Menopause Discussion > All things menopause
EnglishRose Roseenglish 😄
EnglishRose:
I'd like to introduce myself, not this anxious clingy high maintenance mess I'm presenting as on this forum, the real me I've been for 49 years. Then I'll touch on the ghost I've become and why I'm struggling to “snap out of itâ€
I'm 50 soon. Up until two month ago, I was a very confident, sarcastic, funny, excellent conversationlist and good listener to boot. People tended to soon latch onto the fact I truly listening not just pretending to, and that means conversations tend to be one sided, me listening them talking and that's fine.
I love animals especially dogs and I have two. I'm a graphic designer and vintage jewellery dealer and relatively successful, living with my hubby of ten years in a beautiful house.
My hubby has RA and works very hard in a high stress job which takes all he's got. He spends most of the weekend sleeping or rewinding by playing pc games or watching F1.
I leave him alone all day because I respect he needs his down time and under normal circumstances I'd be working upstairs in my office anyway. My job is also my hobby so it never feels like work.
He's not a talker even at the best of times and I try not to pour myself onto him. I don't want to add more stress than he's already exhausted with.
We don't drink and are anti social really. Remove the desire to get pissed and that accounts for a large percentage of motivation to go out watching other people getting drunk.
I have no children and I never see my immediate family for various reasons. Before recently it didn't bother me. More recently I'm desperately lonely. I cry with loneliness at my lowest times. But I chose to live like this prior to my recent breakdown, for want of a better word.
Until the age of 40, I'd never had PMS. So when I experienced anxiety depression and insomnia for the first time I had no idea what was happening.
After a while I went to the doctors and suggested my periods had become heavy and breasts big. He told me I was too young for menopause and put me on beta blockers and ADs. (First time in my life by the way)
After two years of ADs (I threw the beta blockers) I noticed my symptoms still happened and yet other weeks I was happy and laid back. I looked at the calendar and the penny dropped when I noticed they occurred 2 weeks before my period.
I learned all about peri and ticked off most of the common symptoms without anxiety “because “ they were listed as common meno symptoms. If others had them I had nothing to worry about.
I've been to my GP 5 times since I turned 40. No lies. I self diagnose with common symptoms which usually pass with time and get on with life.
Fast forward a decade. Everything was fine. But one day I experienced symptoms that are not on the “common symptom listâ€
I'm the kind that needs to understand what I'm dealing with and then I learn all about it and make peace with the condition. I'm a researcher, period. The pc has all the answers to most of life's questions if you know how to navigate and read between the lines... it doesn't matter whether it's health or DIY. Google has the answer.
I had malignant melanoma in my early 30s. I researched all I could and was confident I had very little to worry about based on the images online. I was correct, superficial malignant melanoma. No anxiety (well, not much) or depression at all.
But what I'm living with for two months cant be explained. It's easy to say
“Hormones “ but until the physical symptoms occurred I was happy. No anxiety no depression despite my deficient oestrogen blood test.
I'm trying to understand what's happening to me physically, if I knew what was wrong, if I was diagnosed, I could THEN learn all I needed to about what ever it is and face my fears or start looking for treatment.
But I can't. I've tried.
I've had two telephone consultations, seen two gynaecologist, a women's Physio Therapist, my own doctor twice and a hormone doctor
I've started Vagifem and HRT but my symptoms still plague me albeit they are changing waxing waning....
The closest thing to a diagnosis is “you tick a lot of the boxes for intestinal cystitis†(which I don't agree with at all)
So my anxiety and depression is as a result of having horrible symptoms that I dont know understand, or if they will go or get worse because I don't know what they are and it's the “not knowing†that fuels the anxiety that feeds the depression that has swallowed who I used to be.
Telling someone with true depression hormonal or otherwise to “get out of bed†is almost like saying “snap out of it†it makes perfect sense but I feel physically and mentally ill.
I hate my life I hate who I've become I could live with the symptoms if I knew what they were and could at least look at treatment.
I'm terrified. And I'm lonely. It's pathetic I have to admit that but I am. I'm not looking for sympathy, it can't help me. I'm just trying to find connections, or pieces to my jigsaw
I've spent hours researching the archive posts here rather than ask new or repeat questions. But my symptoms are none too common so it becomes a vicious circle.
