The Journey That Is Peri & Post Menopause

I think I experienced a fairly standard peri menopause and transition to post menopause. Until I didn’t.

menopause

Before I begin, look at this image I generated using AI by typing in the word ‘menopause’. Now tell me AI isn’t made by men?

There’s a lot I can write about this but I’ll save for another time.

For context this is an archive post from 2022

I think looking back knowing what I know now about menopause as a whole was that I experienced  a fairly standard peri menopause and  transition to post menopause.

Until I didn’t.

There was the time back in January 2019 when my GP was so worried about my brain fog that she sent me for a brain scan.

What I have learned and experienced about post menopause though, I had no clue could or would come. What does make me a tad angry is why no one told me about post menopause and how I might be. But then no-one teaches us about peri menopause do they so maybe not surprising?

I’ve talked a lot over the years about how I think there should be educational level classes for men and women AND girls and boys. It’s a natural process that can and will be an experience for us all.

So Where Do I Start About My Own Peri & Post Menopause Experience?

I started with hot flushes in my 40s. I’d only ever heard of the menopause in terms of ‘the change’ and that was my singular awareness of the menopause. I knew that my periods would stop at some point. Just how I knew as a young girl that my periods would start at some point.

I now know that the average age for periods starting to stop kicks in around the age of 51.

51 was the age I was when I decided to go to my {male} GP to find out more about Hormone Replacement Therapy. I’d learned from reading online articles that menopausal brain fog was what I was experiencing.

A sort of diagnose yourself thing! 

We women have to do this because we are so let down by the medical system.

Career wise for the last 15 years I’ve worked in the digital and tech space. My day can be creatively driven but can also be very data heavy and that’s when things became a challenge. Remembering stuff for presentations and meetings. The feeling of failure became a thing and imposter syndrome was at an all time high.

When you first embark upon a possible HRT journey you always get asked ‘when was your last period?’  That was a problem for me. I’d had an endometrial ablation in my early 40s for heavy periods. It worked amazingly and I’d recommend it for anyone whose periods seriously impact their life. For a couple of years  I still knew when my monthly cycle was due to sore boobs etc; but I soon forgot.  I had a new life with no monthly flooding to worry about. So when I got asked about my last period  you can see how this threw a spanner in the works.

Post menopause is the time when a woman hasn’t had a period for 12 months. So I struggled to ever know where I was really sitting with this transition. It’s only as you get further away from the average age of 51 that you think;

‘I must be post menopause now, mustn’t I?’

After that brain scan, my now {female} GP who has been amazing,  changed up my HRT and I moved onto transdermal patches; Evorel Conti. It’s probably easier  to catch up on the in between  years on some of my previous posts that I’ve curated as a collection in My Menopause Journey.

I  felt great for the most part in 2020, global pandemic aside. I thought oh I wonder if this is ‘post menopause’ and this is me now? I was fired up and excited about things going on in my life. I’m a pretty positive person and always looking forward and planning trips and outings and I generally enjoy small does of socialising.

I Love Midlife & Think It’s A Really Exciting Time For Us Women.

But Something Shifted.

I Was To Find Out It Was My Hormone Levels… Again.

Fast Forward To 2021 Age 57

Very early January 2021, I noticed my mood overall not being that great. I don’t really get the January or Winter blues as a rule. I’ve always been a busy person with something going on especially as I’m a business owner. My husband said to me that we had all been through a lot collectively  because of the lockdowns so just to see how I go. Come the Summer of 2021 my overall low mood  hadn’t improved. 

I was slowly losing the joy of everything.

Around I think, September, I decided to ask my GP might all this be related to my hormones again. Do the levels continue to change? Even post meno? There’s so much more information out there since I started on HRT  almost eight years ago that I did think I wonder how my hormone levels are doing.

Now, you can have a blood test which while it doesn’t give an accurate reading because hormones fluctuate on the daily, does give quite a good indication of how low generally they are. My GP  was shocked at how low my oestrogen level was. She described it as ‘on the floor’.  Oestrogen does so many things in your body. I had no clue. How many of us do?

Low mood is one of the things a lack of it can cause.

I’ve been going to see my GP roughly every 6 weeks since then for blood tests and the latest one in February 2022 has now climbed to 368 pg/mL. Results are given in picograms per millilitre.  This is such a better place than when I started around 30 and then managed to get to 78 in December 2021.

I think this next part is what they call a ‘Trigger Warning’.

During this time of trying to re-balance my overall mood had become so low that I’d begun to have serious intrusive thoughts along with the anxiety and palpitations that had become a normal part of my every day life.

