Perimenopause is your lady parts limbering up for the main event, menopause. I'm not sure how long I've been in training now but as part of the investigations for my Endometriosis, it was discovered that my Oestrogen levels were very low. I also had icky hot flushes that would come on suddenly. I'm not talking feeling briefly very warm, I mean torrential downpours, particularly from my forehead and neck. So attractive, right? The worst ones came at night like some kind of hormone sweat vampire. Make THAT into a movie!
Other symptoms include fatigue, brain fog, mood swings, sieve memory...so fun. At least with the Mirena Coil I no longer bleed!
My treatment for this is HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy). This comes in the form of sticky patches that I place somewhere below the waist. My ample booty is where I tend to slap on mine, if only for the satisfying jiggle.
The patch releases Oestrogen and I change it twice a week.
One thing I noticed almost immediately after starting HRT was it cleared up the occasional, but painful, cystic acne that developed along my jaw. An unexpected but happy bonus.
Unfortunately, I am currently without my patches thanks to supply/stock issues and I may rant about that another time.
One of the things I feel the most self conscious about is the hot flushes. It's not sexy and feels icky. Moist isn't just one of the most offensive sounding words, the feeling is worse.
My saviour is my handheld fan. I found one that is pretty powerful and charges via USB so I don't need to faff about changing batteries.
I also have to be careful about planning any outing. When I'm planning to get ready, I will need to factor in regular fan breaks, because the last thing I need when I've blow-dried my hair and put on makeup, is to spoil it all with a hot flush. Clown princess of Perimenopause is not the look I aspire to.
Temperature fluctuations can also be wild. I can be feeling cold one minute so it's blanket and kitty pile party time, but within five minutes I can be gasping because I'm so hot.
My temperature generally runs on the hot side though. I take cold showers. I don't mean lukewarm. I mean cold. So cold in fact that the windows and mirror don't even fog up.
Emotional control isn't much of a thing either. Sometimes, all I need to do is think about a scene of a film or passage of a book and my eyes start leaking.
Adverts on the telly about cancer? I'm done. Sad news story? Gone.
The Repair Shop on the BBC has me beside myself every single time.
My husband has often joked when I've had a trip to the doctors planned that I should ask them for an empathy-ectomy.
In my next post I will be talking about Vestibulitis...
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