Posted , 21 users are following.
HI ladies Iknow thta we are not imagining and I'm comuncating with for real people. My friends are telling "oh these people aren't real.. that this sight takes your symptoms and create people to respond..can you believe that??????????
0 likes, 54 replies
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metamorphed cathy55794
Posted
i'm a real person with real symptoms
sheena4572 cathy55794
Posted
Morning!!!
Yeah I'm fake, sitting her looking like crap after another disturbed sleep from the heat waves...my jaw and joints are aching and I can't be bothered to move, I've got ringing in my ears like I've stood next to the speakers in a club on a Saturday night out and my body permanently feels like it's got a hangover haha. Oh wait..... No this is real, I'm in peri menopause and I dislike it a lot but I find this group of ladies fantastic support and that's real. Tell your friends to do one, because some of them won't ever understand, other may hit this stage and then regret their silly comments. Squishy hugs to all xxx
rachel30860 cathy55794
Posted
Dear all. please can I join the discussion? I'm 49, but will be 50 in a few months
and for about a year now I have been noticing small changes physically and massive changes mentally (ironically my periods are more regular than ever but I will have 2/3 very heavy days and then they might stop abruptly). I've also been getting hot flushes but so far so good in that I can stand outside and feel better and no. Other flushes yet. However mentally I am an absolute mess. I have extreme health anxiety and since I lost my father to cancer in May this year I am assessing every symptom I have and diagnosing cancer each time especially as I approach the "50+ age category" My doctors surgery is handy but I can rarely see the same doctor twice unless I am prepared to wait weeks at a time. Last time I went I broke down in tears and was given 4 days worth of diazepam which didn't even help. Anyone else getting these emotional turmoils? I have quite a responsible job and recently got a promotion which I don't think I will be able to manage given the way I feel. Im on dispair. Sometimes I don't know how I will get through the day.
becky53379 rachel30860
Posted
natallia04776 rachel30860
Posted
Oh, my dear! I've lost my sister 2 years ago due to stroke .She was 45 and Im 43 now. Everything is drama for me. If I have a headache I rush to check my blood pressure. My kids keep me going to be honest with you.
Don't give up , think about your new job! Maybe better money?- hollidays?
Wishing you all the best!
theresa25431 cathy55794
Posted
My name is Theresa and Im real I just joined this a coulpe of weeks ago.
cathy55794 theresa25431
Posted
natallia04776 cathy55794
Posted
I'm real😊 and 1000000 more are too.
We don't want to drive our friends, families and husbands mad that's why we come here and say " any ony has got that? "?
Any way I'm here.
cathy55794 natallia04776
Posted
jenni70 cathy55794
Posted
Hi Cathy, I actually said something like this to my chiropractor not long ago. I said that the only thing that has really helped me believe that I WASN'T dying of a terrible disease, was a peri-menopause online forum. I went on to say that I wondered if it was real, or if maybe perhaps it was full of lonely people willing to corroborate symptoms to feel connected online (not meaning any disrespect). I said that if that was the case, I was going to look the other way and accept the placebo affect. Now, deep down, I don't believe this. Too many people have brought up things that are bizarre, not normally associated with peri/menopause at all, and these are the very same bizarre things that I am experiencing.
I don't entirely agree with the theory that "your friends just haven't hit perimenopause yet", as I have many friends who are around age 50 and have gone through the full year without a period - menopause. Many of my friends have not felt the things that I have felt. I feel that perimenopause has hit me on a systemic level. I've even wondered if MS was the culprit, or some other auto-immune disorder, as I could not believe that I could have so many symptoms (some strange and scary) cropping up one right after the other. It's as though I come to terms with one scary set of symptoms, and then a new one crops up to take the lead to scare me about a whole new potential illness.
I feel embarrassed sometimes that I feel so terrible, as I feel as though this is how a hypochondriac would be (unable to help themselves-again, no disrespect). I am not a hypochondriac. I am having true physical symptoms and I am a real person. You can tell your friends that they are the fortunate ones. Who would want to feel these feelings and have a dramatic shift in their life like this?
I look back 5/6 years ago and feel like I've aged 10+ years over this. I am not the same person that I was before. I fight against health anxiety on a nearly daily basis - it's exhausting. I work really hard to keep my head above the water during this phase of life. I have wonderful, supportive friends, I have a sense of humour that keeps me going, and a beautiful family. I still struggle every day.
