Perimenopause and SEVERE joint pain - any one else??

Hi Lesley, just wanted to say it's good to hear some positive news for once. I hope all goes well and your joint pain settles down and when the time comes to stop the HRT you have a smooth menopause,good luck.

Hi Lesley at last you have some answers even if it is a disgrace how long it's taken for anyone to take you seriously! It's astonishing what menopause can do and I hope you can tolerate the HRT for as long as is necessary. I have made the decision myself to stop Livial after just a week as it seems to be making me depressed and exacerbating some of the aches and pains I have. So back to the drawing board, possibly going the 'natural' route or discuss other forms of hrt when I visit the menopause clinic soon.One of my enduring questions too is what happens when one stops taking hrt particularly if one has been on it for a long time. At the clinic I was assured that the body goes through the process of adaptation even whilst one is taking hrt and therefore eases the transition period but posts I have seen from many women seem to suggest otherwise. Another school of thought says that hrt is only postponing the situation and one is better off going through the changes in ones fifties rather than, say, ones sixties but that depends on how severe the symptoms are. So Lesley I think you are doing the right thing for now, after all, you can't live your life unable to get out of bed! (( Good luck to you from now on. kate

Thank you both.

I have to say I am absolutely horrified at how clueless my male GP was - he is supposed to be the 'rheumy' expert of the practice, and yet he absolutely refused to consider any idea that my hormones could be to blame for the pain. He made me feel like a fool for even mentioning it. I pity the next lady of certain age who goes into see him and comes out feeling like a middle aged, anxious hypochondriac.

However... I have to say, even the internet - the place where I find out most things lol - is not exactly awash with information on 'joint pain and menopause'....it can't be that common. But it happens obviously, and the GP in the next office down the corridor new it!Talk about the luck of the draw. Anyway... thank goodness I saw the NP for my smear and got the go ahead to see another GP, or I would still be in that terrible state of pain exacerbated by worry.

I can't say I am totally happy at the thought of HRT. I really didn't think I would ever take it. I was a little smug actually, as, up until the day I was poleaxed by this pain I thought I had done quite well and had escaped any symptoms! No night sweats or flushes. But.....finding out that what I am taking is the 'urine from pregnant mares' in pill form doesn't fill me with joy either, but the way I was feeling last week, I would take a tablet made from the poo of a syphillitic warthog if it made me feel normal again.

Kate - I am sorry you feel bad. Can you experiment with patches and creams? I don't know anything about HRT. I just took what was on the prescription, I don't know how the GP worked out what was best for me. As long as I dont have any side effects (probably too early to tell) I will stick to this, but I would probably prefer a patch if I had the choice.

All I know is today, I genuinely feel like a different woman from last week.

Best to you both and stay well x

Hi Lesley,

I thought I'd drop you another line after reading your post this evening.

It's all a bit of a lottery with the NHS these days, dear old Dr Finlay and dedicated doctors are generally a thing of the past. I have a couple of nasty conditions that I have to live with and I can assure you I've yet to meet the doctor who knows as much as me about them, a lot of other people say the same.

As to HRT. My sister is in her second year of the HRT patch. She has a very responsible and demanding job and although aways swore she wouldn't succumb to HRT has had to. She became very low with every symptom possible when her menopause suddenly kicked in, she was 53 at the time. You may imagine how it began to affect her work performance and to an extent her home life. Within a few days of starting the HRT she was blooming again and hasn't looked back since. She just says now is more important to her than whatever may not happen in the future because she took it.

I also have a great friend who took HRT for ten years. Her doctor then said she could no longer take it and had let her have it for longer than recommended anyway. She almost immediately went into menopausal shock. At 66 that was not funny and she begged to go back on it but wasn't allowed to.

However the flushes/headaches/general bad feeling/hair loss did slow down after about 6 months, although I think she felt it was a great deal longer than that. She is now nearly 80 and as fit as a flea.

Loads of my friends have tried it, no one actually had any bad reactions or became ill on it. Some gave up quickly and a few soldiered on.

I've never had HRT and had five years of pure hell. I used to wear a tea towel round my neck at work to wipe my face with and dripped sweat onto my keyboard and very embarrassingly used to get off my seat with a wet patch on my skirt. I had to wear black all the time to try and hide it, it was that bad. Looking back I've no idea how I got through it with my creaky painful joints, bright red shiny face and hair stuck to my head. However I did, my colleagues were great and my husband even greater. I used to get through 3/4 nighties a night and slept, when I could sleep that is, on bath towels. Once it started to slow down we had to buy a new mattress and although I still have the odd flush it's all done and dusted. I'm very surprised that I still have a nice skin and look a lot younger than I am, I was expecting to be a wrinkled old prune by now.

I wish I could have taken the HRT and would have done without hesitation- I may have got promoted earlier! I laughed out loud about the warthog bit!!It's nice to talk about it all, even nicer to know it's behind me now.

So whatever happens, whether you stay on the HRT for years or decide to stop and face the music, I promise you one day it will all settle down, unfortunately you will find yourself catagorised in that 'older women' catagory. As I still feel about 6 inside, sometimes I have to have a second look in the mirror as the person looking back at me is someone I'm not sure I know.

My very best wishes to you and Kate, hope all works out for you both - we old girls have to stick together x

Hello Lesley,

I have been going through peri for about 6 years now-started at 48. I don't know what my mom would have gone through with peri-menopause since she had a hysterectomy(sp) at 41 years old. I beleive she was on HRS at the time too. I was worried when I got this joint/muscle pain that I was getting the arthritis my mom has now and what my grandmother had (my mom's mom). My grandmother passed away at age 83 because she had osteoarthritis and would take aspirin constantly for the pain. She finally died of a bleeding ulcer from the aspirin.