Sorry if my acute anxiety is annoying. I don't mean to be. I'm just desperate for answers . On better days I do try to put back into the forum by answering other women's posts,
Thanks for reading x.
NorthArm:
Your acute anxiety is not annoying...it's horrible for you. You're feeling lost, vulnerable and very afraid. And yes, it's those f**king hormones which are to blame. It's awful, it's brutal, it's terrifying. And it's not f**king fair!!
It will pass - but when?? And I think that's what we struggle with, I know I do...I really hate the uncertainty of it all, how about you? I literally went overnight from ‘normal' to ‘suicidal'.....I live with PTSD - it was just like that, but on steroids....
It seems from your description of your pms symptoms that you may have been suffering with PMDD - I used to call it pre period paranoia until I realised it had a name. Not much known about / no treatments really here in Australia - and we're already twenty years behind the eightball....
At least in the old period days I could recognise it, and knew that when my period started it would relieve for a couple of weeks...❤️
Thinking of you xx
EnglishRose:
--- Quote from: Birdy on December 01, 2018, 12:18:53 AM ---Hello!
So do you have symptoms of IC? Why don't you join the vaginal atrophy group on Facebook and speak to the members on there with similar symptoms? There is a consultant who deals with this issue and treats women for embedded bladder infections missed by tests.
You're exactly the same age as me by the way and I also live with my chap in the middle of nowhere with no kids and recently have felt truly lost.
We rarely drink either.
Anyway! You're not pathetic. You're wondering what's happened to you no doubt and why you feel things you didn't used to, and why you seem to be suddenly turning into a person you don't recognise. It's ok, I get it too.
You're not alone I promise.
--- End quote ---
Well, I pee a lot but have for as long as I can remember. Even as a child mum would complain on trips because they had to pull over for me to pee in a grate lol mum would hold and dangle me over the grate as I peed.
I was 14 at the time so no easy task! .......... ( joke, I was about 4)
Anyway, I've worked from home for 20 years so nipping to the bathroom when I got the slightest urge was easy.
I had a gynaecologist give me a pelvic exam this week, he prodded inside and I jumped a bit when he hit the front wall of my V where my bladder is he explained.
But I've never had a UTI in my life..even cystitis in my 20s was fixed by a tall glass of water.
My pee doesn't burn. I don't burn...I have mild pain in and around my vag since I started vagifem.
Shivery hypersensitive skin to upper back buttocks and legs.
I have developed an on off ache to my lower back and sciatica and restless legs but they appeared after lying in bed for weeks.
That's it.
No pressure no tummy pain no leaks....
He's booked me in for a pelvic mri mostly for me to put my mind at rest about tarvlo cycsts on my spine which will put to bed my anxiety of pudenal neurologica... *rolls eyes*
IC is apparently a blanket diagnosis they give when they don't know what else to diagnose you with. He said he put a camera up my bladder if I wanted...
Heard that alone can CAUSE IC 😳
I had no idea how f*&+ing healthy and happy I was before the 💩 hit the fan.
EnglishRose:
--- Quote from: NorthArm on December 01, 2018, 12:11:17 AM ---Your acute anxiety is not annoying...it's horrible for you. You're feeling lost, vulnerable and very afraid. And yes, it's those f**king hormones which are to blame. It's awful, it's brutal, it's terrifying. And it's not f**king fair!!
It will pass - but when?? And I think that's what we struggle with, I know I do...I really hate the uncertainty of it all, how about you? I literally went overnight from ‘normal' to ‘suicidal'.....I live with PTSD - it was just like that, but on steroids....
It seems from your description of your pms symptoms that you may have been suffering with PMDD - I used to call it pre period paranoia until I realised it had a name. Not much known about / no treatments really here in Australia - and we're already twenty years behind the eightball....
At least in the old period days I could recognise it, and knew that when my period started it would relieve for a couple of weeks...❤️
Thinking of you xx
--- End quote ---
Yes it's the “what if this never ends or gets worse?!â€
The uncertainty. The whys and what ifs.
The lack of hope is terrifying.
I have to remind myself that only 4 days ago I was fine. Before that it's been a lot of ups and downs.
I thought I was getting better or at lesst learning to live with the physical symptoms as they had a predicable pattern. Almost nothing day or late at night but last 3 days they've started day and night.