Not to sound dramatic, but it's because I can identify with people on this forum that my sanity is still intact. I think that I might have gone down a dark, loney path of depression if I hadn't found this site. And I am not that person. That is how real and powerful this forum has been for me. I know that I am real, so there must be SOME real people on here. And that's good enough for me.
Thank you for sharing, all of you real people out there.
gailannie jenni70
Posted
Hi there Jenni,
So glad to talk to a REAL person. When I read your post I did want to mention a couple of things that I find interesting. Just so you know, I also had a horrible time in perimenopause, and then things did level out. I continued periods for another ten years. Then periods went to every other month, then three, then six months, and then finally stopped. Actually I thought I did well with natural menopause. I never once had a hot flash or a night sweat! (hard to believe but I didn't.) Had some chronic pain, frozen shoulder, but thought I was doing well and didn't connect the dots of pain to menopause. So there's the background, and here's the interesting part.
I finally wound up with an endrocrinologist who has spent her entire life with a focus on female hormones. I know we all believe that when a woman is finally done with her periods, that she doesn't have any estradiol at all. Apparently that's not true. Some women can run a very stable and consistent estradiol level of around 50pg/ml for quite a while. They don't have enough estrogen to create a period, but enough so they feel pretty good. (the doctor I saw felt that I fell into that category) And then there are woman who literally crash, going from periods to almost to no estradiol production the next month. So even though you have friends who haven't had a period for a year, who seem to be symptom free, this may indicate they are still running fairly high levels, or that their level are easing down so gently that they aren't doing badly with the change. However, I guess what I'd like to mention is, even though they are doing fine right now, doesn't mean that they will feel great going forward. Loosing our female hormones changes every other hormone in our systems, because they all work together. So what you may see is one friend who now developes a thyroid problem, or another who is having anxiety problems, or another who developes type II diabetes. Because all those hormones are effected by our sex steriods. And some of these women may not talk about vaginal dryness and atrophy, or a lack of sex drive.
What we must recognize is that menopause effects every woman, it really depends on how we feel the experience.
jenni70 gailannie
Posted
Hi Gailannie,
Thank you for sharing your experiences with me. I'm not sure that my post was very clear if I gave the impression that many of my friends didn't experience any effects from peri-menopause to menopause, because they did. I was expressing that most of my friends didn't experience the less common symptoms that I have experienced, hence the appreciation for this forum where I've been able to identify with others over some pretty frightening symptoms.
I have a great respect for hormones and the symbiotic relationship between hormones and the nervous system! I do believe that stress, that I once might have been able to navigate without much ado, is no longer tolerated by my system. Cortisol can wreak havoc with me these days (likely due to many system shifts - creating a perfect storm sometimes). I also believe that the gut plays a major factor at this time of life as well.
But I digress, my reply is to acknowledge, and agree, with your point that menopause affects every woman; however, I was speaking more to the original poster's dilemma with her friends not believing this forum to be "real". I added in my own appreciation for the posts, from those who had shared some very strange symptoms, that most of my friends couldn't identify with.
The work with your endocrinologist sounds wonderful - wouldn't it be great if this sort of support was more readily available for women navigating some challenging times. I have only seen an endocrinologist once in my life, during my second pregnancy (not a mystery that I am experiencing a challenge during this next hormonal time of life). My endocrinologist was a very interesting fellow - in such an interesting field - but some days I really couldn't care less about the physiology of it all, I just want to feel "normal" again. I am working on finding a new normal, and just doing what I can to keep my gut happy, my mind calm, and meditating & walking my way through this.
Best to you.
cathy55794 jenni70
Posted
Thanks for you reply Jenni.....I agre I feel as though I've age..do not feel like the same person...I just want to be myself again,,God bless and keep you
maria101 cathy55794
Posted
Hi Cathy again, I have cousin that is 52 years old and don't get nothing so lucky when I was her age peri was hurting me left right and centre...when miss my periods got worst with hotflashes
she has been supportive but she has no idea what this is like, she going through peri herself missing periods ever so often buy luck I guess not to be bothered with the bigger symptoms such as panic attacks and Anixety
iam a lot better then I was but the crap goes and comes.
Jokey cathy55794
Posted
I am real Cathy, sometimes nowadays I wish I wasnt 😁