I'm just popping in to share a discovery I made very recently. I really hope this info will help other women who have lost track of what the cause of their problems are and what is caused by medical side-effects. You will soon see how this relates to menopausal problems... please take heed!
So - I've suffered from insomnia for 15 years, and had to manage it by taking ordinary sleeping pills but also
psycho active medication. The latter is something doctors prefer to prescribe because it's supposed to be less harmful than hypnotics. It's not clear to me even to this day whether it's mostly just the fact that hypnotics CAN be habit forming. However only about 25 % of the population have tendencies towards addiction.
To cut a long story short, I had to alternate between anything the doctors would give me. The sleeping pills (i.e. hypnotics) were Zopiclone (non-benzo), Temazepam and Diazepam (benzos). The psycho active medication was
Quetiapine (an anti-psychotic),
Mirtazapine (anti-depressant),
Amitriptyline (old generation anti-depressant) as well as
Pregabalin (an all round drug mainly for neuropathic pain, and its predecessor was
Gabapentin. I was able to tolerate these medicines for a long time until suddenly this summer I no longer was.
After a few months of trial and error, I realised that these medications were causing me very bad symptoms that I was initially ascribing to something else (just bad health, or perimenopause, or both). I got restless legs, itches, palpitations and more. This coincided with me turning 47 and realising that I was heading for menopause. Well, I'm obviously perimenopausal at the moment, as periods are a bit too frequent and erratic, and I've started to feel very overheated at night, and sleeping is even harder than before.
What I then realised as I started cutting out the meds (I had to do it in stages and alternate a great deal because I really needed some sleep too) was that my perimenopausal issues weren't at all as bad as I thought at first. They were exacerbated by the medicines. Now the IRONY is that many of these medications are supposed to make menopause EASIER! Especially Amitriptyline and Gabapentin come up as sleep aids during menopause. However, when I was coming off Pregabalin (which is similar to Gabapentin), I had terrible itches (including a VERY itchy and sticky fanny) for about a month. Of course I was a bit confused as to what was what but following my intuition paid off - once I got rid of everything except for the ordinary sleeping pills, I was almost normal again. My fanny stopped itching so badly as well and only feels a bit dry, which I hope to remedy by using oestrogen cream.
I even managed to get rid of the heart medication I was taking because my pulse had been racing so badly. Yes I do suffer from perimenopausal symptoms but most of them are quite mild. My life style is in keeping with the recommendations, that's plenty of seeds and nuts to eat as well as vitamin D, Magnesium, Cod liver oil, Spirulina and a couple of herbs (Shatavari at the moment and Black Cohosh soon when I run out).
What happened very recently after those months of reforming my medication use was that I started waking up every 2-3 hrs and found it impossible to get back to sleep. Internet research shows that this is common. It's a drag but I'm still feeling better since being able to kick the psychmeds. At the moment I'm alternating the sleeping pills as well as using Melatonin, because I have to have some sleep or I'll go mental. I also tried
anti-histamine as a sleeping pill but it also exacerbated my perimenopausal issues. Please beware that anti-histamines are sometimes offered to relief the kind of itches I experienced! That can be more medication causing more harm on top of what is already going on. It's really as though what was supposed to help me also contributed to the problems. Granted I do have underlying health issues in terms of fibromyalgia, but I don't think that's the reason things went funny.
I'm worried about the idea of taking HRT. From what I can see, possible side-effects include all of those problems I had with the other medicines! That's itches, depression, mood swings, hairloss and palpitations. That's precisely what you don't need when you could already be having these issues due to your hormonal fluctuations.
My theory is that as my hormonal levels started to change, my body could no longer cope with medications that altered my brain chemistry and affected my body in many insidious ways. I actually think that my body showed great wisdom in that it's trying to maintain a good balance all on its own, and I need to assist it rather than load it with more stuff to deal with. Of course sleeping pills are chemicals too, but they don't seem to upset the hormonal balance that much. I will just have to see how it goes. I've been to a sleep clinic for integrated medicine in London but it wasn't very helpful, in fact the doctor was the one who insisted I take Mirtazapine and Pregabalin to treat the insomnia. I also already know about sleep hygiene and positive thinking. However, if you're interested in this kind of thing you can check out a book by Colin Espie called
Overcoming Insomnia and Sleep Problems.
I really hope this experience is helpful to other women out there. Stay as natural as possible! All the best. Thanks for reading.
I have written about these trials on a blog, as well as my long experience of insomnia, please check it out if you want details > The Alchemy of Health>http://chronicillnesshealthissues.blogspot.co.uk
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Topic: Tell us how you cope with poor sleeping (Read 627402 times)