I work in a warehouse, where I am expected to lift over 40 lb objects and some are much more than that. I already had a documented disability with depression and when perimenopause hit, it hit the depression really hard. I am getting special accommodations on my job, but one of the core duties of my job is to be able to lift at least 40 lbs and deliver mail and packages. I have been trying to get another job, where I can just sit at a computer and get up every once in a while and stretch.

Now the reason why I am writing is because it feels like I am not the only one out there with this joint pain. My boss was gone for a few days last week and I really had a lot of items to pick up and deliver and I did over do the lifting. I started feeling bad on a Friday and the next weekend I was hurting in my ankles, some knee pain, wrists, shoulders and lower back. I just felt awful during the next whole week. I would just come home and not really feel like eating, which a big thing for me not to be hungry, and would just lay on the couch as my whole body was just aching like when you have a cold or flu. I spent the whole next weekend on the couch. I felt better to come to work on the next Monday, but I still have the incredible soreness going. I have been experiencing my muschles getting tighter when I try to stretch as I have always try to do. I figured it was because of the lack of the hormones in my system. The OBGYN Physcian's Assistant put me on progerterone for 14 days of the month to help my mood swings (that were not helping my job situation either.)

I called my PA about this pain and she called back and said "we never heard of this problem with anyone in perimenopaus, so go to your regular GP. They do not seem to want to deal with anything that is other than hot flashes or mood swings. As many women mentioned, some doctors or PAs think you are a basket case and crazy things other than the "normal" perimenopausal are the only things they deal with. So closed minded or they just do not have time for this, I don't know.

I am trying to take some natural herbs and other remedies I can research, along with eating better and exercising. I have read many places where it states that the older you get, the more you should still keep active, maybe adjust activity to what you can do and not overdo it. It does hurt to move and we all get stiff from non-movement, but I still don't want to be lifting heavy packages and furniture as I have been doing since I got this job when I was 46. At 46, it was not too bad, but now I might get a not too estatic reaction to my problems with lifting items and help with getting another job. Jobs are hard to find now and my company has been trying to help me, but they just might think I am trying to get out of doing my job and not believe me even with a doctor's note, since I have gone through a lot because of the mood swings and they have been very good to me by providing some accommodations which have helped. Taking the progesterone seems to have helped the horrible crying moodswings and depression along with the anit-depressants I take. If I tell my supervisors I have this problem, they may either get angry with me or take me off the job right away instead of wait and help me get another job. In my situation I can request to have another job that I am qualified for as a non-competative candidate, but that does not mean that I will get another job. So I am between a rock and a hard place with the pain and still having to lift heavy objects everyday. I can't lose my job as my husband is disabled with a hearing loss.

But the main idea of this web site is to see what other women are experiencing and I really appreciate what everyone has shared, it helps immensely. I will keep following everyone's responses and if I find anything that works, I will mention it also.

Thank you all so much and I hope everyone has a better experience or finds a way to relate to it differently so that it won't be so hard. Good thoughts to all of you!

Hello everyone

Firstly can I offer my sincere thanks to all of you as prior to reading your blogs ( by chance while playing with my new Xmas toy) I really was getting very worried & stressed that I had some kind of major illness.

History - like all of you I am at that age (51) when you know the menopause is around the corner so just get To get on with life I have always been good for my age , not overweight , do not smoke or drink heavily but over the past few years have developed a number of common systems - mainly night sweats , tiredness,headaches, weight gain and for about 2 years jount pain - I first approached my GP about 2 years ago when it got so bad that I was unable to move my left arm. ) I was then referred to a caropractioner whom I visitedevery week for a year. The systems lessened but did not go away .

Then last year I went through a very stressful personnel trauma that resulted in living with the pain via any painkiller I could get m hands on i even started to think I was going mad as the pain was moving around my joints ( my GP 's face tells me that he thinks I am making this up) but that is not the case.

I still have the night sweats & at present the pain isi in my right shoulder & is worse at night or if I do any exercise or even lift my arm up suddenly.

But now I have read what you have wrote I have researched peri menopause & my symptoms of joint pain is not in my mind and is actually there I feel that I now want to see what I can do to decrease my symptoms

1 thing at this stage I do want to pass on is ( my children think I'm mad ) is that for about a week now I have slept with a cold wet flannel wrapped around my shoulder joint - this I have then covered with a drytowel to stop the pillows getting wet and also had to hand another cold wet flannel for my head - the pain has decreased enough to allow me to sleep until the night sweats start but the cold flannel has reduced the. timespan so at least I have got some sleep.

And no pain killers so far

So ladies fingers crossed we can do this & thank you all so much

Debi

Debi,

Hi....what I think you have is what I have also been diagnosed with...and this is a frozen shoulder, or 'adhesive capsulitis'. There is a board here for it which I have also posted on!! I now cannot move my left arm more than a couple of inches in any direction. It is agony at night. Sudden movements cause complete agony for a moment where think I am going to pass out (I almost slipped on ice the other day, put both arms out to balance as you do and got this pain so bad I thought I was going to be sick.) Hanging up washing, drying my hair, even washing under my arms is difficult as I have such limited movement from the shoulder. I am getting physio for it, but it can take a looong time to go away. I advise you to read up on it.

MY GP tells me it is probably because of the low estrogen and how it affects my tendons. Some women (like us) are particularly prone to tendonitis from menopause...it is more the tendons causing the pain than 'joint' pain. it is absolutely hellish. I am now on double strength hormones, and I have to say I do feel an improvement in the rest of my body, although this frozen shoulder is still very sore.

Sending my best wishes to all who have posted...and Jane, I feel so sorry for you in a lifting job. There is NO WAY I could lift with this pain. it is all I can do to type!!