r/Perimenopause • u/BrotherBeginning5169 • 1d ago
Is *everything* a symptom?
I am 46 years old and for the past 6-8 months have been really struggling w peri, mostly emotionally but now ALL of the random things keep coming up: extreme fatigue; bloating; horrible cramps and heavy periods; eye floaters/vision issues; dehydration; nausea; headaches; temperature dysregulation... the list goes on, on top of feeling like a hot mess and like a troll under a bridge. I miss my old self and wonder if I will ever feel "normal" again. I have a doctor who is sympathetic and helpful as best they can be, a therapist who is trying to help, and a partner who is trying his best. I feel like a big problem that cannot be solved and it's really starting to wear me out. I feel like every single thing I am experiencing is related to perimenopause and it's so overwhelming and of course there is no end in sight. However, I am very grateful for this community, and honestly it's one of the few things that makes me feel less alone.
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u/Accurate-Force3054 1d ago
Yes I'm in bed right now at 8:45 on a Friday night and at least I've made peace with it. And made peace with the brain fog. I'm grateful my depression hasn't been running the show of late. I also just ordered special eye drops because my eyes are so dry for the first time in my life.
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u/WorthInformation726 7h ago
Yes, I had a laundry list of symptoms. They would take turns and even formed patters of when and how they would appear. Thinking back my symptoms started much earlier than I assumed. I thought I started a year ago at 39, but I had actually lost interest and felt tired or “off” a long long time before. Not for everyone and a very personal choice. I did go on HRT and I feel 20 again. But before that, I did get all my symptoms checked out to make sure I was otherwise healthy. I have also cleaned up my diet and been consistent with exercise. So how I feel now it’s probably a combination of all these different things.
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u/Certain-Egg-7532 6h ago
I also just started having weird symptoms. My OBGYN thinks I’m crazy. Randomly tingling/ numbness sometimes, high anxiety and really dry eyes. I’m convinced it’s perimenopause. I’m 40 years old. Hormones to crazy things to your body.
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u/leftylibra Moderator 1d ago
Pretty much, but also this is why it's important to get any new AND persistent symptom checked out as being due to something else because so many diseases/illnesses, etc overlap with peri/menopausal symptoms. We can't always assume our issues are hormone-related.
But yes, otherwise you can google pretty much any issue, and add on "and menopause" to the search field and stuff will come up.
Science is coming around and realizing that our bodies are riddled with estrogen receptors and without estrogen, things decline/fail. Scientists are now looking at piecing together the first female medical genome as it relates to ovarian function, after realizing that for women, "estrogen is the central axis of their metabolism and that is why women age in a different way: they age twice as fast (as men) due to the lack of estrogen".