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[Dandelion]

Hi

I've written a few posts here before but they are from a while back.
My menopause symptoms started at age 42, and because of my ignorance, I blamed psychiatric drug withdrawal for feeling hot from the heart upwards, and the sweats, and I blamed mental health symptoms. My therapist even suggested perimenopause and I said I am not perimenopausal as i am only 42 and no one in my family started peri so early, so I never looked into perimenopause.
By the time I was 47, I was still getting the same symptoms, and has wasted hours and hours of psychiatric staff time, trying various psych meds, when a woman on another forum related to psych med withdrawal once again, suggested peri. She was very well read on peri, having studied Dr Elizabeth Vliet, Professor Studd, and she referred me here.

I got tested after her persudading me to get tested. I got put on femoston 1/10, which didn't work, niether did 2/10, but my doctor was grumpty when it came to talking about gynae issues, yet great when discussing other issues, so, this made me suffer in silence on femoston 2/10, which did diddly squat for me.

I went back to the doctors and after seeing a few different doctors who wouldnt give me hrt patches due to migraine auras, then after an email from Dr Currie, and yet another GP, this time sympathetic, I was started on the patches. I did three months on each dose to see which dose worked and suprisingly, even though i was only 48, I needed evorel 100mcg.

Anyway, no one in my family has started menopause so early. The explaination from the helpful GP she said that my ovaries just stopped working at 42.
My mum said my sisters were just getting the very first flushes, while I was an old hand at it by then.
I'm fifty this year, so I hope the flushing has stopped, but i daren't come off hrt.
I am a very nervy  person physically, and the only explaination I can offer myself is that being so nervous all the time, must have affected my endocrine system, because you can't expect to be so nervy as me, and your body to carry on working as normal, surely, this nervyness must be the reason why my body went into peri so soon.
What do you think?

[Sweetscarlett]

Hi Dandelion, my story is similar to yours I'm had ' early ' menopause at around 43 and am now 48.  My Mother had her menopause in her mid fifties and my sister is 53 and has yet to start hers, the doctors always ask about family menopause so I guess they think it's an inherited thing ?

 Like you I am very highly strung, and live off my nerves, and am prone to depression but I  have also had eating disorders and have always been underweight so maybe this could be a contributing factor too?
 
I am currently on Femoston 1/ 10. I have found this site to be a lifeline, it helped ( and has continued to help) me through some very dark times .
 
I wish you well on your meno journey

💞xx Ss .

[dogdoc]

Women ( and the medical community) are always so quick to condemn themselves: I've always been nervous/anxious etc.  but my thought is this: what if you've always had hormones sensitivity that has caused anxiety and difficulty coping throughout your life vs the other way around. 

I stated having panic attacks at puberty, anxious post partum etc.  now in year 3 of peri and I am 100% convinced I've never had 'mental health' issues. I am however EXTREMELY sensitive to hormonal fluctuations that negatively impact my mental health. Hmmmm

I'm also 43- just turned.  Still having periods etc.  Maybe most women are having hormonal fluctuations by their early 40's but it's only those most sensitive to minor fluctuations that notice?
Tara

[Dancinggirl]

Dandelion - one of life's mysteries. I certainly think my premature meno was hereditary but doctors always claim that it isn't connected!!!!  Dg x

[peri]

Hi Dandelion, glad you persevered and finally got sorted but what a long road to go down before you finally got there! I've posted on this topic a long time ago, I don't know if it's an old wives tale but I always got told start (periods) late finish early and visa versa; coincidentally this is exactly what happened with me and my sister, she started before me (despite being younger) and hasn't entered menopause yet whilst I started later and am well into it. Just food for thought. Also I've googled your question and it says factors to take into account include:
Genetics (family history)
Lifestyle - apparently smoking impacts
Weight - slim women have less oestrogen so reserves run out quicker, and
Autoimmune disease.

Finally, like yourself and dogdoc I think I've always been sensitive to hormone fluctuations, as many of us on here are. I've lost count if the number of professionals who have offered me anti-depressants when I knew that wasn't the solution, just glad I had the strength of mind to refuse!

