Yes, yes, I will be discussing this with my doctor as well. But I’m pretty sure It Has Begun. I’m 39, and I just found out my mom started having symptoms around this age. For her the process took over 15 years. Fabulous. I’ve gone from being a great sleeper to having broken, unrefreshing sleep quite often, sometimes because I wake up and I am so freaking hot, sometimes because of totally effed up dreams.
The real ding ding ding was that my last cycle was 3-4 days longer than normal, and this one was 12 days shorter. Since I started keeping track, I’ve had a very regular period, and now it’s all wonky. I’ve also been extra crazy during PMS for the last 6 months or so (though I admit it may be hard for outside observers to tell the difference).
I feel flummoxed and resentful. I have a four year old and just stopped breastfeeding for Christ’s sake! This is supposed to happen to old ladies! I also really don’t relish being discombobulated for more than a decade.
Tell me your experiences and how you managed it. Especially if you spent a long time in the Twilight Zone between fertility and menopause or started relatively young!
That is an excellent idea. I don’t *think *that’s it, as my cycle has been a 35-day juggernaut from nulliparous, to post-miscarriage, to post-partum and through breastfeeding with both kids. I will keep it mind though. Maybe things will even out over the next few months - that’s a nice thought!
This is my wife’s experience as well. She’s 45. Her periods aren’t like yours, but they go from being really heavy to really light, which is unusual for her previous 30+ year history of them. We’re assuming it’s perimenopause as well, in her case.
You described my situation very well, especially the sleep issues. I am now officially in menopause, since I’ve gone a year without a period. It took me about 10 years to get here; I’m 51.
At 45 I’m having a lot of the same symptoms. The worst one for me was the PMDD (pre-menstrual dysmorphic disorder) - I’m on a small dose of an SSRI now so I don’t kill someone some day. Apparently it is quite common for a woman’s body to become resistant to serotonin just when she needs her feel-good neurotransmitters the most. :mad:
The sleep issues are nuts - I fall asleep easily, but I also wake easily, and don’t fall back to sleep very easily, and I’m starting to have the night sweats now, too. The non-refreshing sleep is a bummer, too - what’s the point of doing all that sleeping if you wake up as tired as you went to bed, man?
After 30+ years of being regular as a calendar my cycles are now becoming irregular in length. On the upside, they’ve gotten a LOT lighter in flow. Not one hot flash, but I am suffering the disrupted sleep.
I’ll update the doc next time I visit. I’m told there are all sorts of tests to be more sure about the perimenopause thing, but since I’m not suffering anything debilitating or that would be considered abnormal in a woman my age I doubt my insurance will pay for it.
Oh girls. I’ve been thinking about starting this thread for the past couple of months, and here it is. I’ll be 49 in October, and I’ve skipped one period, had another that was like a homicide scene, and just this week, a night sweat. I feel ripped off too – my mother PROMISED me I’d be 53 when all this started, since she was and my grandmother as well.
OK, that didn’t seem right, I’ve had pre-menstrual dysmorphic disorder (defined as thinking “damn I’m horribly FAT” right before my period arrives - I retain a lot of liquid) since I was 12… I looked it up and think you mean dysphoric, and pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder appears to be doctorspeak for “the kind of PMS people use as an excuse for jokes”, where the patient jumps from wanting to kill the world to wanting to kill herself to not killing anybody but only because she isn’t sure who to begin with. Posted it to make it easier for others to look up.
My cycles were extremely regular between ages 12 and 36; then all over the place for 6 years; for the last year or so they’ve gone back to regular. No idea what caused either change.
I’ve learned one important thing from this thread: apparently hot flashes will be just like being in July in Barcelona, in a flat with no A/C. Damn.
Just my personal experience–it goes on for a long, long time. I’ve been having perimenopause symptoms for years, since my early 40s. No actual menopause yet, and I’m getting close to 50.
My mother tells me she didn’t go through final menopause until she was past 60. So that’s something to look forward to!
Based on the one (1) night sweat that I’ve had, it’s nothing like being hot in the summertime. It’s like your body does a full dump of fluids. My t-shirt was drenched, my hair was drenched. I got up, and when the air-conditioned air hit me, I shivered violently from my cold wet clothes. It’s nothing like “regular sweat,” it’s Super Sweat™ :eek:
Whine alert: because I had a baby so late in life, I thought I’d have more time! Cinnamon, I, too am like, “I was JUST lactating!” (Although, to be fair, it was a few years ago.)
