food diary so that you can chat to the GP about your gut issues. 

[Droopeydrawers]

Hi ladies sadly i have come to the conclusion that oestrogen is the root cause of my digestive issues and I've just decided its time to stop it.I feel like I've had every side effect under the sun this last year and I've gone from pill to patches to oestrogel back to patches and it's gotten steadily worse.ive stopped gluten I've stopped lactose and still the attacks were regular as clockwork.I then noticed I put a new estrodot 100 patch on and that same night woke up with horrendous pain from my centre tum round my ribcage on right going right up my back to my shoulders burning pain terrible trots and this would continue anything up to 72 hours gradually reducing then stopping as quick as it started.in my opinion just about coinciding with the patch levels dropping.my weight loss has been substantial simply because the nausea during the attack meant I was reluctant to eat even though I was hungry and every single morning during an attack I woke up with a pounding headache.which again also disappeared with all the other pain and things would be normal for a little while.i was on 2 patches a week and it got steadily more severe so after the last one I tore the patch off this is day 5 with no oestrogen and I'm already feeling a distinct lack of pain in my ribs and back and that big knot in my tum has gone along with the bloating.The problem with this is as long as no one is reporting these side effects the numbers of reported cases will continue to stay low so really we do ourselves no favours by not listening to our gut and recognising that yes these could very well be symptoms of problems or reactions to the prescribed hrt so all id like to say is don't doubt yourself and challenge these possible side effects and test out your theories.ive had every non invasive scan and test under the sun and all organs are healthy and I have come to the assumption that I'm suffering gastric migraines as a result of the hrt I'm using.i will continue to keep off it for a further two weeks and if I'm symptomless after this period I will report it under the yellow card system.I hope in the meantime this is of some help to anyone struggling with digestive issues while on hrt.its not something I previously suffered from or want to continue suffering from give me back the hot flushes anytime rather than this.x DD

[Kathleen]

Hello  Droopydrawers and welcome to the forum.

Thank you for your very interesting post. Odd that you should suggest lowering the oestrogen because I just reduced from 2 and a half pumps to two because I thought the slightly higher dose was causing my tender breasts. Sure enough that resolved and  I felt generally better but now the jitters are back!  When I was young I always had a nervous tummy and diarrhoea on the second day of my period so sex hormones and digestive issues have always been linked for me. I hadn't considered gastric migraines but I certainly had headaches at the beginning of my meno journey, they were daily but finally stopped after six months.

It would help so much if we knew which hormones were responsible for which problems and could then tailor make our treatment. Perhaps we could even select which symptoms we could better tolerate and just have those. Oh well, hope springs eternal!

I hope your new regime is successful and please keep us updated on your progress.

Wishing you well.

K.

[Droopeydrawers]

Hi Kathleen apparently you dont need to have headaches to suffer from gastric migraines and headaches are rare but can happen.
I did exactly the same with the gel in cutting down the dosage as I had terrible breast pain then I had burning mouth then I had cuts and sores on my tongue and mouth ulcers.it eased but didnt completely stop.since cutting out lactose that's really helped with the mouth issues.its not dairy free it's simply lactose free there's no need to eliminate dairy completely it's usually lactose that causes most of the gastric dietary issues anyway.ive now been off hrt/oestrogen for quite a few days and my gut pain has reduced a good 80% my tongue is strarting to heal again too.Ive had numerous blood tests done and my levels are all fine apart from white cells a bit high but that could be because I'm fighting inflammation in gut and tongue so I'll get retested when I'm ready.
It's one challenge after another isn't it.if your jitters and anxiety are bad my pelvic floor physio recommended a great book to me it's called mindfulness a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world it's by drs.mark Williams and Danny Penman its a superb read.williams is a professor of clinical psychology at Oxford university.its a very down to earth approach I think a lot of the ladies on here who suffer from HA woukd benefit from it.
Keep well Kathleen jeep an open mind  and don't give into this it will get better. Xx

[Rosie63]

Hi ladies.  I too have recently stopped taking my hrt as the side effects were really getting me down. I was convinced it was the oestrogen that was causing the problems and have also tried various pills, patches ane gel.   I was suffering with Stomach issues, nausea, palpitations, aches and pains, sore mouth....the list goes on.  It's only been 6 days but I'm feeling so much better.  All side effects have more or less gone and I've got my appetite back which I'm pleased about as I'm not very big anyway and I was slowly losing more weight which I was finding worrying.  I have tried stopping before so I'm still nervous of symptoms returning, especially as I'm doing it cold turkey.  I find myself carrying on life as normally as I can but very tentatively too. 

Just to mention that when I had the camera up and down a few years ago, the doctor told me I had nothing physically wrong and the digestive problems I have are like to be caused by my mental state of mind i.e. stress, upset, nerves etc.  He suggested I try a low dose anti-depressant but I declined at the time.  This could make sense with the stomach migraine theory as I understand some people take anti depressants for head migraines!

Wishing you all well.

Rosie xx

[Kathleen]

Hello again ladies.

Droopydrawers - thanks for the book suggestion, I'll keep a look out for it.

Rosie63 -  I certainly have stomach issues with nausea and internal shaking. I can't figure out if these  are the result of anxiety or the cause of it but I do know that when the horrible feelings stop I feel absolutely fine. Until the next time of course. I have recently reduced my gel a little and this has resolved my tender breasts so if the nausea is from too much oestrogen perhaps this will ease as well.  I understand that serotonin is found in the gut as well as the brain and that is why ADs are often prescribed for digestive problems.

Take care ladies.

K.

[CLKD]

The gut is the 2nd brain.

Adrenaline for me is like hot water coursing through my veins  scarey!