There Will Not Be Blood: What Menopause Means to You

Carl, hi! I feel really good tbh; second trimester has been chill! I hope you and Ivy and Jeff are doing well!

fertility treatment high five. Ivy is the product of the best reproductive technology (our) money could buy. We are good! I'm so happy about baby horseshoe.

Oh and congrats horseshoe! Gah Im working cant keep up

And yeah I haven’t ruled out having a kid. I had my AMA tested two years ago because I was curious and my egg reserve was very good but I know at this point it is depleting every day. But that’s another good example - I didn’t even know that was just a test you can ask for!

Wait AMH

(thanks, E!) I have been weird about announcing bc it was so hard to get pregnant and I was scared of stuff going wrong, and also because being publicly pregnant is so fraught, and because I know people who want to get pregnant can’t always and it’s just annoying being a woman fin.

Luckily I never wanted kids, though my partner keeps jokingly demanding "GIVE ME A BABY GIRL" (he has 2 teen boys, he is joking)

But it is happy news and fertility treatment high five back at you, carl

It’s wonderful. The world needs more moms like you tbh. That’s a lucky kiddo right there. :)

re: the birth control pills and the PMDD, last hear at around the time of the Cavanaugh confirmation hearings (aka that week when everything was a trauma trigger), my GP took me off the birth control because of blood pressure concerns and my whole mental health state spiraled. I probably only got more or less back to baseline last August maybe? I do feel much more stable now, but I will not be coming off the pill to see if I'm done with this process any time soon.

year not hear

Aw, thanks!

But back to the thread topic - one of my colleagues was out a lot last year because of really bad menopause symptoms and the management was not happy. That’s actually one of the things that made me interested in it - she was suffering so badly and I was like oh wait? Can it be that rough? And it looks like it can and it should absolutely be talked about more often.

That was an xpost to E; I’m so sorry that PMDD was such a bear, Carl, but I’m glad the pill is working!

ugh it sucks so much when women’s health things affect attendance at work bc the workplace sucks about it, as it does about so many things

Here’s another symptom I didn’t know was a thing - itching! My boss was itching like crazy last year. She is 47 so went to the doc and the itching was hormonal! She’s perimenopausal but she thought she was too young and was shocked.

sadly the kavanaugh shit was fall 2018! i completely lost it around then too and went back on the HBC shortly afterward. i don't plan to ever stop taking it bc the PMDD is still there it's just not as bad. i am actually quite worried about what menopause will do to my emotional state.

She went out after work with girlfriends for a drink and mentioned that her dry skin was driving her nuts and they were all like oh uh . . .

xp esp as i am trying to rebuild life after losing my longtime job that i felt very strongly about
i guess we'll see!

i do have a weird itch on my head that won't go away!!!

Thankfully that’s one factor I won’t have to wonder about. I’ve had a copper IUD since 2006 and haven’t been on hormonal birth control since college.

Good grief, so that took two years (there were other complicating factors, so it wasn't just menopause). I do remember us losing it together. <3 xp

My mom was really good about prepping me for it because she felt rough through hers, and I had really bad fibroids starting in my late 30s which were so awful/huge I had to have a hysterectomy three years ago (kept the ovaries though, for the hormones).

I was dreading menopause because my aunt got such bad hot flashes she steamed up the windows of any car she was in when it happened. Even after the hysterectomy I would have ridiculous hot flashes but they seem to have stopped.

Symptoms I have known:

- CONSTANT fatigue and something I learned is called "crashing fatigue" where I have to just go lie down because I'm overwhelmed to the point of feeling drugged
- hot flushes/being overly hot esp at night
- copious, heavy sweating (i suspect alcohol aggravates that)
- dry eyes to the point they feel like there is grit in them
- phantom cramps
- really sore boobs
- occasional flashes of irrational, uncontrollable anger and/or upsetness a la PMT
- aching joints (this one might just be general poor fitness/too much drinking heh)

Vitamin D, zinc, magnesium. All helped me.

I also had the breast tenderness for the whole summer of 2019 (I thought I was pregnant trr).

Re flashes of irritation: How would you know?? I'm irritable at the best of times. :D

Aching joints were a horrible problem for me all last winter & spring & summer. I just started getting better recently by dealing with the inflammatory effects + moving and stretching more. I'm taking daily turmeric & Vit D now.

