Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => Personal Experiences => Topic started by: Chi chi on March 06, 2017, 06:44:37 PM
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So I've been off all HRT since just after the new year, mainly to see what my own cycle was like? I've had 2 periods now both on time. I was expecting to feel very low/more anxious the week before period or whilst on period but I've found I actually feel worse the week after my period? Does anyone else feel like this or could explain why I feel worse at this particular time in my cycle?
Thanks
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No explanation for you, but when I had natural monthly cycles I felt best the few days before my period and toward the end of my period, and then felt worst around mid month.
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Thanks Lizab, I know some ladies say they feel bad when ovulating?
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I think when I actually ovulated I felt very well around ovulation. The mid month feeling bad must have been months I wasn't ovulating but was still having periods.
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May sound a silly question but how did you know you were ovulating?
I've been googling it and apparently it's quite common to feel low etc just after our periods!
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A combination of things actually. After care fully charting temperatures and counting calendar days and such when I was trying to conceive my last, I finally worked out that occasionally I get a day or two where I feel more amorous and very well lubricated, like someone cracked an egg in my britches ;D I think it was only happening a few times a year by the time I worked it out.
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Hi Chi Chi I have the same issue! Pre this period I felt better other than sore boobs but had been low and anxious mid cycle and now my period has started. Really odd!!!
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If you feel worse mid cycle, day 8-16 roughly, it's high oestrogen which is common prior to peri-menopause (hyper fertile phase too!) and if you feel worse 2nd half of cycle it's low oestrogen.
I'd assumed it was more complex than that but my endocrinologist said that's the fool proof way to tell.
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I agree dangermouse. In peri my oestrogen levels have been off the Richter scale sometimes for weeks at a time, sometimes maintained right through anovulatory bleeds. The symptoms of high oestrogen can be similar to PMT. For me that meant, massively swollen painful breasts, severe bloating, migraines (pretty much a constant anyway), copious egg white type stretchy cervical mucus and a general feeling that my body would explode any minute. I have never been affected mentally but many women are and can feel high levels of anxiety.
Feeling low at unexpected times is often a sign that the hormones are roller-coastering. Mine seemed to swing viciously without any of the gentle rises and falls experienced before peri.
As my specialists said too, learn to read your body. Cervical mucus is the best indicator of what is happening. See Machair's thread where this delightful subject is discussed at length. ;)
https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,31902.0.html
Ladies, peri is the gift that keeps on giving!
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:poke2: Total wind-up! xx
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I would totally echo what dangermouse and Elizabeth rose have said. Although I am on 75 estradot and utrogestan long cycle my own hormones are going beserk in the background and I don't seem to have any good days at the moment.
After my post yesterday 'Confused' I have realised that the reason I have felt rubbish the last few days was probably high estrogen as later yesterday the constipation was no more and I also had tiny specks of blood mixed with the egg white mucus.
Today the mucus is much less and stickier, I'm sweaty and very tearful which points to a dip!
Despite all of this my consultant is adamant that on a steady dose of hrt my hormones cannot possibly be fluctuating, that one blood test showing an estradiol level of 280 pmol shows my cycle is suppressed and that it is anti depressants I need. She actually said 'i don't fit the normal pattern '. I wasn't aware that there was a normal pattern!!
It all feels so hopeless at the moment as nothing seems to help with the fluctuations which leave me feeling generally ill.
I can have blocks of several months where I can function almost normally, when my hormones are behaving, but when they aren't I can barely function and have to be on sick leave from work.
Just wishing my life away at the moment 😢
Who would be a woman.
Best wishes to all you amazing ladies xx
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Hello ladies.
I am post meno so you'd think I didn't have a cycle but I do wonder!
EllaM - I feel your pain! As I am 60 I'm experimenting with half a tablet of Tibolone in the vain hope that my body is adjusting to a much reduced level of oestrogen and I now need only a little hormonal help. I've dared to hope that I can come off HRT altogether in the near future and manage perfectly well without as many of friends seem to do. Well, today's experience has put paid to that! I was even more flushy last night and this morning and my anxiety is through the roof this afternoon. Like you I do have times when I feel near normal but then everything changes again. I'm sure these fluctuations used to be on a monthly basis but now they are daily and possibly more extreme. I can actually feel these changes wash over me and I hate it.
Oh well girls, onwards and upwards I suppose. There's nothing else yo do by carry on and hope for te best.
Take care all.
K.
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Don't give up EllaM, you'll get there!
