aag

You mean the PMS symptoms get worse later?!?! Its been consistent for me that the week before my period I’m alternately an angry, sobbing, irrational mess. Please tell me there’s a pill for this.

I’m 43.

There have been times in the last year that I have prayed for menopause and the end to my cycle.

My periods aren’t as reliable. Sometimes they are long and heavy and sometimes short and light.

I have started having mood swings. I’m more irritable.

I hurt more now. I’ve never gotten back aches before, but now I do. The pain was so bad at one point that I actually went to the emergency room. For period cramps. I feel so silly looking back on it.

My doctor says I’m in “perimenopause” and I still have hot flashes, night sweats and all the other stereotypical symptoms to look forward to.

Woo-hoo.

I beg you to read this book by Dr John Lee “What Your Doctor May Not tell You About Pre-Menopause” he also wrote one called “What Your Doctor May Not tell You About Menopause” both are very good and will tell you what you want to know.

You can treat these symptoms easily at this stage with NATURAL progesterone cream because right now you are becoming estrogen dominant, and it’s the estrogen that is effecting you mentally and disturbing your cycle, I am willing to bet your periods have been drifting off pattern for about five years now. Never under estimate how much estrogen can hit you mentally, even many doctors do not appreciate it. Estrogen dominance can also have major physical impacts on you in the long term. Natural progesterone cream will ease you symptoms because it is a bioidentical hormone. It will stabilize your periods, reduce their pain and give you excellent breast, cervical and uterine cancer protection at the same time/. You can get it without a prescription, I get mine from http://www.altmednetwork.net, less than $22 a month. I lost my uterus when I was 20 and this since and my body has never gone into menopause, my bone density is that of an eighteen year old – good going !

I have written an easy to follow couple of web page on estrogen dominance, I hope you take a look at them.

http://willothewisp.org/html/estrogen_dominance_part_i.html

Please never accept prescription hormones from a doctor without thoroughly investigating them first because they are nearly all synthetics, not bioidentical and extremely damaging to women’s health - despite what the drug companies claim and many doctors think. The whole HRT thing has been the single biggest legal abuse of women in recent history.

So many women suffer unnecessarily from pre-menopausal, menopausal and estrogen dominant symptoms, all of which can go on to wreck their total health. Then the medical profession come along with synthetic hormones and for a couple of years make a woman feel better, but it’s an illusion, after 18 to 20 months those synthetics start increase the problem. Some doctors are now doing the sensible thing, but they are still hard to find, most are simply ignorant.

If you have any questions please feel free to write to me

At 42, I told my gyn that if he didn’t remove my ovaries I was gonna do it myself with a grapefruit spoon. He (finally) took me seriously. I feel soooooo much better.

Yes, yes and yes. It is absolutely maddening. Some times freakishly heavy, sometimes almost ignorably light, sometimes MIA for over a month. Can you say “unpredictable.”
FYI, I just had my 49th b’day.

I thought I was the only one here in blogland going through this right now. Went from every 28 days for years to the last few months has been 25 days. Then a now show for 37 days. Then she made an ugly heavy appearanc for 7 days. And THEN last week, 16 freakin days later she appears again! I now have an appointment to see what the dr thinks we should do. I cant live with such irregularity.

On top of that my aunt is acting like ndulj, super heavy and painful one time, and the next light, but there any way to irritate you.

And the mood swings! Oh my poor husband. These have been going on for two years along with all the other pms symptoms. Tears, Anger, aching back, no energy. I just turned 41.

I feel for you girl.

I started menopausal symptoms at 38. I experienced the hot flashes and night sweats on and off until about 45 when they started in earnest. I begged the gyn to take all the parts - OUT NOW! He wouldn’t. I refused HRT and went the natural route. At 51 my periods just stopped and since then things are getting much better.

I found out that it’s fairly typical for women to have a long menopause. Since I’m fairly crazy anyway, the hormonal fluxuations didn’t affect me too much.

This doesn’t sound very hopeful but it does get better.

I am right there with you. Ironic that I could not wait for it to start and now I cannot WAIT for it to stop.

I don’t remember how the phase started (it has been more then 10 years) but I couldn’t live without the little white pill. It really works - no hot flashes, nothing else…except - that at the time I use to get the periods, I get just a wee bit odd, sometimes, usually, but nowhere as badly as previously. But it is great to have the whole thing be over. Frees up my schedule.

