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Joys of menopause
Menopause hasn’t been the difficult time for me that I’ve heard many others experience. The worst time was when I had a heavy period that went on for weeks several years ago. Hot flashes or flushes never were a thing for me. But now I’ve been in menopause for a few years, I have had one issue and that’s spotting and/or light bleeding a few times. It’s always happened in a specific pattern and I wasn’t too concerned but it had become more of an issue recently. I went to the doctor and she did a pap test and a couple other tests and sent me off for a pelvic ultrasound. She did say at the time that it looked likely I had a condition called vaginal atrophy based on the appearance of that area. I read that it’s now often called genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM), which certainly sounds a lot less unpleasant.
The ultrasound came out perfectly but the pap test didn’t get the cells needed, possibly due to the condition of the vagina. Also, I had too much of one thing and not enough of another in some other test done. In this situation, they often refer to a gynecologist who does the tests again but has better equipment to get a better reading on things. Of course, that takes more time. She said she thought it likely the issue was the GSM and suggested we could trial treatment and do another test in six weeks before going to the specialist. I was happier to do that than wait. I am on an HRT treatment daily for a couple of weeks and then I am to reduce down to fewer times per week as required. Hopefully, this should set things right and life will carry on.
I will admit to being a bit anxious about HRT treatments due to my family history of breast cancer. That said, I think a vaginal treatment is less likely to cause any trouble and hopefully won’t be something I need long-term. As I understand it, I am still young enough for that to be the recommended treatment at this stage.
I do suspect that my Sjogren’s syndrome may also be part of the issue here. It doesn’t help that I need antihistamines to handle seasonal allergies. The funny thing is I just saw the specialist about the Sjogrens last month and said all was fine. But I didn’t realise anything was amiss at that point. I am having a lot of dry eye and mouth issues right now though, so it may just be contributing to the problem.
I had to order in the medicine at the pharmacy and only started last night. I will say that it’s a bit of a messy business using a pessary that leaks everywhere when you get up. Hopefully, there won’t be any nasty side effects.
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Milestone reached
I can officially claim I have reached menopause as of Monday. My last period started a year ago on the 8th of June and lasted about a day and nothing since. It’s kind of weird to think I am there finally. I still have a menstrual cup and a few disposable supplies but it feels not quite right to get rid of them just yet even though I shouldn’t be having anything else at this point. I wonder how long it will be until I am ready to do that…
I am supposed to get some bone density tests done now since osteoporosis runs in my family. There’s probably more I need to have checked but I will talk to my doctor about it on my next visit.
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A rare visitor
I guess at this point I should call it a rare and unwelcome visitor. My period showed up again for the first time in six months. This is four months less than the last period of time between “cycles”. So at the very least my menopause won’t be until I’m 54. My periods started kind of early when I was ten so it would just happen I’d have them late too. I know I am still within the average range but I’m slowly reaching that upper end of average.
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Menopause
Or should I say not yet…
I have an app on my phone where I keep track of my menstrual cycles. I’ve been using the same app for years and had pretty good records of it all. Then my phone kind of died in June or July and Apple replaced my phone and I lost the data. (I did have the option to do backups and I used to do them but hadn’t lately.)
I hadn’t had a proper period all year. I’m pretty sure the last one was in December last year but I wasn’t totally sure. I had a bit of spotting one day in March but didn’t count that at all. My period had been showing up about every two months most of last year and I thought maybe they had just come to a stop. Anyway, I had gone all year and I said to the Scientist just a few days ago that I was going to be pretty annoyed if I had gone all this time and then had another period.
Well, I came home from tai chi tonight and went to the toilet and guess what I discovered? The really bad part of this is I have no idea what to expect this time since it’s been so long. I did notice some breast tenderness a couple days ago but shrugged it off at the time. That must have been a bit of mild PMS.
Although I felt a bit sad about reaching menopause, I had come to some acceptance of it. But now the counting starts again. One small plus is I will now have a date to count from. And I will back up my data regularly this time. :)
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Flashback to my youth
As I’m now 48 years old, I know that menopause is likely in the relatively near future. If I am lucky/unlucky (depending on how you look at it) it may still be another five or six years. At the moment, my cycles are still relatively regular. Some cycles are shorter and some are longer but they still average out. Hot flashes haven’t entered the equation yet so I wonder if I might be lucky enough to avoid them. Mood changes haven’t been a big issue, cyclically. At least not like they were in my younger days. I used to have a lot of mood swings premenstrually and that hasn’t happened that much in recent years. In fact it often surprises me when it does. I think the Scientist is grateful for that improvement. Â During my teens I had some pretty bad dysmenorrhea for several years, enough that I was put onto motrin, which was prescription-only at the time. I think this got better into my 20s and was reasonably bearable after having kids. Most of the time I can manage quite well so long as I medicate before pain becomes too bad and even some of the worst months are nothing compared to what I used to experience.
I had forgotten how bad the cramps were in the early days. I mean, I have forgotten how really bad it felt. I don’t think I’ve had pain like that in 30 years. Yesterday my period started and I took my usual pain medications at the first signs of cramps. When I got up this morning I felt quite fine and continued the same until early afternoon when that old familiar feeling hit me like a brick. I medicated a bit too late and it didn’t break the pain at all and I had to take an extra tablet and wait to see what effect that had. The medication eventually did kick in hours later but what a shock to have those early days brought back to me so vividly.
Which brings me back to this menopause that my body is moving towards year by year. My theory is this is part of that process and I might expect more of the same in future cycles. I think it might be a good idea to stock up on medication for the future so as not to be left unprepared.
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Transition
This weekend I started getting those almost certain signs that my period was imminent, a mere nineteen days after the last one began. That cycle had been nineteen days too, so it was a bit disconcerting to think I’d be spending half of every month in the middle of a period. I had thought that my cycles were alternating between a short one and a nearly average length one, but upon reviewing notes I’d made I found that they have, in fact, been getting shorter as the year has progressed. So it seems pretty likely that I’m going through quite a few anovulatory cycles these days.
I’ve glanced through library books about the perimenopause in the past but nothing really shouted out that this was me. That’s not to say I wasn’t experiencing some of the signs but there was nothing that really felt like it was a change. I guess some of it has been happening so gradually over the years that it’s just a part of passing through the years for me, which makes sense when one considers the constants transitions throughout our lives no matter what age. But I do think I am on the brink of reaching the “thick of it”, so to speak.
I did some online research on perimenopause and it finally dawned on me that what I was reading and what I am starting to experience is exactly what is commonly referred to as menopause. It’s just been renamed a bit more appropriately than in the past. Here I’d been thinking this was yet another catch phrase stage for women to experience. I can only use as my excuse the fact that my brain function isn’t so great these days, one of those actual symptoms of perimenopause.