I'm a mess, need advice!

Hi Maria, I know, it's just pure hell. It really is. I think trying bioidenticals is worth is. Just the creams, I wouldn't do the pellets. I sure hope it helps, even if I'm at 50% better it'd be a huge difference. I dropped so many things out of my diet which caused me to lose 30 pounds rather quickly and then I had problems because of that! Now I'm trying to put some weight back on and it's been impossible. My shoulders are so bad, and I think the pain in the upper back and ribs is what makes it hard to breathe all the time. My good days are supposedly coming on Monday or Tuesday next week, please God, let them be good days again! 

Hope you feel better too! It helps knowing others are going thru what I am too. Sometimes I feel so alone.

XOXO

you are not alone ..today is such a bad day for me ..the sad part is that i keep taking it out on my husband and i hate fighting..i'm just so tired and gets so overwhelming to take  care your family as well at times!

I use to have a neighbor years ago she use to tell me about and i didn't believed her, i come to experience everything she had mentioned!!

i have the same thing with my shoulders as you and when i get anxious they get even tighter and feels like my chest is closing up...my husband had an accident and i had to take him to the hospital the other day..i got such anxiety in there it felt someone was squeezing my head and chest!!..i swear i don't recognize the person i become!!! its so sad

I sent you a message below, but it's being moderated so might be flagged. I tried sending you my email address, that's probably why. Look me up on FB, Suzanne Cressman Armbruster. Maybe we can connect that way. Or just try and meet up somewhere one of these days.

Hope your husband is OK, the traffic here has been a nightmare! Wish they would stop rating our beach #1!

Maria - my neck is agony and getting headaches daily. Have you found anything that helps it? xx

Hi Sally

Nothing seems to help...I sleep with a headache I get up with a headache!!!! Please if anyone has something that can help us please share

Magnesium and vitamin b2 are good for migraines and headaches. Take a B Complex tho then add extra B2. Chiropractic can be great to make sure your neck, upper back and jaw are functioning correctly and not causing or contributing to the headaches. Some herbal complexes for menopause help some people with headaches. Daily meditation to help calm anxiety and thus the adrenals can help....as can gentle walks for exercise. Some people in peri have increased sensitivity to various headache triggers...eg food intolerance ( dairy, gluten, dark choc, preservatives) house chemicals, perfume, fragranced personal products. There's so many things that trigger headaches for different people ( not just hormones)... It's good to keep a headache diary (of when they're worse if you have daily headaches)and try to work out if there's any patterns....ie what you ate& drank,  what you smelled, what you came into contact with, what you were doing, etc. And remember if you're taking lots of pain killers you may be getting rebound headaches from the medication too! I feel your pain tho as I have daily headaches and migraines on top too!

I'm reading 'The Wisdom of Menopause' and she says that progesterone 2% cream that you can buy over the counter works wonders for headaches. Apply 1/4 tsp on your skin daily for two weeks prior to your period. Or three weeks out of every month if you no longer have periods.

Or if the headaches are from your neck and not peri I would suggest a down pillow from Cuddledown. That did wonders for my neck and headaches. It's the gusseted 700 or 800 fill pillows. Expensive but so worth it!

suzanne, i also suffer neck pain leading to headaches.  just a question, do you sleep on this one pillow alone, because i usually use two?

That's me to - I go to bed with a headache and I wake up with a headache and I have a headache everywhere in between that xx

I used to always sleep with two pillows, not down pillows, just regular pillows. A few years ago I started having some wicked neck issues. I would wake up with a headache every day (which is why I took so much Advil and ended up having gastritis issues!). I went to a neurosurgeon who did an MRI on my neck and brain. He told me I had the neck of a 20 year old! I was like "can you tell my neck that?". I finally figured out it was my pillow situation. I used just one Cuddledown gusseted pillow, first I started with the medium fill, then the overfill, but sometimes the overfill can be too much. You need to keep your neck aligned with your spine if you can.  You can send it back if the overfill is too much or the medium is not full enough. When I started using these pillows the headaches got much better. Lately I started using two pillows again because of my bad shoulder problem and I'm starting to get some headaches again. There's no winning..

Sally, try changing your pillow situation to see if it helps. Or maybe try the progesterone cream suggestion I mentioned before if you think it's all hormonal and not your neck.

Also, I try not to look down at my iphone all the time, hold it up to the level of your eyes. It will save you some neck problems!

aawww Sally i'm the same way!! it's been over a week, a day didn't go by without getting a headache!! xxxx let me know if you find something that works!

Please research more about what happens to our hormones during Peri and post menopause. The whole process of menopause is about our hormones. We cannot produce them the way we used to and if they are that unbalanced we must get them back on track. There's nothing strange or scary about any type of hormone replacement its just working out how we want to go about it and our bodies actually need it. Please keep an open mind as it sounds like you are suffering quite a lot.

