Thank you so much for the replies.
Milamam, I had been using oestrogen alone for 7-10 days pre-period to remove the severe PMS I was experiencing. That worked incredibly well for two years and I was fine, functioning perfectly normally. In July I started to feel those feelings returning at a random time during my cycle, and it didn't improve as the weeks went by. I had bloods done, which happened to be on day 3 of my cycle. I was due back to see the prescribing gynae anyway so I took the copy of the bloods with me and told him I was feeling very low, getting palpitations and not sleeping past 4am. He saw my oestrogen was very low in the bloods and told me to use the oestrogen all the time for a while, not just the week or so premenstrually.
I went back to see him last week, had been using oestrogen alone since the end of August. My last set of bloods (Day 21 in Sept) showed my oestrogen at 700+ p/mol, which was a huge increase from where it had been.
He basically shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't know why I was feeling so terrible. Told me to carry on with the oestrogen and that he'd refer me to a different gynae for another opinion. I pointed out to him twice that I had no progesterone and that in all three blood tests I've had done the prog was VERY low but he brushed that off, "it's all about your oestrogen".
I know I won't get to see the other gynae until mid November at the earliest and cannot carry on the way I am.
The low mood has been replaced by terrible agitation, a feeling of trembling internally, twitching, awful anxiety and rushes of panic/adrenaline always around 5am. This lasts pretty much all morning, returning at random times during the day. By evening I'm usually OK, I've little problem falling asleep but even relying on antihistamines at night for the last three weeks I'm jolted awake any time from 4am and the awful cycle continues.
So I am now looking for a referral to an endocrinologist because the gynae is no use to me whatsoever and I have no idea if the next gynae will be the same or think there's no issue because hey, my oestrogen is fine. At least if there is actually a problem with my adrenals/cortisol/hormones etc an endocrinologist will see that. If not, then I accept my brain does not like perimenopause and try to figure something out to deal with that.
I removed my oestrogen patch earlier today. Maybe that was a bad thing to do but yesterday I had my phone in my hand to ring the Samaritans
only my little boy followed me upstairs and distracted me. I've felt so, so terrible at times over the past week, it's so frightening. The thought of carrying on like this for another 5 weeks at least made me feel like I wanted to die.
The reason I want to ask my GP for the combined pill is because I think it was dangermouse who replied to me before saying it helped her quell the crazy peri surges for a while. I'm thinking I need to suppress my own hormones for a bit, just to get on to something resembling an even keel. At least if I'm not a trembling, agitated mess I can think straight and look at my options longer term.
I'm not in the UK but we do have Zoely and Qlaira here. I am actually thinking of asking for Cilest, I took it when I was much younger and had no issues at all with it, it's monophasic and I could take it back to back?
I have no idea if my ideas are nuts but I'm banging my head off a brick wall so far with medical professionals and am so angry that I have to do a ton of googling and researching and reading the amazing information from women here to try figure out for myself what the hell is going on and how to keep myself out of the psych hospital. For sure I need to do something now.
Thank you all again so much for responding to me. I am so grateful. I can't believe it's possible to feel this bad.. well I can given I had PND but I never in a million years thought this situation would recur just a few short years later.