I'll def give the supplements a go, certainly cant hurt.

Magnesium did actually hurt me; apparently some people are sensitive to it. It made my heart skip like crazy and I couldn't exercise for a summer until I figured out what was going on. I think that's pretty rare but just a heads up.

Way to bury the lede, horseshoe!!!! So happy for you <3 <3 <3 if anyone is going to parent I'm glad it's you and your partner (who I don't know but I trust you implicitly).

thanks, io! wanting to get pregnant is so weird and vulnerable and also seems totally irrational given...the world. and yet! he and i feel v lucky/happy.

IO right? That’s how I felt when I realized. :)

When I was a kid it seemed unbearably embarrassing to me to think about being seen to be pregnant bc it would force everyone to acknowledge that you had had sex. :D

I don't know how long I was in the peri part, maybe 6 years? I would get horribly painful skin eruptions in the weirdest places a day or two before flow would start (tentative diagnosis: testosterone influx) and it was (oddly for me) copious. I switched to cloth pads and period underwear to see if I was reacting to something in tampons and commercial pads, which helped some. But then things went off the rails and those outbreaks got more frequent. Nothing helped prevent them. Mystified doctor. Hair started thinning dramatically (this freaked me out more than anything else for some reason). Hot flashes and dramatic blushing at nothing, always worse when I drank. Husband is diabetic and wanted to try a Whole30 and paleo eating, so we did that. And the hot flashes stopped and no outbreaks for multiple months.

No idea if it was no more alcohol or what but the relief was worth just sticking with it. A year later I had a knee injury and at the doctor for that she asked when my last period had been...and had been 6 months. She wrote down post-menopausal. I was 53 then and that was that. No more periods.

7 years later and now I have my first IUD because last April I had some odd discharge that turned out to be pre-pre-endometrial cancer and a little direct progesterone can keep that at bay. I had to use estrogen cream for a few weeks prior to insertion and felt like absolute crap from it but all's good now. I like the basic even-keel-ness of postmenopausal existence after so many years of mood swings.

Congratulations horseshoe!!!

I mean that’s why I still feel weird when people say they’re trying. I know I shouldn’t but there will always be a part of me that’s like hee hee you’re doing it!

thanks, Jaq!

i resent menopause in advance for trying to take booze away from me!

It can take booze out of my hot, flushed, sweaty fingers. Fuck that.

Haha thats my eternal struggle. Ive cut back a lot on drinking, but yeah.

Now that recreational weed is legal, I don't miss it (much). But yeah.

It's not taking my nightly glass or two of wine, that's for sure.

My mother sailed smoothly through menopause. Hopefully, I will too.

Here’s another symptom I didn’t know was a thing - itching! My boss was itching like crazy last year

I did not know this was a thing until now ... i had awkward itching/rashes this past summer/fall (which, I guess I am grateful to covid because no one could see me scratch/avoid it ... I am now a natural fibers snob when it comes to bedding and sleepwear (mostly) ... I have been 100% cotton only in re underwear for several years because prior to that I would have a WAP of the monistat required variety

omg congrats horseshoe!!

Sarahel - yeah I had no idea but I’ve seen it mentioned since this came up with her. Apparently it’s a real thing!

See I know my mom took HRT and that it helped but she also got post menopausal breast cancer which I think had a link to HRT? This is what I need to research.

A paternal aunt was the only immediate family member of mine to go through non-surgical menopause - my mom and her 3 sisters all had hysterectomies while in their late 30s. She was thankfully easy to talk to about it. I've tried to be open with my daughter so hopefully it won't all be a surprise.

I wouldnt know if I had meno related itching, I have such bad eczema... which hang on, started flaring up about 18 months ago. hm.

Sarahell's ref to monistat reminded me - the thinning hair for me turned out to be related to seborrheic dermatitis caused by an overgrowth of some scalp-loving yeast. This resolved by using shampoo containing ketoconazole, which is similar to another azole found in monistat etc. And in addition to killing yeasts, azoles also make hair grow.