Aching sacrum, sciatica, horrible restless legs,, hyper sensitive skin to upper back buttocks and legs. And a little bit to my vagina but nothing like it was or how this all started.
My v has pain is only mild. Started as stabbing inside nothing bad, pain to labia and around vulva..bit of prickling once, touch of sunburn sensation to my skin area...that's all more or less gone...but the aching back and shivers up my spine and restless legs has ramped up...I'm lead in bed writhing about, thrashing
I keep,getting slight spotting and I think my period is due ....
Charys:
Hello ERose,
I recognise much of what you have posted here, in terms of patterns. Its the early hours now, so I will be brief, I am up and about as the damned meno insomnia is hitting hard tonight. The feelings you are having, and describe in detail here, are something I have had three times in my life. I dont visit the doctor either, I 'get on with things' as much as I can, and do similarly to you - use some personal research to try and 'sort things'. I tell you all this not to make it 'all about me' but to perhaps show you a little light and some possibilities to think about -
The first time was after giving birth, I experienced an extreme depression/anxiety and post-natal psychosis (not saying you have this last part). It hit so quickly and so hard that I never left came home after the birth and was 6 months in a psychiatric hospital and 12 months recovering totally (oddly enough that was how long it took periods to return!). It passed, as my hormones changed back, and I was advised not to get pregnant again and if I did I would need some hormone treatments. I won't go into the details of that period in my life, as don't want to trigger you, but they were serious and complicated. Following that.....entirely fine for 18 years....back to the happy, 'silver lining' positive person. Busy, working, extrovert in social situations but very confident on my own for much of the time. I 'found myself again'. I have remained on the AD they put me on at that time, but reduced to practically nothing and apparently non therapeutic now.
The second time was 2 1/2 years ago. I was diagnosed with breast cancer and was treated. I got through all the torment of a bc diagnosis fairly easily, of course pain and worry, but it was the final part of treatment that hit me into the place you describe now. I was prescribed tamoxifen hormone therapy, I expressed my concerns but was advised to 'try it', so I of course did. Within 6 weeks I was removed from it by the consultant, in the deepest suicidal despair imaginable, and told that if I was ever to try it again it would be with 'mental health services' involved daily! It took around 6 months again to recover from this hormonal mess, tough, tough months.....but I 'found myself again'.
The third time - this last year - in what I hope and believe is late peri-menopause. I feel those same feelings I had from my first two 'episodes', what is a little different this time is that they undulate and I can spend 2 or three weeks in utter devastating depression, fear and anxiety, or even a day or so, then it can change again. I can't and won't describe how bad I feel at my worst, but the way you describe things echoes the types of days I have and the thoughts in my head. I feel at those times that life isn't worth carrying on with, that I honestly can't get through another morning as the quality of my living is so low, thinking 'what if this time it doesn't change back or gets worse?' 'What if this is it?'. Then.....it can change quickly too. During the bad times I go from minute to minute just holding onto the fact that this CAN change. I have odd physical symptoms too, I know when oestrogen is low with muscles twitching, and there are others....but don't want to list.
So, my long story above.....that wasn't actually that brief LOL. I think you may be suffering with the type of response that I had/have to sudden hormone changes. Some people are just very sensitive to those sudden changes, its not usual to be THAT sensitive but it is known about and there are others who have the same. NorthArm mentioned PMDD, and I think that is something I can see as being an absolute possibility. I too have had a week rather similar to yours in respect to my mental health, and I too have been spotting!!!!
I'm not sure if this will all help at all, but I don't think you need to look much further than sudden hormone changes for why you are feeling this way.
--- Quote ---Yes it's the “what if this never ends or gets worse?!â€
The uncertainty. The whys and what ifs.
The lack of hope is terrifying.
I have to remind myself that only 4 days ago I was fine. Before that it's been a lot of ups and downs.
--- End quote ---
I could have written this myself ! I have wailed hysterically for hours about 'what if it stays at the bottom and never rises again' (my mood) and then 2 days later I am like a different person...... I've been told that it does even out, and you do adjust. It is the sudden erratic CHANGES at this time in life which make it hard, and I can believe that. Once there are no sudden changes, we can be in calm waters.
Please, and I mean this, PM me if you want us to 'drag each other' through this stage. :o)
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