Perimenopause & hormones

[mimitabby]

your doctor probably won't let you take those hormones for more than 2 years, then you're going to go through the same thing again!
a friend of mine prolonged the agony for years by getting on and off hormones.
I am 56 and have been in full menopause for 3 years and I still get hot flashes day and night. The frequency is finally going down but i still get some doozies.

I find them somewhat amusing, because I'm usually cold. good luck.

[Melalvai]

For a while my research project was black cohosh. This is an herb used as an alternative to hormone replacement. It has been tested thoroughly for estrogenic activity, and has none (an old report claimed it did, but that turned out to be a contaminant). Whether it is effective depends on the study. It may depend on which brand--I'd be cautious of Remifemin, the most popular brand, which lacked the marker compounds for black cohosh (and thus, possibly didn't actually have any black cohosh at all).

That is the problem with "dietary supplements"--anything labelled as such is not FDA regulated, and quality control is not consistent. It may not be what it says. The GNC brand seems to be pretty consistent.

My thinking is, even if it is only as effective as placebo, that's pretty good. Placebo reduces hot flashes by 50%. When I'm that age, I hope someone will give me a sugar pill but convince me it is a potent drug. Hormone replacement is more effective, it reduces hot flashes by 85%. Black cohosh is probably somewhere in between.

My research has been on whether black cohosh, like hormone replacement, increases the risk of breast cancer. Since it is not estrogenic, it is not likely to have that side effect. It seems to act through neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. It did not increase or decrease mammary tumors in my rats. If it also doesn't interact with tamoxifen, it would be a great alternative because tamoxifen causes hot flashes just like menopause.

[Irulan]

I'll disagree with the idea that long term depression is not hereditary. Without going into extreme details, there are many depressive disorders in one branch of our family, including bi-polar, dysmthmia and anxiety disorders. We can track disorders going back four generations. All the appropriate treatment in the world hasn't fixed a chemical imbalance in my brain. It's helped a lot - I certainly function in a more healthy fashion- but 10 years of excellent therapy, while it rooted out a lot of baggage and issues, has not been able to shake the low grade depression that is a fact of life for me.
My MD psych has suggested that I wait until menopause is over to try and function without meds as it's not been working before.

I am a big fan of Dr. John Lee's work. He's very against the use of certain kinds of estrogen, and believes we have too much estrogen already (estrogen dominance). I've used the recommendation of bioidentical progesterone creams with lots of success. One of his ideas that makes perfect sense to me is that Ma Nature intended for us to have reduced estrogen as we age - so why on earth do we keep adding it back in? The environmental factors also make a lot of sense to me.

You might take a look at
Estrogen Dominance

for a perspective on this.

[Brandi]

I believe I have just started going through the peri part. I started having palpataions at around the same time every month and I want to whack my dh over the head at least a couple times a day. I am emotional and not thinking rational thoughts. This is of coarse a couple weeks out of the last few months. I am only 39 but it is possible. My GP wants me to go see my gyno doc and have her run the test needed. Right now I am taking a vitamin called Optivite. It is supposed to help with these problems. But it takes at least 2 months to see an improvement. I have been on them a month so far. Haven't noticed any real change yet.I am going to keep records for a little longer before I go see my gyno about it. i just want to be armed with info so she can say "oh yea I can see a patern here". But I won't take hormone's though I want a more natural approach.

[KnottedYet]

I started when I was your age, Brandi.

My mom says it lasted about 10 years for both her and her mother.

oh, goodie....

At least exercise seems to help me. Alcohol makes it worse for me. Chocolate... lots of salt... much better! (too much sweating = loss of salt, I guess.)

[Miranda]

The GFs and I that are in the same boat say this (meant to be funny in a way, but NOT in the true sense): "It's a coin toss: am I suicidal, or am I homicidal?" Isn't being a woman just "wonderful" sometimes? BLEAH!

I went to a shrink for part of the depression, and it was helpful in many ways. The shrink was: a woman, an older woman/mother/wife (been there, done that, sorta thing), and bonus prize... a cyclists. By some miracle, both my fm doc, and gyno docs' are cyclists.

I have yet to do the meds. I have some though sitting in my medicine cabinet. My endorphine happy serratonin rush from pedaling keeps me from flipping the proverbal coin mentioned earlier. All of my docs said above encouraged my cycling as a positive outlet. The dog happily gets walked to death with me listening to my ipod too. One of my GFs went on a low does BC pill just for the hormone help. It helped her. She's not a cyclist, but runs and whacks the living he$$ out of tennis balls as a treatment.

I don't use this now, but there is a antiper/deorderant called Certain Dri you can buy OTC. It's high aluminum content, so check with your doc. But, it was the only thing to combate the sweats at work. You use it at bedtime, and for the love of gawd do not shave your armpits before applying it.

I'll save my long rant about picking up DH's underware. But in short: no, you are not meant to be on Earth to pick up the underware. My shrink had some opinions about underware that worked on many different levels.

Unfortunately my wise mother told me that it is a good ten years for the change to happen with the family women. Guess my bike has a lot of miles in it's future.

You're not alone, FWIW... hope there are some things from the TE wisdom that helps carry you through.

Miranda