Perimenopause, the menopause or even THE CHANGE isn’t an age thing. It’s a woman thing!
I can remember now standing in a football field and sharing with a fellow footy mum how I was experiencing spotting in between my periods and they were either shorter or longer than usual.
I was around 41 years old so say Summer 2016 and it was the first time I had ever heard the phrase perimenopause. I can remember being pretty devastated at the mere mention of the M word.
By Summer 2018 I was sat in the doctors with low mood and over whelm. I can remember being sat in the doctors room with both boys with me because I’m a work from home mum and the appointment was out of school hours. So I was trying not to worry them as they could hear what I was saying.
The young female doctor heard the symptoms that I was sharing and so at 43 years old I was prescribed anti depressants. My parents and husband were a bit shocked I think, but honestly I was grabbing them with both hands because I wanted to feel better again and I trusted that she knew what was best for me.
After a couple of months I suffered a mini mental down / anxiety attack and then in November I was still suffering and felt so low. Like my children would be better off without me.
My anti depressants were changed from Citalopram to Venlafaxine and I started to feel a little better. The problem was that the positive impact would soon wear off. Because they weren’t actually solving the problem. Each time I was struggling the dose would just be increased. But this wasn’t a chemical imbalance in my brain. It was hormonal so the root cause was still simmering away.
In 2019 I started to suffer with severe bleeding. In the April I sat with my Mum having a coffee and realised I had a copper coil. I was told to manage the bleeding with Pro Vera tablets. But it dawned on me that the copper coil made bleeding heavier so I contacted my doctor to discuss having the copper coil removed.
Voila! Yes let’s have that out and it was suggested I have the mirena coil as it was a popular option to control bleeding. I was also suffering with hot flushes, lack of libido and frequent water infections.
Note! At no point was my need for anti depressants linked to my need to control bleeding 😳🤯 In fact despite my numerous suggestions that I was perimenopausal I was repeatedly told I was too young. I mentioned how age was usually irrelevant and it was the symptoms we should focus on.
Nothing changed in the discussion. Like so many women we are at the hands of doctors without the required knowledge to deal with 51% of the population.
So in July 2019 I have the mirena coil fitted and my bleeding is sorted whoop!!! But we are still increasing those anti depressants and I’m hitting max dose now. So I’m put forward for counselling due to severe “depression” and also a bout of PTSD.
What we have now is a woman whose severely depressed with no desire to spend time cooking healthy family meals. I don’t even know what to cook. The fridge and freezer just stared back at me. And I’m feeling low, achey and you know that feeling when you are due on when you want to eat anything. Yeah that was a ALL the time.
So hey there weight gain from perimenopause!
And then we have lockdown! Got to love a pandemic to eat through.
As 2021 hit things got progressively worse. Sorry, this part is kinda gloomy. But it’s ok. It gets better again.
So my mental health takes a big dip. I’m now over weight, an extra chin has appeared. My hands are swollen, I’m anxious, I ache, I can’t face exercise, I’m tearful, irritable, can’t remember anything, can’t focus or concentrate and don’t believe in myself so work is feeling impossible.
I’m struggling to sleep, I’m bloated, I’ve got itchy skin and I’ve got complete brain fog.
I googled local mental health hospitals and told my husband I was a liability. Because you know I what actually was! I was stood in a doctors car park sobbing because the male doctors ringing me as duty doctors weren’t listening to me when I was saying that the Venlafaxine wasn’t working. A doctor watched my cry as I was begging for help to feel better and was told I was irritable. Made to feel like a problem. Like I was crazy. I don’t know how I got through that period.
I was just about to switch anti depressants when a friend messaged me and suggested HRT. She had just started on it. So I researched, found some Facebook groups and realised I wasn’t alone. There were thousands of us!
So I got my blood pressure taken and spoke to my GP advising that I wanted the Estrogel to work alongside the mirena coil
Within a week I started to feel better. It’s been 9 months now and I have seen such an improvement. I’ve got my life back. The next chapter is testosterone. I will keep you posted on that via my socials 😉