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[JenniferKnowles]

Good morning everyone,

I am brand new here so be gentle ladies lol.

So, I am 40 and over the last year have been experiencing out of character symptoms. Mood swings, rage, night flashes, physical feelings of anxiety. GP gave antidepressant medication but only helped a tiny bit.

After doing some reading up, i decided to choose to go on the combined birth control pill as a few people I know recommended this as it helped them.

I chose Yasmin as I read it it is meant to be very good for Perimenopause.

As I am new to this, I wondered if anyone has tried this pill or can tell me if indeed it is good at controlling/getting rid of symptoms?

All the best,

Jen

[Floo36]

Hi Jen,

It may be worth a try.  I tried eloine so the lower dose version and unfortunately it didn’t help at all.  Yasmin is higher Estrogen so may be better. 

[JenniferKnowles]

Oh Hi Floo36

Thank you for replying.

I haven't heard of that pill. So the lower dose ones do not work in Peri very well?

I hope Yasmin will do the trick then, hope its safe xx

[JenniferKnowles]

Sorry Floo (and others)

Just thinking, if the theory is that its low oestrogen causing these symptoms, especially physical anxiety, then if after say 6 weeks or so i am still symptomatic I should move up on a more oestrogenic pill such as Cilique (used to be called Cilest)?

J xx

[Amazing grace]

Hi jen,
I've never tryed the bcp for control in peri, but I do know two women who had great success with it, my sis in law used zoely and did great on it although I understand this is low dose my friend took yasmin for years, never had any peri symptoms was took off it at age 50 and everything went down hill from there she's never found a good balance on hrt, she's in the states not uk and she told me bcp is commonly used in peri rather than hrt, I've no actual knowledge of this but just passing on what has been shared with me when discussing peri menopause with family and friends, so there is every chance it could work for you x

[JenniferKnowles]

Thanks Amazing Grace,

Thats really useful to know!

Giving me some hope xxx

[joziel]

Zoely and Qlaira are the two combined pills which use body identical estrogen.

Qlaira is quite interesting as it tries to mirror the natural cycle with higher estrogen and lower progesterone to start and then decreasing estrogen and increasing progesterone... before the bleed...

[JenniferKnowles]

Hello Joziel, thank you.

I guess i will see how things go with the Yasmin pill first.

I have got up and still jittery anxiety. Has anyone else had this?

[JenniferKnowles]

Hi Jen,

It may be worth a try.  I tried eloine so the lower dose version and unfortunately it didn’t help at all.  Yasmin is higher Estrogen so may be better.

Hi Floo36,

Could i ask...after you had no success with Eloine, how come you didnt try the normal combined pills? xx

[JenniferKnowles]

Sorry Floo (and others)

Just thinking, if the theory is that its low oestrogen causing these symptoms, especially physical anxiety, then if after say 6 weeks or so i am still symptomatic I should move up on a more oestrogenic pill such as Cilique (used to be called Cilest)?

J xx

[joziel]

Jennifer - the best way to be able to be really flexible with your estrogen dose, is to move to HRT instead of a combined pill. Because with the pill you are locked into whatever dose they decide to put in there. With HRT, you can decide for yourself if you need more or less estrogen.

Is there a reason you want a combined pill instead of HRT? I mean, do you need contraception?

If you need contraception and want to try HRT, you could consider the Mirena coil - which would give you contraception but also provide the progesterone for HRT. So you could totally forget about that part of things and  then you just use the estrogen and decide how much or little you want of that, using a gel, patch or spray.

If you don't like the idea of the coil (I don't, although I would use it if I had no other options) you can use barrier methods of contraception so you can go on HRT - or you can use the mini pill/desogestrel. (Frankly I'm not a fan of desogestrel at the moment, as it suppresses your ovaries and your own production of estrogen/progesterone.)

As for anxiety, you might want to take a look at this other thread which is running - all 17 pages of it  : https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,62514.0.html

That is a few of us trying to figure out what is going on with estrogen and various anxiety symptoms. I'm not sure we have any answers but I feel there is a collective power in us pooling our experiences and trying to figure things out...