Perimenopause and me
Are you feeling more exhausted than usual, experiencing anxiety that is unusual for you or suffering unexplained sleeplessness? These are just some of the symptoms of perimenopause, the stage that comes before menopause.
Sadly, there is a lot of misinformation around about perimenopause and HRT. Jay Byrd, Bean Learning session leader and co-founder, speaks of her journey with perimenopause (so far) and her struggle to find a diagnosis that fitted her symptoms.
Disclaimer: This is the story of my journey and all bodies are different. I am not a doctor and am not qualified to give advice. If you are experiencing any health issues please consult a professional. If they don’t listen to you, try consulting a different one…
Perimenopause and me.
“There’s nothing medicine can do for you”
“There’s nothing medicine can do for you,'' she said. My heart sank. I’m not sure what I said afterwards (brain fog will do that) but what I didn’t do was advocate for myself and demand a better explanation.
After I left the doctors’ surgery though, I started to get more and more indignant about the whole thing. The doctor hadn’t examined me, had done no tests, and had barely asked any questions. How could she write me off as a lost cause? She may as well have said, “There’s nothing wrong with you, stop being such a wimp!”
Joke’s on her because there was definitely something wrong with me.
After I complained about that first doctor, had a chat with the surgery manager and got an official apology, I got a new doctor. Just to clarify, I am not a vindictive person. I felt no pleasure or sense of power at getting an apology. Not even satisfaction really. I just didn't want anyone else to go through that. I have heaps of privilege, spanning various areas of my life and I try to use it to protect those who are vulnerable. I hope that doctor thinks twice before fobbing patients off now.
Maybe medicine can do something for you
So the new doctor - he was great. He really listened to me, did heaps of tests, got me into Dr. Rangan Chattergee’s podcast “Live well, feel better” (which I highly recommend). He actually convinced me to have a coeliac test, despite me having none of the classic symptoms and protesting that I didn't want to waste NHS money. Turns out I am coeliac so that was a good call.
This fantastic physician even called me back, unbidden, after an appointment to tell me he had been thinking about me and that he wanted me to have a test for a super unusual condition “just in case”. That is dedication. That is high quality care. Shame he moved to Australia.
Sadly, even this marvellous medic could not heal what ailed me. Simply put, I was exhausted. Not “I didn’t have much sleep last night” exhausted but deep-down-in-my-bones, sucked of all joy, cannot compute exhausted. My body ached; I constantly forgot things; I had no motivation; even the most basic task felt like a mammoth undertaking. Some days I would just have to go to bed and lie in a dark room. I am only now beginning to realise how awful it really was. And this went on for 5 years.
Medicine isn’t working out, let’s try something else
As a holistic therapist (my other job), I am a great believer in treating the whole person. I have always tried to eat a healthy diet and educate myself on nutrition. I practise yoga and sometimes meditation. After listening to Dr. Chatergee’s podcast I took various stress-reducing measures. I felt like I was trying everything and nothing was working. Tres frustrating!
I had met a Nutritional Therapist, Anna from Goodness Me Nutrition, through a self-employed mothers group I was part of and had been following her on social media for a while. Eventually I decided it was time to invest in myself and secured her services. I loved that she explained all the research behind her suggestions really clearly and found it useful to have regular chats with her across the time we were working together. She had a look at my diet, made some suggestions and got me on some supplements.
Since the health system hadn’t been able to come up with a diagnosis, I ended up finding one myself (with the help of Sarah, my friend and Bean learning co-founder) - migraines. I checked it by a couple of doctors (one of whom suffers from migraines herself) and they agreed that it made sense. I then joined a facebook group for “migraineers”, as we call ourselves. It was a revelation! It felt so good to be in a community of people who were experiencing the same symptoms and, crucially, could tell me what made it better!
I read books and blogs and posts with interest and came to Anna with a list of supplements I thought might help. She sourced good quality versions of these and away I went!
I did see a slight improvement but it wasn’t until I decided to splash out on a stool test that things really came together. Turns out my microbiome (the tiny bacteria that live in your gut) was not very happy. I had more of the undesirables than I should and very few to none of the friendly strains. After a few months on a high quality probiotic I began to really see changes.
Finally my brain worked; finally I wasn’t constantly exhausted; finally my body felt some ease again.
But wait…
Don’t get me wrong, I was loving feeling better. I actually felt like I could live my life and start catching up on all the things I hadn’t been able to do for years. But that’s not quite enough for me. I want to feel healthy, I want to feel well. I want to thrive, not just survive. And I am still not right. I still experience regular energy crashes and can’t do as much in a day as I should be able to do.
This is the point at which I started reading about perimenopause and menopause (on another facebook group - gosh darn those things are useful) and noticed how familiar it all sounded. Back into research mode for me!
I was shocked to discover that healthcare professionals are often woefully under-educated about menopause and that there are still a lot of misconceptions about HRT.
Usually, I prefer a natural remedy where possible. I barely used to even take painkillers before my health declined but if HRT is going to give me life back, bring it on!
My current working theory is that hormone changes triggered my migraines starting. I was able to go to the doctor with all my symptoms (did you know itchy ears can be linked to menopause) and knowledge about what I wanted in terms of treatment. Luckily this time I got a doctor who was ready to listen.
I have now started on my HRT regime and can feel changes happening already. For the first time in a while I feel really hopeful. All I want to do is have enough energy to do all the things I want to do. OK, that’s completely unrealistic because there are a LOT of things I want to do but you know…some of them at least!
If you are experiencing unexplained symptoms please consider that it might be perimenopause. I am only 41, it can start much earlier than most people think and go on for years. It can also be much more debilitating than many people realise. I wish someone had mentioned perimenopause to me years ago - maybe I could have got this all sorted out much earlier. So here I am, mentioning it to you. I hope it helps.
More information
For more details I would recommend downloading the balance app and maybe even joining a facebook group!
If you are interested in nutrition, check out the instagram live I did with Anna from Goodness Me Nutrition.
If you would like to see more content about parenting with hormones, have a scroll of our facebook page or jump straight to the hormones highlight on Instagram.
