Newbie here, both to the forum and to peri/meno/HRT. My last period was at the beginning of July this year and symptoms have hit me like a ton of bricks, mainly panic attacks, anxiety, crying, insomnia, nausea, aches and pains, muscle twitches and stomach issues. I'm prone to anxiety/panic anyway with agoraphobia and have an OCD-based eating disorder which is making this extra challenging.
Doc prescribed me FemSeven sequi, with a warning that it might be hard to find - ha! To be honest, she didn't seem that clued up as to the availability issues, just said some patients had reported problems. Anyway, after ringing round locally, I managed to get it from a local pharmacy, only to end up with a horrible allergic reaction to the adhesive just over a week into it (which has added to the stress). Urgent Care doc prescribed antibiotics which I took for 1 day and they wrecked my stomach; luckily my GP said it was an allergic reaction, not an infection and told me to stop taking them. I'd got some probiotics (Bio Kult) which I started taking 2 days ago, but I think I should have started more slowly, as I had bad diarrhoea and cramps this morning (sorry TMI!) and have felt really anxious, depressed and upset all day. I'm going to stop taking them for now and let everything settle down - I might try a really low dose and build up slowly, because I do think they might be helpful, since I obviously had a strong reaction to them. Not sure yet whether I'm going to do this or not, it's on hold.
HRT-wise, I've just been prescribed oestrogel and utrogestan (oral) - started the gel yesterday and have already slept better with no morning nausea - this had got better on the patches but worse after I had to stop them at the weekend, so it seems like the estrogen is at least helping on that front. Picking up the utro today, doc said I could start straight away because I'd already done most of phase 1 of the Fem7 but I think I might leave it a day or two and see if my stomach settles down first.
My main issue right now is discomfort. I'm half-lying on the settee and everything seems to hurt, not hugely painful but low-level discomfort/achiness. I'm drinking camomile and ginger tea, fennel tea and water and trying to take it easy, just wish I felt a bit better. Might try a heat pad in a bit for my back/abdomen, as they're the most uncomfortable bits of me. I tried a couple of paracetamol this am but they didn't really do anything.
Quite nervous about starting the utro as I'm barely coping as is and don't want to add any more side effects into the mix, particularly of the stomach variety
Anyway, that's enough rambling for now, just wanted to get stuff off my chest - poor DH is getting the brunt of the venting, so at least this gives him a break