I guess I've been peri for a couple of years now and...is there any diagnosable or physical marker of when you're "done"? Aiui medically you're considered "menopausal" when you simply haven't had a period for a year, which seems like quite a backward way to ascertain what's happening inside our bodies??

actually according to my medical provider -- yes, it is pretty much backwards in just that way

Ugh, the sweats. I get them every so often but nothing like as horrible as when fibroids hijacked my body (I had a hysterectomy because they were huge and embedded in the uterine walls). You won’t want to wear wool unless it’s a coat/really cold. I wear a lot of cotton and almost no polyester/viscose.

Family lore says my aunt’s hot flashes were so bad, if she got them while driving, the windows of her car would fog up. Compared to that, I’m not having a hard time.

Reading posts by Rushomancy and other trans women also really puts the whole thing in perspective even more

My roommate is a trans man and said he and his mom went through essentially menopause at the same time when he started taking T! Which is funny. Sadly for him they were not on speaking terms (and still kind of aren't). Our links to the knowledge that we need get broken in so many ways.

_ Our links to the knowledge that we need get broken in so many ways.

In my experience, pregnancy brain and menopause brain were very similar, this weird dullness and recognition that my thoughts were just so slow, not enough attention to learn new things or take in a large amount of info. I'm 10 years post menopause now and things are good. But I skipped MHT when it could have helped a lot, due to the scary study that had come out.

Did y'all see the new Vagenda from Jen Gunther about very low doses of gabapentin for hot flashes?

Ugh, the sweats. You won’t want to wear wool unless it’s a coat/really cold. I wear a lot of cotton and almost no polyester/viscose. .

I actually take gabapentin for anxiety and I don’t get hot flashes so maybe that’s what’s going on with me?

Haven’t really tried either (I think Muji incorporate bamboo into some of their fabrics) but I like some of the Airism things from Uniqlo, which are supposed to be ‘wicky’.

Good to know! It definitely reinforces the fact that so much of women’s fashion is focused on youth … though I do see more brands having more prominent fabric information and the option to filter by fabric. … of course in my 20s I wore tons of polyester and rayon, so many cute vintage dresses that were polyester and rayon … now I just think of the sweating from menopause and smell and will only buy something in those fabrics if it’s really awesome

Polyester not only can be less breathable but also PROVEN BY SCIENCE holds odors more than natural fibers!

Rayon is pretty breathable compared to polyester.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that I almost never wear tights anymore because of the overheating potential.

I always always always wear a tank top under whatever other shirt I'm wearing (generally a v-neck tee) because at some point in the day everything is going to have to come off except for the tank. I no longer wear a bra because I no longer have breasts (flat closure), which is a mercy because that would have been even worse with DDs to house.

My cancer experience was that it was easier to navigate than menopause. It's well understood, there is a straightforward protocol to fixing it (at least in early stages, such as mine), you get tons of support from friends and family and health care providers and support groups and even strangers. Insurance covered a lot of what was needed.

None of this has come with my menopause experience.

I was writing something in the pandemic lookback thread and I remembered signing up for shifts in 2020 to answer phones and take requests and give out assignments for a community group, and I had SO MUCH ANXIETY and brain fog, and there were so many chapters of documentation in Google docs that we were supposed to retain and I just felt confused ALL THE TIME. So maybe it wasn't as easy as I thought. Hard to say because the person who created those docs also thinks totally differently to me, as I know now.

I always always always wear a tank top under whatever other shirt I'm wearing (generally a v-neck tee) because at some point in the day everything is going to have to come off except for the tank. I no longer wear a bra because I no longer have breasts (flat closure), which is a mercy because that would have been even worse with DDs .

Xps linen is expensive but really good for keeping cool

I have one linen dress. It comes out in high summer, at the exact point that I’m too damn hot to care about it being heavily creased the second I sit down.

Since we’re talking about boobs, I’m an A and resent the extra layering required purely to prevent comments about peanut smuggling.

Xps linen is expensive but really good for keeping cool

Hmm I haven’t heard of it causing itchiness (that’s usually wool). Does it feel like an allergy type of itchy or is it more sensory?

Sensory. I have the same thing with some types of wool.

Maybe look for cotton-linen blends, they’ll probably feel a little softer/smoother

Thank you! Yes! I have a few and love them, also in re blankets