[BrightLight]

Hi Dandelion - I am nearly 46 and me periods are no longer regular and I think things started to change a couple of years ago with various symptoms which I too thought must be anxiety, but it was different somehow. 

I am wondering why you are considering you have had an early menopause?  Do you mean your periods stopped at age 42?  If your periods didn't stop but you had symptoms then isn't that within 'normal' timeframes for ovarian decline?

I do tend to agree with you about anxiety/nerves having an impact, how can they not?  The endocrine system is all linked.  I too have suffered high levels of stress most of my life and am sure my hormones have constantly been 'under pressure' and out of whack with all that adrenalin in the mix.  However, I am not so sure that it is one thing or another, I think it all just happens at the same time and I certainly think my whole system is 'worn out' to some degree and although I wish it weren't, I am starting to accept things more. 

I had and do have a hard time sometimes wondering why this is all happening at age 46, the cascade of feeling worn out from stress followed by hormonal and period changes - it all seems too much sometimes. My older sister just says, surely not, I still have regular periods and dismisses the subtle changes I am going through.  It is a change and it's not always easy is it? x

[Dana]

I experienced menopause right on the "average" age - 51, so I can't relate to ladies who have early menopause, but I do wonder about the heredity thing, because we don't just inherit our mother's genes, or even experience everything she experienced.

My mother had a particle hysterectomy in her 40s (back in the 70s). I don't think her ovaries were taken, although I was too young to know too much about it, and when I did start experiencing menopause Mum's memory wasn't so good anymore. However, she said she never experienced any meno symptoms at all, and was definitely never on HRT. Yet I had/have the meno from hell if I'm not on HRT.

When I was growing up, my grandmother (Mum's mother) was always a "sickly" woman who would always have to take to her bed. Could this have been menopause? Also my father's mother died fairly young (I'm guessing in her 40s or 50s), but Dad never talked about her or how she died. Was she suffering so badly from menopause that she maybe took her own life? I've always wondered, but both Mum and Dad are gone now, so I'll just have to keep wondering.

Unfortunately it's only in recent years where we are more comfortable about discussing these things, but even today a lot of women still see it as taboo. I can't even imagine what it must have been like for our grandmothers and great grandmothers. I guess we're just very lucky to have been born when we were.

[Kate50]

Interesting reading ladies some common threads there.

[Dandelion]

Hi Dandelion, my story is similar to yours I'm had ' early ' menopause at around 43 and am now 48.  My Mother had her menopause in her mid fifties and my sister is 53 and has yet to start hers, the doctors always ask about family menopause so I guess they think it's an inherited thing ?

 Like you I am very highly strung, and live off my nerves, and am prone to depression but I  have also had eating disorders and have always been underweight so maybe this could be a contributing factor too?
 
I am currently on Femoston 1/ 10. I have found this site to be a lifeline, it helped ( and has continued to help) me through some very dark times .
 
I wish you well on your meno journey

💞xx Ss .

Hi Sweetscarletcat

I guess with us nervy types, each time, we have a worry, or nervy about something, we have a biological reaction to correspond with each stressor.
Lots of hormones get released each time we get emotoinal/nervous/or go into fight of flight mode.
I went on a free psychoeducational course that expalined it pretty well. We were only ever needed to use our body's natural fight or flight response in times of when sabre tooth tigers might have been a threat, in days when we were hunter gatherers, as we we were so in tune with nature, back then, plus all the humans and animals lived in harmony, so the fight or flight mechanism, was not meant, by nature to be used as often, as modern day human.
I don't mean to scare you, but My did died of a heart attack. He was a very uptight stressful and hostile man, who had a very short fuse, he had other good qualities, but it was these qualities that put too much strain on his heart.
I journal, it was an idea given to me for when I need some solace by writing out my feelings, it is very theraputic, and stress releiving, maybe my Dad should have done it.
My mum used to always tell him be would burst a blood vessell one of these days.
Anyway, back to my journal, I once wrote this journal entry on the 3rd Jan 2014 - "my Dad is such a stress head, that it is amazing that he has lived to 72yrs of age with dropping dead with a heart attack"
Anyway, 3 days after writing in my journal, I was told my mum that had was on the way to hospital, and that he wouldn't pull though, his aorta had an annyeurism that burst.
So, he was taken suddenly.
As you can imagine, this unsettled me a bit, because although I relationship wasn't the best, I did not want to be the predictor of his death.
My nerves were a constant source of teasing for kids, and irritation for teachers.

