i feel like im dying

All you ladies need to get the AMH blood test. It will tell you the basic window of when you will actually REACH full menopause (within about a 4 year range). It is highly accurate. The reason this is good is that at least you will have an idea of when it will level out. Because menopause can hit anywhere from 40 to 60! In my case, my level was 0.22 at age 41, so the prediction of full menopause onset is age 44.5 to 47.6. I smoked alot and t reduced the insert age by approx 3 years. Also low body weight reduced it. This is good to know so at least I'm not having to wonder if it's going to go on another 5-10 years! Although the symptoms can still continue after the first 12 months of menopause and no one can predict how long those will last but basically once your estrogen drops you'll still having periods and then your body has to get used to no estrogen. I think you guys would REALLY benefit from this simple blood test. Just tell your doctor you need the ANTI MULLERIAN HORMONE TEST for menopause prediction.

WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE AND“PERIMENOPAUSAL OVARIAN HYPER-STIMULATION”

In the book Women of the 14th Moon, nurse practitioner MauraKelsea says, “At [peri]menopause* life can turn into one long premenstrual experience. Hormones slap you up against the doors of your unfinished business.” Her description of “one long premenstrual experience” aptly describes the physical and emotional upset related to abnormally high estrogen levels. If a woman is to differentiate between moods caused by the social stress of the menopausal transition, and moods caused by highestrogen levels, it helps to be able to recognize the effects of abnormally high estrogen

For women who menstruate, there are two accurate signs of highestrogen levels that normally occur for a day or two at the middle of a menstrual cycle: front-of the-breast tenderness and stretchy cervical mucus. If estrogen remains high for several days, then the breasts also swell, become firmer and may develop the kind of tenderness often characteristic of early pregnancy. Stretchy mucus is caused by estrogen stimulation of the glands of thecervix (the mouth of the uterus). This mucus is clear and slippery (like raw egg white), can be stretched in a long thread 5-7 cm (2-3" long) and acts to assist sperm traveling into the uterus to fertilize an egg. This type of mucus disappears after mid-cycle whenprogesterone comes on the scene. Therefore, not only is mucus a sign of high estrogen levels, its disappearance is good evidence of ovulation

Many perimenopausal women have a high estrogen mid-cycle peak without ovulation. FSH then stimulates another follicle to make high estrogen levels that peak a week or so later. At that point the endometrium has become thickened, is over stimulated and begins to bleed. Thus a common menstrual pattern in theperimenopause is for front-of-the-breast tenderness and stretchy mucus to begin in the middle of the cycle, but then to continue and be at their maximum at the start of a period. Menstrual bloodmixed with this mucus may resemble currant jelly. When these signs are present, it is clear evidence that ovulation did not occur. It may also be associated with heavy flow, increased premenstrual moodiness, fluid retention, bloating, and sometimes with menstrual cramps

What is the significance of these high estrogen levels – aside from breast tenderness and stretchy mucus? According to one recent study, estrogen serves to amplify our body’s hormonal responses to any kind of stress. This was demonstrated by randomizing young men to wear either a high-dose estrogen or aplacebo patch and then subjecting all of them to a standard stress test (speaking and doing math problems in front of an audience). Those who were receiving estrogen were found to produce higher levels of the kinds of hormones manufactured in response to stress (i.e. ACTH, cortisol and norepinephrine

Daytime hot flashes and night sweats are usually interpreted as indicators of low estrogen, despite the fact that they occur in response to rapidly decreasing estrogen levels. Many women who experience flashes find that they start while they are still menstruating regularly – before estrogen could be low. There is now good evidence that hot flashes are related to at least two conditions:

I just feel ill , and by 3pm I ache all over so have convinced my self the doc is missing something terrible , He has told me my hormones have gone back into turmoil but will not allow me back on HRT  ! Sex is agony ! So we will forget that and my life is now miserable ! 

I’m afraid and paranoid! 

When did your periods actually stop. ..how many months/years?

I'm learning more every day about ovaries, the role of estrogen in the female body, long term effects of too much vs not enough, cysts, dhea and cortisol, etc etc. There was an article on AARP magazine about how most doctors are not educated on menopause and really could care less because the aging group makes less profit than pregnancy and surguries. (Go figure) So we are on our own really. But. ..we have each other at least! I have learned (sadly) to be content each day with my own (now drastically lowered) status-quo! If I sleep thru the night. .. yay! If I don't have heart racing/skipping, yay! If I don't bleed, yay! If I feel "okay" and not scared or panicked about my health, yay! I try to just be happy each day to be alive and try not to panic about the future which is SO hard as all of you know. Moment to moment. I don't know what next week holds, or what horrible symptom will appear next. I'm struggling financially, mentally, emotionally and of course physically. But. .. we do persevere don't we ladies? Because we have the drive to survive. ... we are fighters! We are out living our ancestors by decades and although we are technically cheating death and our time is "borrowed" anyway, we are striving to prove that menopause, this horrible state, is not going to keep us down, it is not going to rob us of happiness in the last years of our lives!

Most of this is truly transcendance- a letting go of our expectations of stability, of feeling "the way we did back in the day", of any kind of prediction or knowledge of the future. Like soldiers, we are marching onward towards an unknown future & fate. It isn't fun, it is scary, and often sad! And just like soldiers, we have to push that dread aside every moment and bravely march anyway!

I hate it! But. .. we are not the only ones to face battles, terror, despair, and misery. And we are not the only ones who have gone thru this- many women we see on the street are survivors too! Many have been where we are right now, but they do not wear signs on their backs stating that! Every once in awhile (if you talk alot openly about your suffering as I do ), one of them will share and then you see how many have suffered just like us! It gives me hope every time I hear a seasoned lady tell what she has been through. ..