Early onset menopause

[ScotHill]

Mrs Hill has a very time consuming job including a temporary promotion and we have two young children, but for the last year has been excessively tired and sometimes her thinking has been a bit odd or lacking, unlike previously. Possibly related to the job, but also mirrors what I’ve read recently about some women going through menopause, particularly before they realise it.

She’s 46, does anyone recognise similar things from when their partner went through it? I would no more suggest it to her than I would ask if she’s on her period during an argument, but wonder if a doctor’s appointment would help.

[mike9009]

Mrs 9009 started to show symptoms of menopause at a similar age. And based on many friends it seems about normal to me.

Suggest an appointment with the GP and see if they recommend some HRT.

[moorx]

More likely the perimenopause, which generally starts during a woman's 40s. Mine started at about 48 I think.

[ARHarh]

moorx said:

More likely the perimenopause, which generally starts during a woman's 40s. Mine started at about 48 I think.

This is most likely. My better half started in her late 40's. It was never too bad but you really did notice it sometimes. Mood swings were the worst bit.

Don't worry it will all be over in about 10 years or so.

[Greenbot35]

I'm also concerned about my wife, she's 42 and seems constantly tired, ill and anxious. Mentally she has a week were shes fine then the next week she seems incapable of the simplest tasks. I've tried to get her to visit the gp but she won't go.

Ive tried exercise to try to see if that helps and she tried to go for a cycle ride and was exhausted after half a mile and can barely climb a flight of stairs. I think her mom had early onset menopause too.

[moorx]

Reposted from another thread:

moorx said:

I'll post this again - it was my response to a similar topic a couple of years ago:

I started experiencing what I understand to be the peri-menopause/menopause in late 2019. This is the list of symptoms I gave to the GP in March 2020:

Difficulty concentrating/'brain fog'
Headaches
Tiredness
Disturbed sleep
Emotional/mood swings
Depressed/feeling will never be happy again
Paranoia
Greasy hair
Dry/sore eyes
Hot flushes
Dry skin
Pins and needles in hands/arms

Some may not have been menopause-related, but all of them were new. The most worrying (for me) were the disturbed sleep and 'brain fog'. My job (in part) involves proof-reading of reports, and I was really struggling - in some cases reading and re-reading sentences and still not being able to take them in. Equally, I have never been able to manage on little sleep and I was having difficulty both getting to sleep and staying asleep. I was waking up on average every hour to two hours throughout the night.

The GP scheduled blood tests, which all came back normal. Unfortunately, this didn't explain why I was feeling how I was. So I spoke to another GP who suggested we trial HRT to see whether the symptoms were alleviated.

I've been on HRT patches ever since, and there has been some improvement in most symptoms. The only one which hasn't got much better is the sleeping, but even so, I don't feel quite as exhausted as I was.

I know a lot of 'women's issues' are written off as 'hormones', especially by men - but I would urge husbands/partners to really try to be sympathetic. My mental health was seriously affected for some time because I had never, ever, felt so ill 'unlike me' and confused. It can really be quite frightening.


I really would emphasise the last bit - in another thread on the same topic, I indicated that the peri-menopause was one of only two times in my life that I had seriously considered suicide; the other was the break up of my marriage due to my husband's adultery 30 years earlier. It may not be great for husbands, partners, etc, but it's not a walk in the park for the woman either. It is now nearly four years since I started HRT and (whilst there has been some improvement), many of the symptoms remain - the worst for me being poor sleep/tiredness and mood swings.

Based on this, I was obviously 49 rather than 48 as I suggested above.

Since this, I've actually stopped HRT for a trial period, but I would always recommend that women see their GP, as HRT helped me for the time I was on it.

Edited by moorx on Sunday 25th February 13:40