Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by smileandnod on December 22, 2011 at 7:54pm

Hi Kim, I responded to your other post but just wanted to say here that I can really relate to your frustration with the weird symptoms and feeling bad...combined with diabetes. My symptoms really ramped up this year....waves of tingling, heart palpitations, gastro pains, mild nausea, foggy lightheaded feelings, skipping periods, spotting, cramps with no period. You name it and I've had it. Had umpteen doctor visits and tests run with normal results. I asked my gastro doc if the gastro pain could be hormone related and he said most definitely. All I ever heard about was hot flashes....wish the docs would warn us what could be coming.

Things that help me are drinking lots of water, walking (even if I don't feel like it), and eating healthy (lean protein and veggies). Try cutting back or eliminating carbs from the time of day you are nauseous and see if that helps...your blood sugar will be less likely to spike. Be sure to stay on top of testing your blood sugar because mine started big swings this year that I've never had before - hormone related. Take care and know that you're not alone with this.

Permalink Reply by KimKat on December 23, 2011 at 4:01pm

HI smileand nod! Thanks so much for your response!

Some of your symtoms are what I am having. I have the waves of tingling - although I have been having that for a while - lots around when I was Dx - I thought it was D related!!! I have the gastro pains (mostly in the spot where I had poylps removed 10 year ago). I feel foogy and spacey (which is not normal for me!). So far, I haven't skipped any periods! I have mine double but this just started for me (maybe I will skip some as a tradeoff -haha!). Omg, yes, I do have a slightly crampy feelings when I am not having my period! Like a "heavy" feeling in the girl area. I was worried about that - my cramps can get kind of bad during my period so normally when I feel the crampy feeling coming on I know I am getting my period - but not so now - it can be anytime! It is going to be a guessing game! :)

I was dx'd about two years so the first year I was adjusting to D and accepting the fact that I was not going to feel good all the time like I used too so I am finally at the point where I can work through the tiredness and time of days when I don't feel as great (normally morning and early afternoon) and I have gotten used to it - and now this!!! ugh!

I have only heard of hot flashes too - I never thought of the nausea which is like morning sickness! Since I never wanted any kids, I was looking forward to this - now I am not! haha! I thought period stuff would lessen - it is worse! I would rather have my period just once a month instead twice and at least with my normal period I didn't have nausea and it was predictable! Weird how I thought it was going to make things easier! Not so! :)

So far I haven't had hot flashes - at least not that I can tell. Although, I am normally a "cold" person and have noticed a few times when my body seemed to warm up randomly which is weird for me - if that is a hot flash, than I welcome it since my body runs cold. :) I did read that your body odor changes - yes! my deodorant doesn't work all the time anymore - I have a bunch of new ones which also don't always seem to work!! I will probably end up with 20 different ones in the next 10 years! lol!:) I dread thinking that this could go on for 10 years - eek! I guess I could "handle" the rest of it once I got used to it - but the nausea - that is going to be a hard one. :)

Thanks so much for your list of symptoms too - at least, I won't think I am crazy - or mostly what I think is that there is, yet, something else wrong with me! D is plenty for me! Yes, I do notice that around that time of month my waking number would always be higher because of hormone fluxes - I got used to that after awhile and didn't worry so much about those higher numbers because -well, there isn't too much us girls can do about them! We can't control our hormones after all. So I guess I will also have this to worry about too when I get some higher numbers.

I asked my mom about this - what age she started - well, I forgot she had a hystorectomy(sp?) at 38 so she didn't have to go through this. I was wondering if the ladies in our family started around this age but I won't know now. But I guess 42 is a common age for this to start.

Thanks so much again! Nice to know I am not alone - but geez, how do women lead normal lives with this?? What we girls have to go through! :)

Permalink Reply by smileandnod on December 25, 2011 at 12:43pm

Oh yes, I'm more of a "cold" person too and I actually get "cold flashes" more than hot flashes and apparently that's peri related too. They say that your body's ability to regulate temperature gets off kilter during this time. I've had cold chills at times so bad I had to take a hot bath to warm up.

My mom stopped having periods completely at 42 and here I am at 51 still going...although sporadically. Lucky me! Like the D isn't enough! I'm like you; I always looked forward to this time, not so much now! Ha

Hang in there! We'll get through this!

Permalink Reply by KimKat on December 27, 2011 at 6:31pm

Have you been having perimenopause symptoms for a long time? I read it is different for every women I guess there is no "norm" :)

Permalink Reply by Whirlygig on February 28, 2012 at 8:47am

While foggy can be hormonal it could also be anemia. I started getting really foggy and groggy and iron really helped. I was bleeding a lot. Eventually, they found I had fibroids, adenomyosis which is an abnormal growth of the lining in your uterus and adhesions. The fibroids were causing abnormal bleeding which then caused me to be anemic. The other stuff was causing a lot of pain.

I think you should go to the dr and have them test you for anemia and see if the extra bleeding is being caused by something else.