HRT was unable to suppress my cycle, some months resulting in three bleeds, one for the HRT and two my own desperately irregular cycles. Total nightmare! As far as normal is concerned, well I don't think that many of us are normal on here. DUH, we're all different! Stupid comments like that really wind me up.
Poor you Kathleen, it's not easy is it! I've been reading the other ladies trials with Tibolone, it's not something I know anything about. Have you attempted to come off of everything? If so, how was it? I've been forced to go into a natural menopause because of my migraine, but I've yet to see how it'll go long term. Still early days for me! I wish you better x
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Interesting, so if I feel like I want to come out if my skin, that's high estrogen? What's a girl to do about that? It took several months for me to adjust to hrt, then I had a few really good months, then something changed and I was worse than I had ever been, so I quit. So far sans hrt I feel much better, but not where I need to be. I thought I was reacting badly to the progesterone, could it have been estrogen too high?
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Lizab, we're all different, I don't know your history to comment on whether it's the oestrogen or progesterone. So many women have a disastrous time trying to find a progesterone to suit them. All I can advise you do is start keeping a detailed daily record of what is happening to your body. This is always advised by specialists.
I used to have to keep paper records, charting any symptoms i.e., swollen breasts, bloating, cervical mucus, temperature etc. and also had to do a fertility monitor to track changes. It was a complete pain in the neck but it soon painted a very clear picture, easily interpreted. I've always reacted very obviously to hormone change but in peri everything has become exaggerated. The cervical mucus is easy to monitor and very accurate.
I still have to chart, and I do this on my laptop diary each day: it takes two mins and I jot down any changes etc. I have to keep accurate records of migraine meds I take.
Do read Machair's thread discussing this. We have each of us described our reactions to hormone change, we are quite similar on the thread, you might see some parallels. But as I said, this site highlights the very different experiences women have with peri/meno, we are all very different, astoundingly so sometimes.
https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,31902.0.html
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I've never experienced low oestrogen / high progesterone (yet) but the pressure feeling in your body is likely to be the stimulating nature of too high oestrogen. The comment that you're about to explode is spot on for me!
However, I've heard a lot of women here talk about progesterone intolerance which I think is not the same as the level being too high (which makes you feel drowsy as it's a sedative at too high a dose), so it's another set of symptoms but I'm not sure what they are.
The timing of when you feel worse is the clearer test though, as some symptoms can be similar when either hormone is low. Taking replacement hormones tops up what's missing but also, if the other hormone has been unopposed for a long time and down regulated its receptors, it can reawaken them until they're fully opposed and symptoms can flare up quite badly. So it's not straightforward!
Trial and error (for reasonable chunks of time) seems the best way to find something that's suits you, or to ride it out without HRT until you're either getting less fluctuations to try again or feel good enough without any.
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Big thankyou to Kathleen and Elizabethrose for your support. I am finding it very difficult to know what is high and low at the moment but after feeling flushed and sweaty on Friday, I had a big crash on Saturday and felt absolutely dreadful. As you say Kathleen, I could feel it coming over me! It eased in the evening and yesterday I felt ok in myself and was able to do jobs around the house and take the dog for a walk, I was crippled with anxiety. Also had sore gums and noticed some more specks of blood in my cervical mucus. Had vivid dreams and sweats last night and again have anxiety. Mucus also seems much less. An estrogen crash??? It's never ending and so hard to keep going 😢
Elizabethrose, although being on hrt my cervical mucus changes significantly going from creamy/pale yellowish and thick to clear egg white. Do you think this definitely suggests ovulation or just surges and falls? Xx
Kathleen, you have my sympathies as anxiety is so horrible. Big hug to you xx
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Hi EllaM
I'm really sorry you're struggling like this. I'm afraid I can't comment on your mucus on HRT, my observations are based on no HRT. The side effects I experienced on HRT overrode any normal PMT or oestrogen high symptoms. Chaos truly reigned! It seems that HRT doesn't always suppress your cycle which can prove difficult when in peri as the cycle lengths are ever changing. Even if you don't experience break through bleeds from your own cycle, your own cycle can cause background shifts in hormone levels. My oestrogen surges on top of the HRT oestrogen produced terrible highs and the associated side effects.
Honestly, I can't stress it enough: if you are not keeping a daily diary of symptoms do so. You don't have to obsess about it, just a couple of minutes each day, but very very quickly you'll start to see patterns emerge. Without a record, we've no hope of remembering the detail of what happened when. Docs are also better persuaded by recorded information and better able to analyse what is going on.
Good luck to you x