Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Got a story to tell for the magazine? Get in touch with the editor!

media

Author Topic: Peri-menopause and ADHD  (Read 1660 times)

KayemBee

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 24
Peri-menopause and ADHD
« on: November 12, 2018, 01:38:32 PM »

Hi, I am new to this site and wanted to read and learn as much as I could about the Peri-menpause and the Menopause. I found out I had ADHD last year because of my hormonal changes which exacerbated it (never understood why I struggled most of my life) and spent so much time researching that, I neglected the menopausal side of things. Now I am beginning to notice changes and have been suffering with Tinitus for the last couple of weeks which has started to wake me up during the night. I am also beginning to regularly suffer with the shivers (mostly affects my knees and lower legs) and get a warm head (mostly round the back) as well as aches in the neck and shoulders. I have always been uncomfortable taking tablets and am really cautious about taking HRT. Hope to find out lots of information from this site and Hello to everyone. KayemBee
Logged

BlueButterfly

  • Guest
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #1 on: November 12, 2018, 02:15:42 PM »

Hi and welcome!

I too have ADHD/ADD. I found out just a few years ago but it explained so much! I'm only 36 but starting Peri already. It really has gotten worse with all the hormone shifts going on.

Not much help with hormones, trying to figure it out myself too. There's so many knowledgeable ladies here that are an amazing help though.
Logged

KayemBee

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 24
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2018, 02:30:00 PM »

Lovely to meet you Blue Butterfly  :) Hope we are able to help each other too! I would love to think that my ADHD is more of a struggle than the menopause process as I can work with it without needing tablets having always lived with the struggles but I don't think it's going to be that easy. I've found some really interesting comments on here so far, I think its going to be a great help to me and hopefully I can help others when I have learnt more. p.s I am 44 and think the I probably started with the peri-menopause a couple of years ago.
Logged

CLKD

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 74219
  • changes can be scary, even when we want them
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2018, 04:03:05 PM »

 :welcomemm:

Maybe keep a mood/food/symptom diary so that you can decide which symptom to ease first?  Then do a search here to see how others have coped with that particular issue?

Browse round. Make notes.  Do read the threads about vaginal atrophy! as that's a different ball game  >:(  ::)

Logged

KayemBee

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 24
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #4 on: November 13, 2018, 09:29:27 AM »

Thank you CKLD, that's a brilliant idea!
Logged

EnglishRose

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 391
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2018, 11:09:52 AM »

Hi, I am new to this site and wanted to read and learn as much as I could about the Peri-menpause and the Menopause. I found out I had ADHD last year because of my hormonal changes which exacerbated it (never understood why I struggled most of my life) and spent so much time researching that, I neglected the menopausal side of things. Now I am beginning to notice changes and have been suffering with Tinitus for the last couple of weeks which has started to wake me up during the night. I am also beginning to regularly suffer with the shivers (mostly affects my knees and lower legs) and get a warm head (mostly round the back) as well as aches in the neck and shoulders. I have always been uncomfortable taking tablets and am really cautious about taking HRT. Hope to find out lots of information from this site and Hello to everyone. KayemBee

Welcome 👍👍
When you say “shivers” do you mean temperature type or a sense of shivers without feeling cold, like hypersensitive skin.
I have that to my upper and lower back and legs... it's like someone is walking over my grave all the time and clothes brushing on my skin in those areas makes me shudder.
Logged

BlueButterfly

  • Guest
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #6 on: November 13, 2018, 03:57:37 PM »

I honestly don't really do anything for ADHD. Sometimes I feel I should try to treat it and others, I just let it be. Mostly it is something my family teases me about as my mind jumps from one thing to another and back so fast and they can't follow me at all. I am forgetful because of it and worse now because of the peri. But out of everything, that really hasn't bothered me too much. It was a challenge to work from home because of the lack of schedule/structure. I do miss that job though. The anxiety that hit me with peri is what really got me. That was crippling.  Being ADHD makes us more prone to anxiety as well. I've been told to avoid anti-depressants because of it because they aren't that effective with ADHD.

