Perimenopause & hormones

[Dogmama]

Can anybody relate?

I'm waking up soaking wet. At least 10 times a day, I flash & not just "Gee is it warm in here?" but sweating. I'm in Arizona staring down 100+ degree days. Not fair. Saw my gyn yesterday & she rx'd a patch - estrogen & progestin. Has anybody taken hormones to get through this period?

I know the lack of sleep is feeding my depression/irritability. I'm hoping the estrogen boost will move me out of it. SSRI's make me really stupid, but I take a small amount to smooth out the rough edges - mainly so I don't bonk my DH over the head for leaving his underwear laying around (again! Grrr!! Was I put on this planet to pick up after this man?? I digress...) See what I mean?

Part of me - the 60's flower child - says that I should move through this without meds - learn the lessons of life- etc. The fact is that suicide runs in our family - my mother tried twice & my brother was successful so I'm very alert to depressed feelings in myself. All of the docs say "take the pill" but if your only tool is a hammer, doesn't the whole world look like a nail?

I'm just rambling, so I'll stop now. I'm hoping that some TE sisters can at least tell me that I'm not alone!

[Crankin]

Well, I'm 6 years past peri-menopause, but I still go through periods of night sweats and minor flashes. I did not take any hormones when my symptoms started. I actually started the peri-menopause symptoms in my early forties and did not stop my periods until I was 48. Sometimes I went 6-9 months without one and felt like I was going to explode. The first year after I stopped, I had no symptoms and then I went through 3-4 years of hot flashes that I think were mild to moderate compared to some.
I think it's OK to take the hormones for a very*short* period of time, given all of the negative stuff I've read about them. In the mean time, I would investigate alternatives. One thing that I know is being hot makes hot flashes worse. I lived in AZ for 16 years, and I can't imagine being there during the time I was having a lot of flashes. Keep a water bottle nearby and drink constantly. I often would keep a cool cloth on my desk and sneakily wipe down when my students weren't looking! I tried black cohash and it did nothing. You might want to try acupuncture. It has helped me with other medical things and has a good track record with some gynecological issues. Make sure you find a reputable practitioner who has experience with this, though. Learning some meditation techniques/breathing also helped me get through the flashes. It gave me something to focus on beside how hot I felt!
Good luck!

[shootingstar]

I know the lack of sleep is feeding my depression/irritability. I'm hoping the estrogen boost will move me out of it. SSRI's make me really stupid, but I take a small amount to smooth out the rough edges - mainly so I don't bonk my DH over the head for leaving his underwear laying around (again! Grrr!! Was I put on this planet to pick up after this man?? I digress...) See what I mean?

Part of me - the 60's flower child - says that I should move through this without meds - learn the lessons of life- etc. The fact is that suicide runs in our family - my mother tried twice & my brother was successful so I'm very alert to depressed feelings in myself. All of the docs say "take the pill" but if your only tool is a hammer, doesn't the whole world look like a nail?

I'm just rambling, so I'll stop now. I'm hoping that some TE sisters can at least tell me that I'm not alone!

Besides your hot flashes, perhaps there's something in life that is nagging at you. I tend to believe that long-term depression is not hereditary. Suicide is never just an instant sudden idea or unsubstantitated action. Depression and how we deal with it is based more on learned behaviours how people cope in new, better ways or break past family pattterns of how to deal with problems of coping with the future and present.

I'm not the right person for advice, since my perimenopause is completely the opposite. Period is gently and slowly fading away. Get only a mild hot flash for 5 min. maybe once or twice at start of my period..in the morning.

But keep on cycling. Every physician does recommend regular exercise during this time.

[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.

[shootingstar]

Guess my placebo is having eaten and continuing to eat tofu for many years...like breathing to me. We'll see.

