Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => Personal Experiences => Topic started by: racjen on February 22, 2019, 11:37:17 AM
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Need some reassurance desperately - feeling so awful this this morning. Barely slept again last night, now just want to stay in bed, can't face the world. I really don't know how much more of this I can take; every morning I wake up with that awful feeling of 'oh no, I'm still here'. Wish there was a way I could just slip quietly out of the world without anyone noticing or grieving.
It's only a week since I dropped my estrogen dose from Evorel 100 to 75, as an experiment to see whether it's actually high estrogen that's causing my anxiety. Is it a coincidence that I now feel desperately depressed (and the anxiety remains unchanged)? Could it be bringing me down that quickly? Maybe I do need to be up around 1000 pmol to be able to function. Don't know what to do now...except give up on today :'(
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Hi Racjen...I'm not an expert, but I would say that it's the drop in Oestrogen that is making you feel worse. I have felt the desperation that you feel and I only got myself on an even keel by using 4 pumps of gel and a year later I'm still on 4 pumps. But everyone is different xx
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Hello racjen
I'm so sorry to hear you are feeling so low. I know it's no help at all, but I just wanted you to know you are not alone. I feel exactly the same.
I actually now feel very calm, and am ready to give in and give up.The calmness is soothing, like nothing matters anymore.
I really hope you get some respite. I'm sure someone will be along soon to offer you some advice,
Take care
Jeepers xx
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Racjen as you're obviously very sensitive to fluctuations maybe it's just that you have to give your body time to get used to the new dose. Hang in there. Is there something you could do like go for a walk (it's a lovely day), or plan your favourite meal? Anything really to give yourself a little treat and lift your spirits xx
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Oh god, now I don't know whether to stick with the dose reduction for longer (which is a total stab in the dark anyway, not come from any professional recommendation but just a suggestion on here that my estrogen might be too high) and tough it out for a while. Or accept that, as I suspected, with no functioning ovaries I need a high dose of estrogen to feel OK. Don't want to keep chopping and changing, but on the other hand I can't face feeling like this for weeks while I give it long enough to be sure. Still in bed and feeling like life is pretty much over....
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Racjen - it sounds like the depression (from the oestrogen reduction) for you is worse than the anxiety. It's such a difficult one - I feel ill-equipped to advise and it depends which regime will enable you to cope better. So sorry you are still feeling like this and as Perinowpost says - hang in there - we all care about you!
Hurdity x
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Hello racjen
I'm so sorry to hear you are feeling so low. I know it's no help at all, but I just wanted you to know you are not alone. I feel exactly the same.
I actually now feel very calm, and am ready to give in and give up.The calmness is soothing, like nothing matters anymore.
I really hope you get some respite. I'm sure someone will be along soon to offer you some advice,
Take care
Jeepers xx
Jeepers - I'm pleased you are feeling calm now - (I saw your post in Private Lives) but please, please don't give up. Can you turn that calmness and sense that nothing matters, into something positive to help you to move forward?
Hurdity x
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Racjen - it sounds like the depression (from the oestrogen reduction) for you is worse than the anxiety. It's such a difficult one - I feel ill-equipped to advise and it depends which regime will enable you to cope better. So sorry you are still feeling like this and as Perinowpost says - hang in there - we all care about you!
Hurdity x
The trouble is, there's no guarantee that reducing the oestrogen will deal with the anxiety, so far it hasn't made any difference so I'm stuck with both. At least if I'm not horribly depressed I can cope with anxiety by keeping busy and using distraction strategies, whereas depression robs me of my ability to cope completely. I think I have to deduce from this that I'm better off on the higher dose of estrogen.
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Racjen. I can empathise so much about the anxiety depression and how they feed each other. I agree with you that the depression just magnify the anxiety but with depression you are unable to do the things that help keep anxiety under control. I have the same issue and so I end up in bed all day with the anxiety running rampant which just exhausts your body and brain.
I discussed this with my psychiatrist last week and he feels the depression needs dealing with in order to make the anxiety more manageable which is in line with what we've both been suffering. He says I need to break the cycle at the depression point. I.e treat the depression.
He understands my hormone issues, like you I'm in surgical meno and I don't feel I've got a where near enough estrogen. Even if my blood test on Monday shows It's jumped from 129 to 800 i dont care it still isn't enough for me going by the way I'm feeling.
Taking all this Into account he has prescribed me a low dose AD. to get on top of the depression and get that lift to be able to do the things which help anxiety.and I have , finally agreed to take it. I have a rocky relationship with AD's but Something was gonna give.
I mention all this not to go on about myself. This is about you. I thought it might help to hear from someone who's currently treading the same path.
How are you feeling tonight.? Have you got the crisis number?
Sending love.xxx
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Do you have a mental health crisis team.
Menopause aside, from a new person reading of your struggles I would think you need to be open with your GP and tell him/her how dark your thoughts are.
