Three weeks ago I heard the news I have been waiting to hear for years, “I think we’ll start you on HRT and see how you get on,” said my doctor.
I’m 3 weeks away from my 46th birthday. But this hasn’t been a quick diagnosis. I started thinking I was perimenopausal at about 39. I thought I’d document how I got from there to here in case it can help any of you.
I was having lots of symptoms but they could also be attributed to thyroid issues. Due a family history of both thyroid and early menopause I went to the doctor and surprisingly had a good response.
Blood tests were done and I was listened to. The thyroid tests came back as clear so it was suggested I go on the combined pill to deal with the mood swings and regulate things a bit.
I was also doing a lot of work on myself at this time due to having a network marketing business. That kind of thing gets scoffed at a lot, but I truly believe more people should do that kind of work on themselves. It doesn’t seem very British to get in touch with your feelings, but it really helped me. I wear my heart on my sleeve and am fiercely loyal, but the negative side of being a highly emotive and empathic human is that I take on a lot of feelings and often react in a big way. Some would say overreact. It isn’t ‘over’ to me though, it is the right amount of emotion for me, it is just seen as an overreaction by others. I’m getting side tracked! The point is I had worked through some issues and trauma and mentally was in a good place.
I was also on a big health kick, the network marketing came about because I had found a solution to my IBS (don’t worry, this isn’t a sales pitch, but is an important part of the story) and was eating healthier than I had ever done before. Life was good!
I knew I wasn’t 100% right though, I know there were symptoms still there but to be honest they weren’t debilitating enough to warrant anything changing. I think I was also feeling that I had control of things. The pill and the healthy eating were working just well enough for them to not massively impact my life.
What were they?
Hair loss, brain fog, mood swings, weight gain, bowel issues. The last two were taken care of by my new way of eating and therefore off the table. The mood swings were helped with the pill which really just left the first two.
I carried on like that for 4 years, empowering myself with knowledge by reading books on the menopause, watching TV shows and following social media channels that could help. And that word empowering really is the key. We are not taught about this in school, it is not something that is talked about in our society, the older generation didn’t, and still don’t, talk about it much so we are left in the dark. And as this thing erodes our self esteem anyway, we feel so small when it happens. Learning all this stuff really boosted my self esteem and helped keep the anxiety at bay for a while as I felt more in control the more I learnt about it.
Then we got to March 2020. And we all know what that bought. A few months before I had started to notice some changes again. The symptoms were getting worse and there were more of them. That time is a bit hazy as like everyone else I seem to have mentally blocked out the craziness of early 2020 when we were trying to pretend that nothing bad was going to happen.
But I think I can add in bladder symptoms, anxiety, breast tenderness, migraines, dizziness, night sweats, weight gain, heightened allergies.
I could feel things getting worse, yet other things stayed very much the same, like my periods and mood as the pill was controlling those.
As I was at home due to lockdown I dialed in to my symptoms more, I wasn’t rushing through life as the world had shut down and I noticed them far more. But I knew it would be hard to tell what was going on whilst I was on the pill. Fate intervened as I forgot to do a repeat prescription and didn’t want to bother the Drs when they were struggling to cope with everything Covid was throwing at them. When that packet ended in April 2020 I stopped taking them.
Interestingly not much changed to begin with. I think it took a while for the effects of the pill to be out of my system properly, something that also happened when I originally came off the pill to get pregnant in my 20s. I was also sent off course by what else was going on around me. It’s hard to know if your anxiety is due to menopause or due to the fact that you are living through a global pandemic and dealing with a world that nobody knows how to live in! There were some awful things happening at that time, but I also managed to achieve things I never thought possible. I was due to run the London Marathon in 2020 which got canceled. I ran it locally to me instead in the October and then carried on training to run it in London in 2021. Although there were lots of stresses in our family around returning to school and work and my businesses being affected, I was actually the healthiest I had ever been. I felt strong and powerful.
But as things started to settle down and we started to live kind of normally again I could tell that my hormones were starting to rule my life and not in a good way.
This time it was my body rather than my mind that I noticed the most. I thought all the marathon training had been the cause of weight gain, I ate a lot during those 2 years! But I soon noticed that even though I was doing all of the things that had previously worked like a dream, the weight wouldn’t come off. I am now a stone heavier than when this story started and it does not want to go away! That’s a story for another time, but important for this tale as I recognised that my body wasn’t working as well as it should be. I also couldn’t run anymore. I did take some time away from running after the marathon, but not that long and even though I managed those magic 26.2 miles previously, now I could barely run 3 miles.
So I decided I couldn’t just carry on as I was, it was all getting worse week by week. I spoke to a GP who was brilliant. She listened and really took on board what I was trying to say. I had a whole host of blood tests done, to make sure nothing else was causing these issues. That is really important to note, blood tests shouldn’t be used anymore to diagnose menopause (more on that another time) but they should be done to check you out for other things. One of the biggest problems with getting a diagnosis for perimenopause is that the symptoms are varied, different for everyone and can also be symptoms for other things.
After they came back clear I was determined not to be fobbed off as I knew I was very young. I went armed with the information about what I was already doing, I remember saying to the GP, “I already eat 7 portions of fruit and veg a day, drink 2 litres of water, exercise every day and meditate regularly. I do all those things, I need more help!” She agreed that the symptoms sounded like perimenopause but I was still very young for HRT. We could do that if I really wanted to, but asked if I would like to try going back on the pill to see if that would help first.
I agreed to give that a go. I’m the kind of person that goes into things with an open mind, maybe it could help.
And it did for a while. My hormones certainly settled down, I didn’t feel like the rollercoaster that I had previously and I felt again like I was in control.
But not for long. 6 months later and the weight was piling on again, I still couldn’t run much further than 4 miles and my goodness the anxiety I was getting was taking over my life. That is something I hadn’t really experienced before. In short little bursts yes, during stressful situations yes. But not for a sustained amount of time over everything. And when I get stressed and anxious I get snappy and angry. Not what I want out of life.
Although the combined pill helped some symptoms it certainly didn’t get me back to how I was and how well I knew my body can be. And I know I have to come to terms with some of that will just be from getting older. But I don’t want to be how I was 20 years ago, just how I was 3 years ago! I honestly feel like I have aged 15 years in the past 2 years.
So that brings me to this year, and 3 weeks ago with that appointment I started with. I explained to the GP that things weren’t getting any better and in many ways they were getting worse. “I don’t feel like me any more. I feel like I am operating at reduced capacity, like when your phone is on battery saver mode!” I said to her.
I was lucky and this has been a relatively short and uneventful journey. I know for many of you that hasn’t been the case. You are being ignored, fobbed off and belittled. Please don’t settle for that. I made the fight because I don’t want to just survive this time, I want to flourish and thrive. And it is possible. Keep fighting.
My journey doesn’t end here. I have had the coil fitted for my progesterone and have daily gel to apply for my oestrogen. I know it won’t be an overnight success which is why I have not written about that bit yet. There is a long road ahead to get the dosage right, but at least I am on the right road now.
Please don’t stop until you find yours