I was a whisker away from committing suicide last year, but my doctor told me that the drugs I dillilgentlly collected, after much reasearch, to take my own life, would only injure me, so I got really dissappointed, as am trapped here, I don't get along with family, and have no dear husband or dear sons and daughters to share my life.
Maybe I wasn't meant to die.

When I get nervous in front of people, sometimes, my blood pressure falls and the legs go from under me, I feel I am going to throw up or pass out. It's just my body reacting to threats that are not as threating as I think.
They've commented a few times that my bp is high now.
I asked my lovely GP who has now left, how come the hrt patches have stopped my IBS, and she said that at 42, when my ovaries stopped producing oestrogen, the bowel suffered.
She just said 42 was the age, my ovaries decided it was time for the change, even though no one in my mum's side, or dad's side had such an early one.
Over nervyness is the only reason I can think that caused my early menopause.

[dogdoc]

Which came first the chicken or the egg.

Is it our 'stressy' personalities that cause our health issues, or do some of us have something 'different' about us...a gene, a single part of a single gene etc. that makes us more sensitive to hormones/neurotransmitters etc. Essentially is it our stress that messes with our health,  or our health (  or genetics or whatever) that causes us to have a stressed out personality?

For women in particular i think some of us our genetically sensitive to our chemical shifts which has resulted in us being stress bags....for me this is what peri has taught me about myself. Now with my obsessive personality I want to find 'the cure' ...if I just regulate hormone X I will be fixed. Hmmm...sadly I don't think it's that simple.
Tara

[Dandelion]

I can only really speak for me. I got into fight/flight/freeze a lot, a hell of a lot more so when working, and many times, I made feel physically exhausted, or other physical effects, even nausea.
Body parts and systems wear out, just in the way our heating engineers or mechanics tell us how use without maintenance can affect those parts.
A car is a good example, my fellow care assistant at the elderly care home first suggested it, and  it made great sense to me then.

[GypsyRoseLee]

Hi

I am super sensitive to hormonal changes. From puberty I have had days every month where I have felt really blue, and negative, tinged with despair sometimes. This would necessarily happen just before my period either. Instead, just before my period I would become snappy, intolerant and basically a real bitch to be with. Inside I would feel like I was about to shatter into a million pieces. Then my period would start and I would feel flooded with calm and well-being.

I had PND after my first baby was born. I felt so dreadful that it frightened me and poor DH. For a few months, before the ADs fully kicked in, every day was a horrible battle with anxiety and feelings of doom. I avoid looking at photos of that time as my eyes look so flat and dead.

My Grandma was notorious for her 'moods' and generally 'suffering with her nerves'. Looking back I think she had an early menopause and really suffered.

My aunt has a reputation for being 'very highly strung' and she went through the menopause in her mid 30s. Her daughter has always been incredibly stressful and moody. She had a really early menopause in her late 20s.

So, I do think there is a genetic connection.

[Sweetscarlett]

It's all very interesting, I think I have become worse as I get older. I suffer terribly with claustrophobia, and am unable to lock doors behind me, which makes it very difficult when out and about as I will not lock a toilet door , I usually get a friend to stand guard in front of it ! Also lifts are a no no as well as most public transport !
 

❤️❤️❤️❤️

Xx Ss

[GypsyRoseLee]

Interesting sweetscarlet. When 'my nerves are bad' to quote my Mum, I can't bear to be in a dark room. I also hate to see doors being closed too. I think this is a form of anxious claustrophobia too?

[scriv]

I had my menopause I was 39, but so did my mother. I also became hypothyroid at around the same time, a condition also inherited from my mother and often appears around the times of hormone upheaval like the menopause. It is unclear what caused what

I went on HRT from then on, using the Evorel patch and 14 days of progesterone, which worked well for me until I stopped this for a number of reasons in my early 50s.

I am now 62 and now use just Vagifem pessaries, but at the old dosage and am pretty good and with strong bones and doing fine.

As regards periods, I started early and finished early!