Then when you hit bottom you will have a number to call and a person to speak to and who will come to you and support you.
So many issues are blamed on the menopause but there are times when it has to be accepted its possibly something else and more.
In my very humble opinion you should dismiss menopause and concentrate on getting your mental health sorted out. You need counselling, and an effective anti depressant.
When you get to the point of writing letters to your daughters then it's time to turn up at A&E and tell them of your suicidal feelings. The help is there but no one can guess what's going on in your head unless you tell them.
I've really no right to comment but it seems to me that you are going round in circles and you are the only one that can stop this, but you need to shout for help.
If you were my mother then I would have you at the hospital in a heartbeat. Do your daughters actually know. You need to tell them rather than leaving two girls wondering for the rest of their lives what they missed and what could they have done to help.
I wish you the very best, but enough, go and get some help.
I have shouted and shouted for help - the Mental Health Crisis Team have been here numerous times in the last year. They eventually advised me that I needed to change GP as my problems are clearly hormonal and I need specialist treatment, but my GP was refusing to refer me to a menopause clinic (there are none in Devon and Cornwall). They then referred me on urgently to the Community Mental Health Team, several months later I'm still waiting to be given an appointment with the Clinical Psychology Team at Torbay Hospital. I have phoned the Crisis Team and the CMHT on a few occasions, their reaction tends to be 'try going out for a walk/having a bath/just stop bothering us' because they are horribly understaffed and overworked. The Samaritans are much more helpful and sympathetic.
I've tried numerous antidepressants and other drugs, unfortunately I have an extreme sensitivity to them which means that they make me even more depressed and dangerously suicidal. My GP knows exactly what I'm going through, I'm completely open about it and have had both counselling and psychotherapy, to no avail.
I don't want to be rude, but may I suggest that as a new person on a forum you find out a bit about someoné's background before weighing in with your patronising advice - your post has made me pretty angry, especially the inference that I don't talk to my daughters about this and that I'm not trying to help myself.
In fact I'll modify that - I do want to be rude. Who the hell do you think you are to give me such patronising advice when you know nothing about my background? I've been struggling with worsening depression and anxiety for the last couple of years, brought about by chemotherapy induced menopause, and the last thing I need is someone who thinks they know all the answers.
I've tried every avenue I can possibly think of to get help and nothing seems to improve matters, and you think you can just come on here and tell me how to solve my problems after 5 mins? I'd better stop there or I really will be rude.....
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Racjen. I think the drop in E might be the cause, you know.
You are very sensitive to any changes.
I know you thought it might be too high and not helping the anxiety but it may not be a coincidence that since you dropped it the depression is bad. You ask if it can happen that quick and in my personal experience it certainly can. So why not try upping the dose back to what it was.at least for the time being.
As i said Even my psychiatrist agrees that getting the hormones balanced is key.
I wish I could do something to help.
You and I have talked about it before and I agree the Samaritans are more immediate help than the crisis team.
Are you on your own tonight?
Xxx
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Thankyou tc, yes I increased it again yesterday and depression is already a lot better, slept better too. Anxiety is sky high this morning though (in retrospect I think it was a bit less on lower E - always hard to tell when it's a gradual thig). I don't just don't know where to go with this - seems I have to choose between depression and anxiety.....
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So glad it's lifting ta bit oday.
At least with the depression lifted a bit you might be more able to use your techniques for the anxiety..
Hope you manage to have a better day
X xxx
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Hummdinger, thanks for your apology. You'll find that a considerable number of the women on this forum struggle horribly with mood-based menopausal symptoms, particularly anxiety, and unfortunately they're the most difficult to get acknowledged and also to treat.
Tc - yes, if I'm not depressed I have a morning routine of half an hour of yoga followed by a cold shower (!) or swim in the river if it's sunny. This morning it was very misty early on so I opted for the shower, since then been clearing up the garden ready for the first signs of Spring - yay! My mood is SO much better today it's definitely no coincidence; maybe I need to start shaving wafer thing slices off the patches until I reach the sweet spot where depression and anxiety balance out and I just feel normal. OMG, is that even possible anymore? Have genuinely forgotten what it feels like.
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Racjen that's wonderful. How nice to be able to get out in the garden.
It was obviously too sharp or too big a drop for you.
I wish I knew the answer to the balance.
The gel is supposed to be easier to balance than patches but it's doing nothing for me.
I've not been able to shift the depression for longer than the odd day here and there in the last few months so I've not been able to get any sort of normal life routine going again.after my op and my move. And the anxiety is insidiously eroding my confidence a little more each day. Minds you sometimes I am amazed I'm still here! So I guess that's an achievement.
Enjoy the rest of your day. It's like a breath of fresh air to read your post this morning, not to mention a relief.
Sending lovex.