(Not to be confused with soy sauce nor miso, which too much of it is unhealthy ...cause it's too much salt.)

and for lruhan: Would be great, if you can ease off meds. after meno. sometime. My comments were intended that even 1-2 family members who are bipolar, etc. doesn't mean all other generations will get it nor be affected much for long.

[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

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Can anybody relate?.... I'm hoping that some TE sisters can at least tell me that I'm not alone!

I can relate.
I often feel like I'm swimming against the tide. So, without going into a lot of 'discussion' on it, I'm just going to say that if HRT will make a big difference in getting you over the hump of the worst part of menopause, and your doctor checks your health and gives the ok, then go for it.

[Bad JuJu]

I'm 55, almost postmenopausal (I think), and haven't ever taken HRT, though my doctor would've been happy to prescribe it. But really, I think I've had a pretty gentle menopause--I did and still do occasionally get flashes, both night and day, but they're nothing compared to what some women go through. Mine are like someone else mentioned--short and not too intense. Exercise helps, though I never would have thought one body could produce so much perspiration!

Here's an interesting thing to look forward to: now that I seem to be coming out on the "other side" of the pause, I'm actually beginning to feel colder than most people around me, much of the time. Then a flash hits and I have to start peeling things off. It's a roller coaster!

[RoadRaven]

I still think this is where I am heading - hot flushes during the night sometimes - last month I had only 3 weeks between periods - that hasn't happened since I was a teenager! (Even after babies, my period began in regular 30 day cycles).

I am glad you have the reassurance of being able to talk with women here, Dogmama. I am glad you recognise patterns in your family and are aware of your own feelings.

The hippy in me (even though I was BORN in the 60s, so was a flower-bubba, rather than a flower-child) really wants to get through this part of my life medically unassisted. But like you, if needs must, then I will try what I need to if I have to. Ultimately, we still want to enjoy every day. Take care of yourself - this too will pass.

[Dogmama]

I don't take any medication lightly. I have lupus. Hormones that are not exactly right will cause a flare. Progesterone is the worst for me, but I know it helps lots of my friends. This stage of my life is almost unbearable. The hot flashes (sweating, turning bright red) are always followed by a cold flash - like my body doesn't have anymore body heat to give me. So, I alternately throw covers off and then bundle up at night. And wake up at 3:00 AM, tired of fighting the battle.

My doc said that she'll taper me when the time is right. She's very holistically inclined, but doesn't prescribe anything that doesn't have a foundation of proof. I used to work with Andrew Weil, so I've been the herbal compound route. It might have helped when my symptoms were mild, but now they just give me expensive urine. I used to declare that I would never go on hormones because they aren't natural & if my body wants to age, we'll do it gracefully. Mommie Dearest isn't natural. OK, not that bad - but inwardly I'm screaming "No metal hangers!"

I've done tons of therapy and it helps. I don't know how women who don't exercise get through this period. Without my workouts, especially cycling, I'd be really miserable. Although, it is a little disconcerting to be weight lifting & start hot flashing. Hopefully all the young kids just think I'm working REALLY hard!

[DDH]

I am soooo right there with you on this. I have not had night sweats yet, but during the day I cannot get cool enough a lot of times.
I am very groucy and snippy a lot and I hate myself this way.
I will be sitting here doing nothing and then all the sudden my back will feel like it is going to combust. Use to be that I didn't sweat, and I felt like it would cool me off it I did. Well now I am sweating while sitting and doing nothing and it still doesn't cool me off, just make me angry. I feel so angry all the time.
I do know that exercise helps, because on the days I ride, I will go all that day and maybe the next and have no flashes (and I think mine are mild copared to some) but if I don't ride for a few days because of weather or what have you, then I will have more.

I haven't been to the doctor yet, cause I still question what I have going on, and I am only 43 soon to be 44.

As women we have to deal with so much with these hormones, I swear I don't know why we have to deal with periods all our lives and then deal with this too.

Oh, well nothing we can do about it I guess. Can't change the grand scheme of things now, but sure wish I could hand it back. LOL