Hi Sammas. After having an emotional day at work when I wasn't handling things I used to handle easily before peri, I talked to my manager, in tears, in private. Fortunately, she was very understanding and was able to empathise with some of the symptoms - hot flushes, headaches that felt like a bolt had been pushed through from the back of my neck to the temple on the other side, and about feeling emotional and upset by small things. I didn't go into everything but enough so she understood i was having "a bit of a rough time." I also talked about it with my close work mates and found kindred spirits there and we joked our way through 2 years of symptoms, trying various things like Menopace and Apple Cider Vinegar. The humour helped but for all those treatments I tried, my symptoms just got worse and worse until I went on HRT.
In terms of actually just being physically able to go to work, I had been a regular drinker (sounds terrible put like that !!!) but discovered alcohol made my symptoms worse so gave that up completely along with caffeine (I took my own decaff tea bags and coffee in) which helped with the hot flushes, palpitations etc I also paid attention to my diet, avoided all the cake and other rubbish which always seems to be present in the workplace, took my healthy lunches in and also forced myself to drink water during the day (which I don't actually like). I think I probably took 6 paracetamol every day for about 18 months for the headaches and to try to reduce my body temperature. Here we go with the personal stuff - I started wearing a panty liner every day because a) I was experiencing some unexpected behaviour on the bladder front and b) my periods were all over the place and I never knew when one was going to arrive. I stopped going out during the week, tried to get enough sleep etc. So I did all those things. In the end it was only HRT that sorted me out but in a nutshell, to answer your question, I coped by talking about it and sometimes crying and I found a lot of support for me personally, even though the majority of my workplace friends had not experienced menopause and were pretty ignorant of it.
Are you getting any support at work ? What kind of workplace are you in? Are you struggling to physically go to work? x
I should add in the interests of giving you the full story that in the end, I had what now seems like a mini breakdown, when the anxiety, sense of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts that finally led me to seek medical help kicked in. That was at the end of last year and I took 4 weeks off work, sick. During that time I found this forum where I read and read and read everything I could. Discovering I wasn't going mad, wasn't alone in my despair and that there was hope prompted me to ask the GP for HRT and gave me enough strength to go back to work in the meantime during the protracted process that followed of obtaining HRT, carefully monitoring my symptoms and then tweaking the HRT until it was right for me. I don't know where I would be now without this forum ...
