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[Miabella]

On this topic, what I find hardest to explain to people who have never experienced anxiety, is how every day when I wake up anxious and stay that way for hours, I can get no comfort from knowing that it will pass and I'll feel almost normal again, until it all starts up again the next day. The anxiety somehow tricks you into believing that this time it might be different and it may just get worse and worse until.....well I don't know what but it worries me to death anyway! I feel that if I could just believe that it will pass I would be able to cope much better, but the anxiety doesn't let me do that. It's so awful having to deal with these feelings and try to live a normal life

[Tiddles]

That's a good point Miabella.  It's what proves to me that it's physical in origin (hormonal), rather than mental or emotional - you can't think your way out of it or through it :-(

[racjen]

Yes Miabella, that's exactly it. When I talk to women about anxiety I can tell pretty quickly which ones 'get it' in the sense that they're suffering from hormonal anxiety - it's completely different from anything cognitive or emotional. And I've met many women who've been suffering from this for months and have no idea that it's a menopausal symptom. And of course because most doctors don't seem to realise either they carry on prescribing the usual psychiatric drugs.

[CLKD]

Cortisol may be too blame for early morning wakening in fear, I remember it too well.  I was depressed with constant anxiety at the time, appropriate medication eased symptoms.  I woke and had to get out of bed immediately.  My brain would race.  Probably due to my not eating correctly [recoverying anorexic] so my body was hungry.  However, it was awful 

[racjen]

I get early morning anxiety, but changing my eating habits makes no difference at all - for ages I was eating a bedtime snack, tried keeping oatcakes and bananas next to my bed to eat immediately on waking, eating small meals every 3-4 hours - none of it made any difference whatsoever.

[Miabella]

I have had anxiety, very badly, several times since I was teenager, sometimes out of the blue for no apparent reason, and once after I had my first child, but not with my second, so I honestly don't know what causes it in my case. What I do know is that even if this time it's due to menopause then it feels exactly how it has felt before. If you have never experienced anxiety until you hit peri or post menopause then it's easier to attribute it to hormones, but if you have had episodes before then that makes it much harder to know how to try to treat it. Then the whole trial and error scenario of HRT becomes even more problematic when you don't even know if the anxiety is hormonal in the first place. I honestly think that anxiety is impossible to truly understand unless you have experienced it and sadly most professionals who deal with us never have.

[CLKD]

TUCK.com

"In the hour or so before awakening, the body starts to “rev up” and prepare for more activity. The body temperature starts to rise, having reached its lower level near the end of the sleep period. The blood pressure increases with increases in serum levels of ACTH and cortisol. (This is why heart attacks are more common in the morning.)" [which is why I insist that men sit down to pee in the night!]

Just as sleep onset and maintenance are influenced by a complex soup of neurotransmitters, so waking up involves changes in brain chemical levels and the activity of certain neurons. Norepinephrine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and histamine are among the substances that make major level changes during the wake-up process, and orexins are critical for keeping the brain awake during the day.

From a physiological/EEG point of view, awakening involves a large increase in electrical activity in the cortex. "

Maybe make a list of chores each evening so that you can tick off what you do in the daytime, that way you can see your achievements.  Sounds trite but it may encourage the brain to be more relaxed over night.  I did this for a few years when every ill with depression and anxiety, even to the point of every day things, i.e. feed cats, make toast, drink a cuppa ...... as I recovered from the illness I needed to put down less and less chores .........

[Miabella]

I often make that list in my head when I need reminding that I'm actually coping well despite the anxiety. Xx

[ladylollipop]

Hello Tiddles, I use Fem7 sequi patches

It is unbelievable how many of us have to deal with anxiety and the feeling of fear.
 
Flo, you wrote you have the anxiety and this awful feeling  for 3 years now. Do you take something?

I have realized that my spaced out feeling left nearly 3 days after I started with the patches. The jittery is also a bit better. So I don't know what to do in the future with the AD . Maybe I need HRT only. But who can tell me?

Lady lollipop x

[Noheroicsplease]

Is it possible to use Estrogen only element of Femoston?

[Noheroicsplease]

I sympathise with everything you all say.

I have had a lot of anxiety since the decline in oestrogen. I've sobbed today over something I've done which was rash but not life threatening, and can be changed. But my levels of hysteria were so disproportionate.

It's making life very hard for me.

I feel crushed down by something all of a sudden.

[Miabella]

Hi Nohreoicsplease,

You're so right when you say it makes life very hard. It casts a cloud over life when the anxiety is there. And for me the lack of control over it makes it all the worse. I have had a couple of better days so was starting to allow myself to think my change of AD was starting to work, but today I feel bad again so am worrying that the AD isn't going to work.
Thanks to everyone sharing on this post. It does help to know I'm not alone in this
Xx

[AgathaC]

Today is a great example of a “constant feeling of fear” day. I'm having a perfectly nice Sunday at home doing jobs and odd and ends but I'm walking around feeling like I know some awful secret/something terrible is about to happen/the world is going to end. I feel very anxious, nauseous, jittery. I can't control it. I can kind of set it to the side but I know it's there, all the time. I wish I could give myself a good shake and tell myself everything is okay but I can't and even if I could it wouldn't make any difference!!! I feel like I can bear the headaches and the funny flashes and the constantly sore boobs and the weight gain but the anxiety makes me not only feel like a different person but a MAD different person at that. Ugh. Going to put on some loud music and dance around the kitchen. That sometimes helps  I've decided it's like having a really negative friend constantly ruining the party. I just need to drown her out or better still ask her to leave 

[CLKD]

AgathaC - when did you last eat? and keep hydrated as headaches can be caused when the body is thirsty.

[racjen]

AgathaC, god I really really get what you're describing - mine is very very acute early in the morning at the moment, so bad I really feel like it's going to overwhelm me, and then pretty suddenly at around 11ish it just goes and I'm left with the horrible after-effects of all that adrenaline (feeling of weakness like I've just had flu). At other times it's been there in the background, less intense but constant and casting a horrible black shadow over whatever I'm doing.  And CLKD, eating patterns may make a difference to the kind of anxiety you suffer from, but as I keep saying, for many of us on here they really don't - that's one of the differences between hormonal and non-hormonal anxiety.