Hello. I used to be Sweet Pea…but no longer have my email or password, so had to re register!
I was always on here asking for help regarding overwhelming anxiety, and came back to share something and ask advice. I am 62 now, and suffered dreadfully with anxiety from peri right through menopause, some here describe it as the morning dreads, or morning dooms. For around ten years, I have literally woken every morning feeling like I am about to face the dentist from hell, or sit a terrible exam. Churning stomach, butterflies, no energy, no motivation…staring into space, almost crying, just getting in the shower is like climbing a mountain. I usually feel a lot better by lunchtime, but this really impacted my life and I am always terrible sad and depressed. Life has been crap for so long. I have been on Prozac for a long time, but reached what the Americans call ‘poop out’ where it no longer seemed to help, or perhaps it just wasn’t the right cure for my anxiety. My sister took her own life at age 56, and my mother suffered with crippling ‘nerves’ as she called it, so I knew I was probably genetically predisposed. I also knew, as I genuinely have such an easy wonderful life and husband, that it must be physiological …cortisol imbalance or adrenal something….as I have no reason to feel this way.
Sadly, I’ve been self medicating with alcohol for a number of years, I don’t drive, and don’t work, so I would have a few glasses of wine just to get that ‘ahh, there it is’ woozy, don’t care feeling. Of course, alcohol makes me even more anxious for different reasons and I knew I had to get help somehow.
To cut a rather long story a little shorter, I joined an online alcohol group for support and advice There, I met a woman who told me she felt exactly the same way as me, and found her saviour in progesterone gel. I have tried HRT years ago, Premarin, but it gave me visual migraines, so I stopped. I still however use topical Ovestin cream for atrophy. This lady lives in France where you can get the gel OTC. So….I managed to get some gel from a French pharmacy who ship to the uk. I looked into it, and found that two, 2.5cm of 1mg gel rubbed into the soft areas of skin once a day was unlikely to be dangerous …I also thought it was unlikely to work at such a low dose but thought I had nothing to lose. After two weeks..the difference is life changing. I am waking in the morning, bright, alert, happy, motivated….I’m like a different person. I have a GP appointment where I hope she will be sympathetic and supportive to my experiment and prescribe it for me properly.
In the meantime, can anyone who knows about hormones explain to me why this might work so well for me? I really like to understand things. Is there such a thing as estrogen dominance, and should I have been ‘balanced’ by progesterone all these wasted years? Is it safe for me to take, as I still have uterus/ovaries? Is there a better way to apply or take progesterone that I can ask my GP about? ( I also feel I need to say I had a terrible time with PMT as a girl, and suffered with post partum depression…I also was able to get pregnant very, very easily. ) Latterly suffered with dreadful migraines too.
I’m happy to say I have more or less stopped drinking, almost overnight as the obsession with altering my mind with booze has gone!
Any input gratefully received.
Thanks
Edit:spelling