Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[joziel]

I've had so many sleep issues in all this peri poop I've been dealing with for 2 years now. In fact, I'm 100% fine during the day I'd say and all my issues happen at night.

Since increasing my estrogen (estimated around 450pmol now) the symptoms have improved but I'm left with this kind of light dozy sleep often....

I go to bed and quickly enter the sort of dozing stage, where you're just under and are still thinking about things. Usually I would quickly move from this stage into deep sleep. But my body seems to be unable to do this and I just get stuck there. Sometimes I startle awake. I used to jerk physically and wake up, but I don't do that often now, it is a psychological 'startle' awake.

Either I do this for the first half of the night and then finally around 3am or something I can finally get better sleep. Or I fall asleep okay but then I wake around 4am and do it for the last few hours of the night. (If I can go back to sleep at all.)

All this sleep crap is so annoying. I want to get my estrogen up a tad more to see if that helps but this is a challenge because I don't absorb it well but I'm working on it. (Just increased to 11 pumps of gel. It's that or pay for another consult with Newson to switch to Sandrena. Want to run some bloods to see where I'm at.)

So my question is: Is there anyone who's come out the other side with this? Who had these kind of sleep problems and then they resolved? It's been going on for 2 years now and although a lot better, it's really freaking tough. It would fill me with hope to know that it will (at some point) get better. And yes I've tried loads of supplements. I currently take Source Naturals Calm Serene with Relora which has Relora, holy basil, l-theanine, GABA and also I take 3000mg of taurine, 3mg melatonin and 100mg apigenin. And before bed 300mg utrogestan.

With all that, I can tell I am sedated and dozy - but it doesn't help with moving from that into deep sleep. I've tried trazodone and still take it if having a very bad night, but even that doesn't get me out of this dozing state. The last 2 nights I try to not take the utrogestan to give my body a break and see if it will bleed - but I give up in the middle of the night and take it. I think I'm going to stop giving it a break now - the last 3 times i've stopped, nothing has happened and I've stopped for no reason.

[CLKD]

How do U feel in the day?  For years I worried about not getting proper sleep in a very busy responsible job.   I read recently that those people who get into the fresh air on a daily basis, sleep better.  These people were followed for 5 years.  Certainly I could sleep for England: in fact, until I wake I don't know that I'm asleep other than the busy, involved dreams.



As we age apparently we don't need as much sleep but getting good quality sleep even for short, intermittent periods through the night, is important for over all well being.  Otherwise worrying about not sleeping keeps us awake 

I step up a kerb and jerk awake.  Not every night ....... so annoying, usually I do drop off again. 

[Gnatty]

For me if I can't fall to sleep, it usually signifies too much oestrogen or testosterone. Whereas waking up a lot usually means not enough. Do you think you might have gone past your optimal point with the oestrogen? Especially as you say your other symptoms have resolved. You could try cutting back just slightly maybe. But it is so difficult to know whether to go up or down isn't it. It just always seems to boil down to trial and error....

[joziel]

I don't think I've gone past optimal as things are so much better now. I had severe neurological symptoms a year ago, I was shaking in bed all night - it felt like the mattress was moving under me - and my heart was beating so loudly I could see my aortic pulse and hear it loudly constantly.

These symptoms have reduced massively to the point they are now really faint and I can sleep through them most of the time. So I'm definitely not going back where I was and if anything I need more.

I am just left with these residual sleep symptoms which sound much more like what most other women have at this time rather than all that weird neurological stuff.

Some nights I can't fall asleep until 3am, but then I sleep okay. Other nights I fall asleep quickly but wake at 4am and can't go back to sleep. Yet other nights there is a lot of light patchy sleep and just not being able to get into deep sleep. So basically I have every sleep issue there is, just not usually all at once in one night... (thank god).

[Gnatty]

I understand. What has helped me massively is when I wake  in the night, firstly I think ooh good that's a few hours under my belt already, and then if I feel like i won't sleep immediately, I listen on minimum volume with just one ear phone in to something on Audible. It has to be a narrator whose voice I find calming - I find it's enough to stop me thinking but quiet enough so it's easy to zone out once I feel sleepy. Maybe you could try this at the beginning of the night too if you find sleep eludes you then. For me it removes all the worry of it all. x

[buffy26]

Ive struggled with absorbing the patches and the gel with last bloods being 320 on 4 pumps. Before going on HRT quite late at 58 my estrogen levels were non existent and I only slept very lightly for about 3/4 hours only.  Hrt has helped a little, I tried everything. Melatonin, herbs, you name it. Finally, the only thing that I found to work is 1 10mg dose of amytriptiline. It has been a revelation. I sleep 7 hours with an average deep sleep of that being 1hr 20 in deep and similar or more of REM. I feel so much better. I researched this quite a bit and found that this drug is used for bad insomnia cases. Zopiclone is so addictive and doesnt put you in the refreshing sleep zones.