The joy had been rapidly sucked out of everything.

Life became a real struggle I’d say for the last 5-6 months.

I’m not going to document more than this here because I don’t want my family to be constantly reminded of how unwell I became. There’s not many times in almost 30 years of marriage that I’ve seen a particular look of worry and fright on my lovely husband’s face.

I Was Shocked. I Thought I Was Post Menopause.

I Thought I Should be Transitioning To A Better Place Hormonally Not Getting Worse.

I Thought Post Menopause Was Meant To Be My Happy Place.

You see, mistakenly, at least for me I had thought post menopause was going to be some sort of Nirvana. I know that for many women it is. I think it will be for me one day. Just not right now. All females transition through menopause and like most things in life everyone’s experience will be different. It’s just my later post menopause part has been the hardest part so far.

It’s taken me a long time to be ready to write this. Mainly because it’s been a tough time for me as you’ve read. I’m a classic over sharer by nature so writing and talking helps me  … A LOT. It’s one of the reasons I started writing my blog. That and so I could actually remember stuff by documenting it for later life Ha! Ha!

And maybe the fact that I’m sharing now and writing it down might be a positive sign … a chink of light and hope in the darkness.

I’m always of the mind  that by me doing this it might help someone who ends up in a similar place to me. That makes me feel useful. You see when my GP told me that  post menopause  isn’t always what you think and hope it to be I felt so very alone.

Really, really  isolated.

There’s more open-ness and talk about peri-menopause than ever before.

Which is bloody brilliant BTW but I hardly see anyone talking about what post menopause looks like for them.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

I felt like a freak.

Why can’t I see anyone the same age or older than me talking and sharing about this?

It made my anxiety and depression even worse.  Then I found a  Facebook group about a month ago that is part of The Menopause Support Network . It’s also a part of the  #MakeMenopauseMatter campaign  that has been so active getting Parliament to listen to women about all things menopause.

The Facebook group has nearly 30,000 women in it all sharing each others stories and offering sisterly advice and support. It’s there that I realised I am normal. I’m not a freak after all and certainly not alone.

There are women in there in their 60s and 70s going on HRT for the first time because they want a better quality of life. Quality they didn’t know they could have til they started sharing and talking to other women. There are people like me who’ve had a bumpy ride. It’s all normal.

Now I Feel As If I Can Cope A Bit Better.

As of last week my GP has now referred me to a specialist clinic in Newcastle to try and get to grips with what my ideal HRT prescription should look like.  The picture I’ve shared is the newest HRT cocktail that I started last week from my GP trying to work things out to help me.

4  x pumps of Oestrogel daily – oestrogen

1 x Utrogestan 100 – progesterone

1 x Citalopram – anti depressant

1 x Amlodipine – high blood pressure – oh yeah I’ve got this for the first time in my life outside of pregnancy. Probably all the anxiety and palpitations. Hey ho!

I also take Vitamin D and B12 and have done for a long time now.

My GP had hoped to add in Testosterone on my most recent visit but decided on the Citalopram instead, at least until I see the menopause specialist.

It’s a good job I work in a business that I co -own and that we work remotely otherwise I think I’d be pretty unemployable right now.

It’s no wonder so many women through the towel in on their careers.

My kids joke affectionately that mum’s having a good day when they see a pic of me on Instagram! The odd day when I feel like a little bit of the old me is back.

So that’s it. This is where I am right now. 

Me & My Hormones.

If you want to educate yourself more on the Menopause I can’t recommend enough the fact sheets by Dr Louise Newson on her website; Newson Health and the Menopause Library of resources.

Oh and to add to everything  I’ve developed  a fear of going out. Not full blown agoraphobia thank goodness but I don’t really go out socially any more and we’ve cancelled a working holiday that we should’ve been on now to Portugal and  a hen party to Ibiza a bit later on in the year. We have booked a trip to Lanzarote for October that I’m hoping to work towards.

Here’s to finding myself again!

I’ve posted this archived post for two reasons.

1. I’m beyond happy that I can see how far I’ve come 😊

2. This is going to form part of a series in the coming months of what happened when I got to have my appointment with the menopause specialist.

Ciao for now,

Hitting the Like 💗 button and/or commenting at the foot of this post is the most massive help in getting the word out on Substack about Best Before End Date, through its Explore and Search functions.

ANNNNDDD .. I love conversations so the comments is good place to start those.

I’m massively appreciative of any support because writing this really is my jam 😊 Thank you!