There Will Not Be Blood: What Menopause Means to You

Perimenopausal hormone fluctuations lead to an idiosyncratic array of physical and psychological symptoms, which may lead to new-onset mental disorders as well as affecting pre-existing conditions. Patients with severe mental illness going through the perimenopause may expect changes in their symptomatology and response to treatment.

stoked for the madness

wait no not stoked, the other thing

i was looking forward to not bleeding through my fucking clothes every other month but yeah, okay, better put the suicide hotline at the top of my favorites again

forewarned is forearmed at least

weeee

I honestly found breast cancer easier to deal with than this menopause shit. A lot of women find it nbd; I am not one of them.

sorry quincie :(

Yeah - just given my age I assume I'm peri but I haven't noticed any symptoms to do with my actual period or otherwise whereas I have friends who are GOING THRU IT. I feel quite lucky right now but also scared because what they're going through sounds, quite frankly, horrible.

Anyone have tips/recommendations re bedding and sleep stuff to mitigate the night sweats? I am afraid to ask on social media because too many of my friends are woo-woo and I don’t want to be mean

All too timely a threadbump. WHY AM I STILL GETTING PERIODS AT MY ADVANCED AGE?

I am finding helpful to wear light PJs (top and bottom) so I can strip them off if they get damp. And I keep a large beach towel by the bed and put that down if the sheets are also damp.

I have an appointment at a specialized menopause clinic, but it is not until July. In the meantime I am simply losing my mind.

Hey I went on HRT and I recommend it!! I'm taking estrogen via a patch (so, so helpful--it hasn't reversed everything but it's making a difference in some uh very personal things that are useful), and supposed to be taking progesterone to balance out uterine tissue something something, but I noticed a slight correlation in nights that I took the progesterone + having some stomach issues, so I've been skipping it most days so basically I'm only taking the estrogen part of my Rx.

Since the start of this thread I completely finished going thru it all by the age of like 46! Pretty early. Apparently average age in American women is 51, or so my doc said. I'm reasonably sure that my height of psychological symptoms was 2020-2021 and indistinguishable from covid anxiety and frustration around other things that were happening? For instance, that was not a good time for my boyfriend to decide to have his kitchen renovated so we lacked cooking facilities for 3 months while his boorish friend came stayed over!!! In retrospect.

Anyway. Welcome to the other side!

I didn't go anywhere specialized, I just asked my regular gyn for HRT and she did an assessment and prescribed it to me.

Apart from the sweating and fatigue and muscle aches … I am actually not that bad? Except for i am becoming mildly lactose intolerant maybe?

My mynstrual tracking calendar is completely blank for 2024 so far

I mean if you got to your big age without being lactose intolerant, you've had like 30 good years post-childhood that many of us didn't get! lol

I can’t/shouldn’t have HRT thanks to good old estrogen/progesterone positive breast cancer. Though I might beg for it because I do not want to live this way.

My brain has turned into I don’t even know what. Doesn’t feel like me anymore

I'm so sorry.

Thanks IO. Good to have you back around these parts :)

Glad for both of you being around

I have one of these on my pillow, but once the gel shifts, you can't shift it back, so don't roll it up and put it in the freezer, like I did!

The sweating drives me bonkers. I mean ffs yesterday I was sweating even though it was not warm in my room and my feet were cold. Also, because of this, BO control has beocme really difficult, I end up only being able to wear every top once only, or else I stink :(

My GP has been so occupied with my T2D, I havent got round to asking about/getting onto HRT. I mus remember to mention it.

I thought about trying black cohosh/vitamin supplements, but the bottle I bought gives the indication I shouldnt take it if there's liver issues - which I have to watch cos of my cholestorol meds and drinking, so I DONT KNOW.

Trayce, if you’re not already doing so, use a cleanser like Hibiclens or Panoxyl (not all over, as they’re both drying, but in your main sweat areas). It’ll minimize the smell.

I shall indeed try that thanks for the tip!

Oh yes, I have been using hibiclens (generic version) followed by glycolic acid solution from The Ordinary, followed by by a WIDE (like, up my arms and down my sides) swath of antiperspirant/deoderant, followed by a sprinkle of antibacterial foot powder. Definitely helping.

I wonder how menopause brain compares to pregnancy brain? I've never experienced pregnancy at all, and I didn't have that kind of menopause experience. The, like...plasticity? of women's bodies throughout our lives is truly wild, we really are like 3 or 4 different people at different times. The whole "maiden/mother/crone" thing is way more literal than I ever realized.(Duh, stupid, say several millennia of women before me.)

I wonder how menopause brain compares to pregnancy brain? I've never experienced pregnancy at all, and I didn't have that kind of menopause experience. The, like...plasticity? of women's bodies throughout our lives is truly wild, we really are like 3 or 4 different people at different times. The whole "maiden/mother/crone" thing is way more literal than I ever realized.(Duh, stupid, say several millennia of women before me.)

I meet all of the criteria for PPD and PMDD, except for the pregnancy and period parts. So I would say there can be much in common!

The sweating drives me bonkers. I mean ffs yesterday I was sweating even though it was not warm in my room and my feet were cold. Also, because of this, BO control has beocme really difficult, I end up only being able to wear every top once only, or else I stink.

Important to note that I fall on the extreme end of the perimenopausal symptom spectrum, and don’t want others to think this severity is typical. Also the gold standard treatment (HRT) is complicated because of my cancer status.

I definitely notice the differences between BO severity and different fabrics… though maybe it’s just me idk but polyester increases the stink, and cotton doesn’t

Also I definitely prefer menopause symptoms to cancer.

While I know there are some Ilx women who have reproduced (I can think of at least 5) this website is the largest collection of nulliparous women I’ve ever encountered and for that I’m extremely grateful.

I actually taught some coworkers about the maiden/mother/crone thing bc I had to explain what a crone is. Because I was trying to make cronecore happen lol. Hasn’t happened yet but I’m not done trying!!

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?