Cheers Rosemary

Ladies, I'm goning to throw in that if headaches are the problem, You might want to Suzanne has mentioned.  I don't think a 14 day trial of progesterone cream would be a bad thing to try.  Start low and go slow, but you can get a progesterone ceam in your health food stores. 

Iv had migrains for ever and they used to be the typical migrain which I only discovered in the last few years are hormone related. Now I get very strange headaches always starting early hours of the morning in bed. First in back of my head and then they travel to the front and i get nausea with them too. They can last for up to 4 days and are definitely hormones Was given maxalt wafers for migraine few years ago and they work for my strange headaches too so they also must be a type of migraine. They're the only thing that works for me.

Rosemary.

Tell me about your pain in upper back. I have had such horrendous pain in my upper back since Friday. So bad I almost feel like passing out at times. Like someone is squeezing or something. I don't know what this is related too. Long story I had all sorts of tests in January for being sick and everything negative. I did have them draw hormones level and I will have to get exact results but dr said pre menopause and that's it. They also think I have fibromyalgia from few years ago and I think that's gotten way worst but not sure if this is hormonal. I also get palpitations at times and starting to have anxiety. For example today my back hurts so bad then I start getting worried. The pain I thought was possible reflux or heartburn but it's awful and it extemds down a little at times. So hard to explain. I've tried muscle relaxer heat pad ibuprofen everything. Then I just think I'm crazy. Just not sure if all these symptoms are from the hormone level being pre menopause

One of my first symptoms was pain next to my left shoulder blade. I also had a couple rounds of chest pain that ended me up in the ER, but nothing was wrong. I started getting lots of pressure in my upper back, like something really heavy was sitting on my back. Sometimes I feel like my ribs are being squeezed. I have a hard time breathing alot, sometimes it was severe. In the beginning I thought most of these symptoms were from acid reflux, but I never had any typical symptoms of reflux, so thought it was silent reflux. I had had a sore throat for a long time before all of this started and the ENT scoped it and said maybe silent reflux. He also felt my salivary glands and said they were very dry and maybe I had SJogrens. I started taking high doses of zantac, dropped lots of things out of my diet, lost a bunch of weight, and just kepts getting sicker and sicker. I had high liver enzymes (which I still think was from the zantac) which led to being admitted to the hospital for more tests. All tests were good except for gallbladder. So had that out. But it didn't solve anything, all the initial symptoms were still there. But the liver enzymes went back to normal. 

When I look back on it, I initially had that sore throat which started my spiral of thinking I had all kinds of things, lung cancer, etc. and the back pain which made me think I had ovarian or breast cancer. I was constantly googling symptoms and everything I'd google sounded like what I had. It consumed my every thought 24 hours a day. I wonder if I just made myself worse, when you look up anxiety issues, all the physical symptoms I have are there too. I dont have anxiety attacks, but definitely heath anxiety. But then again, did the symptoms and anxiety come on because of hormones??

 I sure wish I had a crystal ball and could put my mind at ease as to what's going on. Living with a chronic illness is so bad, and when you don't even know what it is, that's the worse. 

You are not crazy Lisa!!! I had that for a few months that send me to the ER a few times thinking was my heart..but I was told was Acid reflux .. one day was gone now I have the horrible pain in my shoulders and head now...like you my dr said peri menopause!!! The ER female dr she was suffering as well she told me she had to get on antidepressants it worked for her... vitamin D I think works wonders I was feeling great and I stopped taking them and all the symptoms start coming back!!!

Were you on antidepressants? 

No, Im so scared to take anything! The only medication I take when needed is omaproazole I'm not sure if I'm spelling it right for my stomach and acid reflux..it does help..is funny that you had the shore throat I had the same thing for months!! And I did go to an ENT dr ..he couldn't figure what was wrong and after a few visits I was told I'm a hypocandriac!!!! He cleaned my ears which was nothing wrong with them and send me off!!

I'm sure I'm labeled as a hypo as well, the last time I saw my concierge doc he declared "Guess what? There's nothing wrong with you". I'm sure he sends the other docs my records with some sort of note on there that there is nothing wrong with me. So I'm labeled before the doc even talks to me. The Indian cardiologist woman didn't even listen to my heart before she started her whole speech on "mindfullness".

Luckily my ENT is a personal friend for years and he knows that I'm not a hypo. 

I've thought about taking antidepressants but am too chicken as well. I have Lexapro waiting for me at the pharmacy, but I never picked it up. 

I take Vitamin D liquid daily, but I don't think it's helped me much. Crazy that we can live in Florida and still be low on D. It seems like an epidemic with everyone I know, they are all low! I try to sit out every day and get some natural D. All I'm doing is getting a very dark tan. Peopl are like, oh, you look so good. They have no idea how incredibly awful I feel inside.

I'm the same way LOL..I have so many medications called in to the pharmacy and I never pick them up I use to lay by the pool everyday it's been 6 months I haven't gone out there yet...