Ps/ also like you, I dont absorb topical HRT very well! and agree with Gnatty, the calming sleep apps help to drift back to sleep really well for me too. Before the medication though, nothing worked

[joziel]

buffy, it's good you'd found something that works but I'd encourage you to try raising your estrogen more and seeing if you really need the amytriptaline...

Newson tell me (several doctors there) that I need to get between 450-600pmol. Whilst some women might be ok at 450, some might need it higher than that. Of course other women are fine much lower, with symptoms, but I think it's us who don't absorb well that need more. I think a lot of these symptoms are due to fluctuations.

I know my E isn;t high because I'm not getting any breakthrough bleeding, or sore boobs and even when I stop P for a few nights to allow a bleed, one isn't happening... even on 11 pumps of gel.   

I last tested at 6 pumps when it was 320pmol or something like yours. I need to re-test before I switch from the gel to something else, so I know where I've got to for reference...

[Penguin]

Aside from supplements have you tried either sleep hypnosis (Michael sealey on YouTube is good and he does some that are 4 hours plus long so carry on while you're asleep amd may help you get into a deeper level of sleep) or those alpha waves (or similar) that you can play through earbuds that impact your brain waves positively. Binaural beats, something like that? Not sure if it is designed for deep sleep but maybe worth a look.

[buffy26]

Thanks Joziel, I am going back to see the menopause specialist who I saw originally but it got so expensive and at my Gp surgery a new GP came on board with a special interest in Menopause, which is probably why she is reluctant to go higher doses. I recall that specialist saying we need you to creep up to 500 at least. I have very dry skin and think maybe this is why the gel gets soaked up in the outer skin rather than soaking into it, if that makes sense! Ive just had a realisation, I split my dosage 2 x am and 2 at pm. but as I have night sweats I could be sweating it all back out again, I will try doing all four in the mornings and see how that goes. How on earth do you place 5 pumps in one go! each limb and then where?

[joziel]

That's why I go to Newson, the doctor there writes a letter to my GP and tells her what to prescribe and then she's very happy to prescribe me 11 pumps or whatever. She won't prescribe T though, I have to get that from Newson.

I also have dry skin although it's a lot better since using Dove shower gel, and there is research to show that dehydrated skin absorbs less well. I've also tried patches though and I wasn't getting very high on those (which is why I switched to gel a year ago).

If you have night sweats still you defo need more estrogen, that's a very clear symptom.

I do 5 pumps in the AM and 6 in the PM at the moment. I put either 4 or 5 around one thigh and then one on a butt cheek. Mornings I do left thigh and left butt cheek and evenings all the right side. Each pump is supposed to be spread over an A5 area roughly and I can see where it is on my skin, you can easily get all those pumps on a thigh if you are pretty flexible and can do the back as well. It does take a while to dry on me though, in the mornings I come downstairs and make breakfast in my t shirt and knickers because my gel is drying - and at night I have to lie on my side in bed with one leg out, waiting for it all to dry before I can sleep 

[buffy26]

Interesting about the Dove shower gel, does it treat lizzards lol

The gel application is such a phaff, especially in the winter. Another reason to up the dose is I had a dexa scan, it was edging on osteoporosis which is a big worry. I am on a mission to up the dose, just need the green light as I had a thickened womb lining of 7.5mm. I dont bleed currently and I only take one Utrogestan, so I expect I will have to double up on that too. Complicated business hormones!
I just thought of another good source for sleep guidance, its the neuroscientist Andrew Huberman - he has podcast all on this

[joziel]

Yeah I follow Huberman's sleep stack, it's where I got the apigenin from. All of it helps make me drowsy but not actually get me to the next level of deep sleep. I do get there sometimes, but not long enough - but it's a huge improvement on last year so hopefully if I can get my E up, it will get better.

I'm on 200-300mg of utrogestan. I was taking 200mg the first half of my cycle and increasing to 300mg for the last but now I'm not bleeding anymore so I guess I'll just take 300mg all the time. I've tried 400mg but it wasn't better for sleep than 300. (I can take any amount of P, I'm very tolerant.)

[Gnatty]

Joziel, just a thought are you sure your Dove shower gel isn't forming a barrier to you absorbing your gel?

[joziel]

Yes, this has been going on before that when I was just using regular soap.

I actually think I might be absorbing a bit better with the shower gel because apparently moisturised skin absorbs better according to research.