Ah, thanks for starting this thread my fellow Cinnamon, I’m interested in the responses too. Ever since I came off the pill in 2007, I’ve had a 25 day cycle, regular as clockwork. Well, apart from during the whole pregnancy/breastfeeding thing
My last two periods were 21 days and 22 days. Googling it suggested either I’m hanging out with ladies who are influencing my cycle, or I’m getting old and heading towards perimenopausal.
Given I want more kids, I’m wondering how much time I have left - I’m 34 just now and in a very new relationship that isn’t ready for babies!
Technically, I’m still lactating, even though I’m not nursing anymore! It appears I’m one of those women who will keep producing just from letting the shower spray hit your nipples and giving a little squeeze once in a while to check if there’s still milk.
Thank Og I haven’t had any proper night sweats - that sounds dreadful. I’ve just had a few nights where I kick off all the covers, still feel hot, check the thermostat and find it’s 72 degrees, despite how I feel, and then just have to wait until it passes and I start feeling cold and have to pull up the covers again.
I’m a guy. Last summer my gf was waking up drenched in sweat and couldn’t fall back to sleep without showering. Although our house is comfortable without air-conditioning (other than a coupla nights a year) I bought a window unit for the bedroom.
Now I sleep under a pile of blankets, but she is sleeping fine.
I’m 55 and been in perimenopause for 10 years.
Twice I’ve gone 11 months with no periods only to start up again.
I’ve never had a hot flash or night sweats.
The worst part for me is the heavy bleeding to the point where I don’t want to leave the house. Then I can be regular and normal for months, then everything becomes irregular, PMS symptoms are out of whack, getting some before, some during, and some after. No rhyme or reason to any of them.
The worst part for everyone else is just my general all around bitchiness. It’s like a pressure in my head that just makes me, well sometimes things just come out of my mouth and I’m standing there wondering who in the hell is saying that and then I see it’s me.
Sometimes I feel sorry for the people around me, other times I say fuck 'em, if they are dumb enough to get in my way they should be glad I’m hurling words and not knives.
I used to be nice and laid back.
Do you remember the story several years ago of the young couple who got lost out west in a terrible snowstorm? They had a young baby, maybe five or six months old. They dug a tiny cave in the snow and tried to wait it out, but finally the guy had to go for help. They had nothing with them, and the baby survived because the woman was nursing. IIRC, both the parents lost part of their feet to frostbite.
Anyway, this all happened around the time I was finishing up nursing one of my children, and I got an only partially serious paranoia about needing to nurse a baby in an emergency situation. (This despite the fact that I at the time never went out into the country and in fact rarely strayed far from home at all.) I did just as you say: I squeezed out tiny drops of milk for up to a year afterward, “just to see” if I could, if I had to, keep my child alive in an ice cave while my husband went for help. :eek:
I sometimes wake up under the impression that I’ve tried to drink a full glass of water in my sleep, and missed–I’m drenched from beneath my jaw all down the front. I’ve never taken a shower in the middle of the night over it, but have to take off the soaked nightshirt, use the dry part to mop myself up, and put on a fresh nightshirt before I can go back to sleep.
Eh, don’t be in a rush to get through perimenopause. Apart from the lack of periods, post-menopause isn’t all that different.
I’m five or so years past menopause and I’m wondering just how many hot flashes I have left in me. The memory loss is the real pain, though, and I’m pretty sure that’s not going anywhere.
I think the very worst thing was that no matter the nature of symptom you manifest; unending periods, suddenly wildly irregular periods, suddenly, after a lifetime without - wicked cramps, rage, tears - it truly doesn’t matter, the Dr will smile and say, ‘Yeah, perimenopause is a bitch!’ And it could last for years, change any minute, and manifest entirely differently tomorrow. Son of a Bitch!
Then every time you’ve almost gone a year without a period - surprise, just in under the wire! When you finally hit that bench mark, symptoms change again, get ready! Oh, and this stage will probably last 7yrs or so. Son of a Bitch!
Who designed this damn system? A freaking committee?
