Hello everyone! (Sorry this will be a usual long first post...bear with if possible)
I've been a member of this forum for several years since I started noticing my first few peri symptoms aged around 45. Just irregular periods, thinning hair etc. Nothing of any major impact.
Im now 49. I suffer from M.E (30 years) but managed a good life considering and was happy. Lovely home, life and man.
However, I got covid in Feb 2023 and have never felt the same since or ever recovered back to how I felt pre covid.
Then a few months ago the perimenopause kicked in VERY severely and completely blindsided me. Night sweats, panic attacks, crippling anxiety (always suffered from anxiety but never ever on this scale) 7 months since last period...now just get browny discharge every so often....but the worst feeling was that I felt I wasn't in my own mind. Like my brain wasn't there. I just don't feel like me. It's very distressing feeling. Hard to explain but like a derealisation or out of body/mind feeling?
I was already in a very bad place being so ill with covid so this arrival was just horrific for me and I didn't cope well...and it's got much much worse ever since, definitely made worse by my fear and anxiety of how ill I am now with all this...
I didn't know whether to post on here as I am very complex with my health issues and not your regular healthy 'normal' woman who finds herself coping with perimenopause at a certain age. So it's hard to unpick what could be going on...but thought maybe a tiny possibility that someone else on here may have M.E/covid/peri?*long shot 😆
I've read so many posts on here over the years from hundreds of terrified, desperate women...frankly, it's scared me to death...so to stop myself spiralling I came off reading others stories but find myself back here recently as I know my current hellish health MUST be peri.
I'm bedridden since covid and require full time care from my amazing partner. I struggle doing anything that requiresany physicalor mental strength so even holding my phone is exhausting. Writing this post is so hard as I'm so exhausted. I was incapacitated alot before covid with my M.E but always had better times when I would be really well and able to be out n about and enjoying life.......those days now are well and truly gone 😢
Now, pain has become an issue. I've always had a bit of muscle pain with my M.E but totally copeable. Now EVERYTHING hurts so bad. Every muscle, joint and fibre of my being. I feel 100 years old and never ever felt so bad. It's like my entire body is seizing up. I feel like the Tin man in need of his oil can! Its really distressing me as I'm not sleeping as hips so sore and I just hurt in my neck, shoulders, back, hips, thighs, legs.....its utterly miserable but onto of already being so ill from my M.E and covid....I literally feel I'm dying....
I'm terrified. Literally terrified.
Had all the tests. Bloods etc. Docs not much help. I was put on everol sequi but I lasted 2 days before my health anxiety and a huge panic attack of possible side effects or even if this was right for me......made me rip the patch off! (Having read soooo many posts on here over the years of women in terrible states due to their HRT...I was terrified to take it as I react so badly to most medication as highly sensitive and intolerant) I just couldn't handle the minefield of HRT and being more ill.
Been offered the usual AD meds etc but I too scared to take as they make me so ill with side effects. I'm intolerant to even supplements which I knowcare so important. But I try n take and spend lots of money but they make me so sick, upset tummy etc.
So....I lie here now, every day, more ill than I've ever been, feeling like I'm going slowly mad....and can't see any way out. I know I need support but I'm so scared of meds ...due to all past experience of massive bad reactions..I can't get out to go to appointments...I'm sedentary due to ME and all the things a woman needs to do in perimenopause eg exercise, keeping moving, etc I can't do so I'm inly gonna get worse, right?
I'm grieving the happy girl I was last year. I felt brilliant. We'd just moved to our dream home in the countryside. Then since February and covid and now perimenopause....I feel like that girl has died and ill never get her back. When I look a photos of me last year, it's like I'm looking at a stranger....I don't know who she is?.....
I appreciate like everyone else, you won't be able to say much to help....
I'm just really frightened how ill ever feel like me again or get well..as I'm fighting so much...a triple whammy of illness...ME, covid and menopause and having only one of these is hard enough...they all cause crushing fatigue, pain, anxiety, brain fog.....they are all impacting each other...
I knew where I was at when I was just dealing with M.E. I felt like me. I had happy well times and actually, didn't realise just how good life was.
Thanks for reading. I know it all sounds very negative. I am naturally a negative person but now I feel more low than ever. I was such a happy girl too who loved life.......
Is there any light to see? Hope?
Apologies if I don't immediately reply to any responses as energies are low.
Love Dorothy xxx