Oh the joys of pre-menopause! I suffer from night sweats something awful…very irritable, and my period comes when it pleases, stays as long as it likes, and comes again 2-6 weeks later. I ovulate like a madwoman, sometimes 2-3 times a month…it’s almost as if I can hear the eggs screaming “HURRY WE’RE DYING!”

I hate it…and want it to be over!

You’re in perimenopause. No doubt. Been there, done that. I recommend Estroven. It helps — at least until it doesn’t.

I turned 40 in August. I was officially diagnosed as menopausal just prior to my 39th birthday.

The rampant PMS along with periods that come when they feel like it or not at all was exactly how I started. I’d be really late, then fine, then really late, then they’d be really close together…

I’m on HRT as of last December because I was having three or more hot flashes an hour (and when I say hot flashes I mean “sweating like I’ve been having sex for hours” kind of hot flashes, immediately followed by “shivering like I’m in the arctic” because my clothes were wet from sweating. Plus I thought I was losing my mind… endless, heinous PMS-like symptoms. I actually sat down on bed and cried one morning after getting all dressed, etc. only to have a massive hot flash that made me feel like I need to shower all over again. The HRT is a miracle for me. Most excellent!

E-mail me if you have questions or anything… that goes for KittyM as well.

…You guys are scaring me. I’m 22.

Yeah, for the last year I’ve had the joy of spotting for about a week before my period starts, and being a complete bitch while it happens. I also feel like crap too. Then, once my period starts, I feel better until the cramps and the backache hit. Oh, and there’s also the increased body temp and hot flashes, those are fun too.

I mentioned it to the doctor, only to have her tell me that I’m only thirty-six so it’s just my body changing, I’m too young even for perimenopause. Bitch.

i’m with SillyGirl01. i’m 29. though my periods are like clockwork - 28 days on the nose - they hurt like a mutha. awful ovulation cramps at 15 days and once i start bleeding it’s in bed with a heating pad for at least 18 hours. my boyfriend and i joke that the only relief will be pregnancy - “well, if you can squeeze out two in a row then you’d be without a period for, like, more than two years! high five!!”

Im with Judith Van Der Roos and her progesterone cream. That’s the route I shall be taking very shortly as my periods have started to go out of whack and having to deal with two teenagers when my head feels like it wants to explode with frustration is not fun. The doctors are pushing HRT or the Mirena coil like mad but I dont want to go down the synthetic hormone route.
Can I just stress that, at 46 with erratic periods, I didnt think I could get pregnant… Wrong, wrong, wrong! Please dont forget about your contraception ladies even when peri- or pre-menopausal. I learned a very painful lesson.

All I know is that the older I get the worse my PMS mood swings get…and I also noticed that they last even a few days after my period ends. WTF?!

Personally, I kinda like the excuse to act like a bitch and get away with it :)

P.S. Oh and the cure? Girl time with your friends involving lots of junk food and alcohol!

not the same at all, but i was just diagnosed with PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoria disorder) and the symptoms sound very similar.

so what you are telling me is that even if i get the PMDD under control it’s just going to be the same thing all over again? awesome.

what do you think the odds are of my finding a doctor to remove the ovaries of a 22 year old?

Wait, you’ve only had one late period? I wouldn’t decide it was perimenopause yet, unless this has been a constant occurrence. Sometimes shit like that happens, due to stress or whatever.

Dammit!

Why no gravatarry luv for the site author?

Well then!

Lookie here!

I’m so feelin the gravatarry luv!

When my periods occurred every three weeks instead of four, that was the sign that told me that perimenopause had arrived. Other indications: migraine headaches and roller coaster emotions.

I do agree with the other commenters that before starting hormone replacement therapy, do your homework (and we know that you are very good about doing your homework, aag!). The Ermerita website is an good start, as is Christine Northrup’s book The Wisdom of Menopause.

There is also the possibility that antidepressant medications will not be as effective when estrogen levels decrease, since estrogen enhances nerve cell branching.

Hi AAG,

Wifey’s 36. I’m convinced that her hysterectomy really helped save our marriage– not the only thing, but a significant factor.

XOXOXOXO

Chuck