It's not surprising that it gets worse during Peri/Menopause either. For girls/women, it gets worse during puberty as well (why women are diagnosed with it later in life vs boys). Just did a quick google search and there's actually quite a few articles about it getting worse during the change. Just another fun set of challenges to try to manage.
Logged

KayemBee

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 24
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2018, 11:16:42 AM »

Welcome 👍👍
When you say “shivers” do you mean temperature type or a sense of shivers without feeling cold, like hypersensitive skin.
I have that to my upper and lower back and legs... it's like someone is walking over my grave all the time and clothes brushing on my skin in those areas makes me shudder.

[/quote]

Thank you Rose English,
Not sure if it's the same feeling you have? Mine seems to be an extension of a part of my skin getting cold, like when I get into bed at night and my leg is exposed to the cold which sets the shivering off, as if my body is cold, although I don't feel cold. It mostly only happens at night when I am in bed, and my hot bouts tend to only happen during the day when I have just come back from walking the dogs and my neck becomes warm, which sets the hot sweat off, I had my hair chopped off my neck to limit this and it has helped somewhat. Mine is continuous for a short while and then may stop completely or come back again after a short lull, does this sound familiar? I've read lots about the hot flushes but not about the cold ones and wondered what was happening to me when I started with them. Hope you're managing with yours? Do you take anything to help them?
Logged

KayemBee

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 24
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2018, 11:26:48 AM »

I honestly don't really do anything for ADHD. Sometimes I feel I should try to treat it and others, I just let it be. Mostly it is something my family teases me about as my mind jumps from one thing to another and back so fast and they can't follow me at all. I am forgetful because of it and worse now because of the peri. But out of everything, that really hasn't bothered me too much. It was a challenge to work from home because of the lack of schedule/structure. I do miss that job though. The anxiety that hit me with peri is what really got me. That was crippling.  Being ADHD makes us more prone to anxiety as well. I've been told to avoid anti-depressants because of it because they aren't that effective with ADHD.

It's not surprising that it gets worse during Peri/Menopause either. For girls/women, it gets worse during puberty as well (why women are diagnosed with it later in life vs boys). Just did a quick google search and there's actually quite a few articles about it getting worse during the change. Just another fun set of challenges to try to manage.

I suppose I have to thank my ADHD in a way as I have always lived with Anxiety worries and have had a lifetime of brain fog which is part of ADHD as you know, so both of these were not a concern as such, it's just that someone came and turned up the volume on them, it's how I found out I had lived with ADHD my whole life as I can definitely say that a change in hormones exacerbates it. Can't say I like this part of getting older, it's like someone pushes you down a hill all of a sudden when you'd been walking a flat plain for years (with a few bumps in the road) the things us women have to go through eh!
Logged

CLKD

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 74219
  • changes can be scary, even when we want them
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2018, 01:19:20 PM »

My sensation is of feeling cold i.e. feet and legs but DH tells me that I feel 'normal' - whatever that might be  ::)
Logged

BlueButterfly

  • Guest
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2018, 01:46:52 PM »

I've always been a high strung person. But yes, this lovely change turned up the volume on everything for sure. I could manage what I was dealing with just fine before. But then I started getting really severe anxiety and panic attacks one day. It really was that sudden. I was fine the previous week. A little stressed with work but life itself was fine. I had never had panic attacks and then suddenly had 3 in one week. All the doctor kept telling me was that it was just anxiety. But why? No one could tell me why. They just wanted me to take a pill. I ended up losing almost 40 pounds in the last few months thanks to all this fun my body has gone through. It is definitely suddenly getting pushed down a hill and hitting every rock and boulder along the way.

 The anxiety has been the absolute worst symptom. It just makes every ache, pain and strange new sensation in my body seem so much worse, I think.
Logged

CLKD

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 74219
  • changes can be scary, even when we want them
Re: Peri-menopause and ADHD
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2018, 02:35:10 PM »

Nothing is 'just' or 'only' anything!

Have you 'Bach rescue remedy' over there?  I use the mouth spray with success.
Logged