Hi CrispyChick -
Sorry to hear you've had such an awful time. I read some of your story in Mary G's thread recently and was hoping things had improved for you.
i'm not absolutely clear from your post whether you've stopped everything already or if it's 'just' the acceptance you were asking about.
On acceptance - the challenge is obviously exacerbated because one of the symptoms for me at least - and I think for many of us who have extra fluctuations or extra reactions to 'normal' fluctuations - is impaired cognition. I HATE the term 'brain fog' because the black mud under which I was trying to operate was much less transient and dispersible / silvery grey than fog. So I'd say as others have give yourself a break - I found it so hard when I can't make myself do things I knew I 'should', be that get up, get out or move, see the positives or eat properly ... and that makes it worse if you then start 'shoulding' all over yourself...
I'm guessing from the other replies that this isn't what you're asking, but just in case it's any help (I've had fluctuations like sub 200 to almost 2000 within 48 hours):
- if you haven't yet but are going to stop hrt totally, do it gradually - otherwise it's just another crazy fluctuation
- Have you seen an actual proper meno specialist ie a consultant who specialises in meno/HRT? If you can do one last throw of a private appt, while you wait to crawl up NHS lists - your GP should refer you to a meno clinic if you have had this history, and you can always insist on seeing consultant when you arrive.
There just may be an option out there (what Hurdity mentions is one, although there are other rare things to try first. I've had years of hell too, and I too wasted some of those paying £££ to people who call themselves specialists & charge consultant prices but are simply GPs who know more than most GPs (not a particularly high bar!) - they increased my e2 which exacerbated my fluctuations ... it wasn't until I was lucky enough to end up with a proper specialist that anybody recognised my own crazy fluctuations were not 'just peri' as had been said but a very unusual uptake issue, exacerbated by stupid high doses pushing me into tachyphylaxis on the peaks.
Good luck and keep us posted ... if you can work out acceptance I'm sure we'd all love to hear how
xx
An extreme one is to trial the chemical menopause which has been discussed on here in the past - at least it's reversible. I think there is an injection?
Chem meno is available in injections and nasal sprays (at the moment, latter wasn't available for a bit but recently back on)