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[Kathleen]

Hello ladies.

Here I am with my same old problem and I just wanted to let off some steam if that's okay.

My age old problem is moods swings of course. My emotions are all over the place every day, I am up, down, okay, tearful, calm, jittery, happy, sad, you name it! I literally don't know how I am going to feel from one moment to the next. This usually starts as soon as I wake up.  I am often tired so I began going to bed earlier in the hope of getting more sleep but in fact I just wake up earlier so I don't feel any more rested. My anxiety comes and goes because I don't know how I will get through the day with all this emotional instability.

My mood swings began in post meno and I know other ladies have reported similar experiences but unless they report back to the forum I have no idea if this symptom resolved for them or if they found anything that helped. My trusty meno book states that the emotional symptoms do calm down eventually but this has been going on a long time now.

My last blood test was in March and showed very low Oestrogen but I am afraid that there is something else going on besides hormones. I asked my Nurse Practitioner to refer me to a Psychiatrist but she said that wasn't possible so someone from the mental health team would be in touch but that hasn't happened.

I am exhausted with the worry of it all. I think someone posted recently that they didn't mind the mood changes but they did find the physical symptoms hard to cope with, I am the reverse in that my physical symptoms have mostly resolved, the only one left being some VA which I can cope with, it's the mental/emotional stuff that is flooring me.

Sorry to moan ladies, I will likely be feeling better later but I know I will have a rough time again as this rollercoaster is relentless.

Take care everyone and thank you so much for reading my tale of woe.

K.

[Dotty]

Hi Kathleen

I think you’ve tried this but it could be an idea to get your oestrogen levels up. I felt a lot calmer once my oestrogen levels were optimised.

Have you looked at counselling ? In some areas you can refer yourself to NHS Talking Therapies. x

[Kathleen]

Hello Dotty

Thank you so much for replying and I apologise for moaning about the same thing again!

I am due to have my Oestrogen tested again in September, the level was 75 pmol/L in  March and the Nurse Practitioner wants to get me up to about the 200 pmol/L mark.

I have been having psychotherapy for a while and I do find it helpful but of course it has its limitations.

When I was first prescribed HRT I was also given an Anti Depressant which I was told would lessen night sweats.  I have been on this AD ever since and my GP has raised the dose over the years.  I have just been doing some Googling and I have read that mood swings can be caused by an AD dose that is too high.  I wonder if my troubles are the result of too little Oestrogen and too much AD?  I plan to contact my surgery soon to see if I can discuss a change of AD or experiment with a lower dose.

Thanks again for thinking of me and I wish you well.

K.

[bombsh3ll]

Hi Kathleen,

I think given your estradiol is so low you have every reason to be hopeful of improvement once that is treated - it would be harder if you had optimal levels and were still feeling rubbish.

Also have you given testosterone any thought?

Don't forget you had that as a young woman too, and it can be really helpful for mood, motivation and cognitive symptoms, even when estrogen is adequate.

Personally, and this is not medical advice just my own opinion, but I don't think antidepressants help even a fraction of those taking them.

Even in clinical trials funded by the manufacturers, SSRIs only marginally outperformed placebo, for patients with a diagnosis of depression.

That's not even factoring in all the people, mostly women, prescribed them for questionable indications.

Fair enough if they genuinely help you, but none of the people that I know who take antidepressants, or that post on forums about taking them, seem very happy.

[Kathleen]

Hello bombsh3ll.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply.

I appreciate that my oestrogen is very low and I hope that I feel better if the levels increase.
In the past I have had much higher levels of 600 pmol/L and although I felt okay some of the time I also had mood crashes at that dose. I have experimented with all sorts of HRT and I even came off it completely a few years ago, the one constant has been the AD which makes me wonder if that is contributing to my mood issues.

I also tried testosterone but I honestly didn't get much out of it so I haven't taken it for quite a while. My latest blood test shows my levels in the normal range for a woman my age so I am reluctant to add another hormone at this time.

I accept that ADs seem to have mixed reviews and I honestly don't know if they are helping me or not. The report I read recently listed all the issues I am struggling with and said that they can be due to an inappropriate AD dose so now I am wondering if this needs to be addressed alongside the HRT?

I am going to try to see a GP to discuss but who knows how long that will take.

Thanks again for your comments and wishing you well.

K.