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Hi racjen
I'm so glad you are feeling better, maybe there is hope for all of us?? Swim in the river? Wow, that's amazing. I walked by a river yesterday, but I wasn't particularly tempted to get in!
I am interested in what you say about high Estrogen levels. I started HRT last June, on two pumps, and felt so much better. In October, I had my levels measured and advised to go to three pumps and add testosterone. Since then I seem to have declined and my anxiety is sky high. I have also had a post menopausal bleed (under investigation). The other thing I have started dong is really rubbing the gel in until its gone, so wonder if that could also mean my levels are higher too.
Jeepers xx
I just don't know.
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Glad you're feeling a bit better Racjen. Just wanted to say I found (peri) meno hard enough to go through, so can only imagine how awful a chemotherapy induced meno must be. My sister in law went through the same thing (breast cancer), and even now won't go out of the house on an evening as she just doesn't have the energy. I think my point is it all takes longer to get over and that cannot be under estimated. In the meantime small steps, good nutrition and being kind to yourself are important in building yourself back up.
I've got to say it annoys me that mental health services are too ready to just label people and medicate them. Depression is a fact of life and is a response to adversity/circumstances and can be got over given time/the right support.
Tc Re gel versus patches I've always found the patches more consistent in their delivery, although I acknowledge we're all different.
Anyway wishing you all well and wishing you a better day x
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Hi Birdy
I read your reply about minutes after applying T, I went straight to the bathroom and scrubbed my thigh! That's the first time I've taken it in a few days too , as I was so, so anxious I didn't. I did wonder about the testosterone, but there is a lot less info out there on it.
Did you just stop dead? Any rebound from it?
Thank you so much :foryou:
Jeepers x
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Hi Birdy
Sorry to hear you have been having a rotten time too... We should all meet up and eat cake! I was a mess at the doctor's too.
That would make sense I suppose. I started the testosterone in November, and it supposedly takes a while to build up in your system . I am going to stop and see how that goes ( I'm just at the end of a tube, so just won't start the new one, which cost me £120!, Doh!).
I've reduced my oestrogel back to two pumps for now. I ft good last year on two pumps, it was only because my Dr said my level was still low, and she wanted me to increase.
I've had a PMB, gallbladder pain and super high anxiety, which could (I'm guessing of course), all point to my estrogen level being too high. Could just be wishful thinking on my part, but better than some of the alternatives my head takes me to!
Thanks
Jeepers x
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Birdy & Jeepers re testosterone I find that if I use too much testosterone I get negative side effects - anxiety/low mood. However, there is a sweet spot, i use it 3 times a week (Mon/We'd/Fri), just a petit poi's size blob and I'm fine + get the full benefits.
I think like much of hrt it's a finding the correct balance for you x
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Perin. I'm just about to start it. I know where my sweet spot is but I do t think I should put the T there Haha.
I've been given it because of depression but I also suffer with a anxiety so think I might have the same balancing act as Racjen. Depression or anxiety. Hobson's choice.
Crying at the gp 's I can so relate. I sat down and sobbed. Big snotty shuddering sobs and she said "I can see your a bit emotional!!" I think it makes them uncomfortable.
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That's interesting - I'm sure I need some T (apart from anything else I know my level is non-existent) but so far attempts have just resulted in increased depression. How the f**k do we get this balance right? My gp is being incredibly supportive and doing loads of research, but it's still all a shot in the dark isn't it?
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Hi racjen
How are things going?
Jeepers x
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2nd day on mirtazapine - had been trying to avoid ADs because I don't react well, but things have got to the point where I have to do something else to give me some hope. Feeling very dopey and zombie-like but I know that's an early side-effect; strange that it does that during the day but doesn't have a hugely beneficial effect on my sleep. Anxiety is a lot less - fingers crossed that I don't get the horribly depressed reaction I've had from ADs in the past.
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Thanks for asking Jeepers xxx
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Racjen
How many times have you changed HRT? Or how long have you been on it ? I've been told it takes months to calm down (unfortunately ) not meaning to sound patronising in this as you may already know this. Thanks to this column I found out too much progesterone at the switch point in the pills cycle was the reason for my complete torso rash . I found this out by process of elimination via comments on here . I put this to GP and she said could be , with an air of I've not heard of this before . I was correct. They may be experienced fully educated doctors but it's just that General ! A hug to you.
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Hi SicknTired, thinking about your question I was a bit shocked to realise that I've been on HRT since June 2017, and apart from a brief try with Elleste Sequi, simply because my GP didn't have a clue and made a random guess, I've been on Evorel patches and Utrogestan consistently for 18 months (on the adviceof a private specialist). So plenty of time for my system to have got used to it. I really think I need to try something different cos this really aint working - if anything I'm worse now than I was to start with (I had a sudden menopause due to chemotherapy in Aug 2016 by the way).