Older female issues: perimenopause, menopause, and withdrawal

[Katerina]

Shall I start birth control hormones, perimenopausal, in withdrawal         I would like to ask for your oppinion. 
I am 46 years old, never used birth control pills in my life. 
I have been tapering psych meds already for 3plus years, living in windows and waves pattern the whole time. 
Since giving a birth to my second child (12 years ago) I am experiencing strong and painfull monthly period. I successfully solved pains with pain killers (1-3 tablets of Ibuprofen each month solved the problem) but during last 3-4 years pains became stronger, almost unbearable, period shorter, I have been little bleeding almost a week before a period finally starts…my gyn doctor told me all these are symptoms of perimenopause and my troubles are more severe due to several myomas I have in my uterus. 
What he recommends are hormones, birth control pills. I already tried Mirena a year ago to somehow ease my bleeding and pains but I didn ´t agree with Mirena and had to put it out after 3 months. 
I don ´t know what to do?

Give a try to birth control pills?

Live with painfull monthly bleeding for another 5-10 years untill I am menopausal?

Try some herbal therapy?

 

You can imagine how the quality of my already bad life in wd is affected by almost nonstop pains and gyn troubles…

 

Myomas are not growing for last 2 years. Doctor sees me every 6 months. 

I am scared to put anything new and chemical into my system as I am in wd for so long time and still not healed from psych drugs!?

Any advice appreciated. Thank you. 
 

Katerina

Edited August 14, 2023 by manymoretodays
Added title after merging to pre- existing topic

[manymoretodays]

@Katerina Hi there.  I merged your topic to a pre-existing one.  You'll see it above now.  You can search prior to starting new topics in Symptoms and Self Care, or other Forums on site, to see if a topic exists.  If it does, you can read through it and see if your question gets answered, or post the ? in a reply.  I can share my own experience......I was on bioidentical hormones, started in perimenopause, and continued in menopause, on my own arrival here and final tapers.  I opted to stay on them, but cut the dosage in half.  So different circumstances, not BC pills either.  Once you've looked through this topic, you might find more in the topic in this forum Symptoms and Self Care, under PMS, PMDD.  Just do a search from the top of your screen.  Click the little magnifying glass icon, and then put in PMS and PMDD.....that should help you find that topic.  I might talk to my doctor about the pros and cons of bioidentical hormones....and would those help with the pain if I were you.  And maybe others will chime in with their experiences now too.  L,p, h, and g.  mmt                     It IS a tough time, withdrawal, to add in anything new.  As we are often so sensitive to so many things.

Edited August 14, 2023 by manymoretodays

[Katerina]

4 hours ago, manymoretodays said:

@Katerina Hi there.  I merged your topic to a pre-existing one.  You'll see it above now.  You can search prior to starting new topics in Symptoms and Self Care, or other Forums on site, to see if a topic exists.  If it does, you can read through it and see if your question gets answered, or post the ? in a reply.  I can share my own experience......I was on bioidentical hormones, started in perimenopause, and continued in menopause, on my own arrival here and final tapers.  I opted to stay on them, but cut the dosage in half.  So different circumstances, not BC pills either.  Once you've looked through this topic, you might find more in the topic in this forum Symptoms and Self Care, under PMS, PMDD.  Just do a search from the top of your screen.  Click the little magnifying glass icon, and then put in PMS and PMDD.....that should help you find that topic.  I might talk to my doctor about the pros and cons of bioidentical hormones....and would those help with the pain if I were you.  And maybe others will chime in with their experiences now too.  L,p, h, and g.  mmt                     It IS a tough time, withdrawal, to add in anything new.  As we are often so sensitive to so many things.

Thank you very much. I tried already to search my topic in older discussions but it seems to me quite difficult because english is not my mother language... so I don ´t understanf all medical terms and abreviations correctly. But I would try again with knoledge that this forum is the correct one. 

[Blossom71]

@Katerina

 

I was diagnosed with fibroids (myomas) 15 years ago. I started taking progesterone birth control pills about 8 or 9 years ago. They helped with the symptoms but they did not stop them growing. Menopause doesn’t always help with them, and sometimes they continue to grow. Mine have continued to grow with Progesterone pill which is a good indicator that menopause will not solve the problem.

 

I haven’t had any problems with being on the progesterone pills, but in fairness I wasn’t tapering ADs at that point. But in my experience I could not have managed without the birth control pills. 
 

My problem now is that I am booked in for full hysterectomy in October. So I will need to stop them once I’ve had surgery. But I don’t know whether they need by tapered or not (from what I read on this thread they probably will need to be) and I will also be plunged into immediate menopause. I’m not sure what joys that will bring! 😬

[Katerina]

@Blossom71

Thank you for your answer. I haven ´t started the birth control pills yet. I am scared what they can do with hormones in my already destabilized body?!

I hope you will be fine after hysterectomy. I have no experience from my friends or family so I can ´t tell anything more than fingers crossed. 
Katerina

[Ma205]

On 8/7/2023 at 12:34 PM, Katerina said:

Shall I start birth control hormones, perimenopausal, in withdrawal         I would like to ask for your oppinion. 
I am 46 years old, never used birth control pills in my life. 
I have been tapering psych meds already for 3plus years, living in windows and waves pattern the whole time. 
Since giving a birth to my second child (12 years ago) I am experiencing strong and painfull monthly period. I successfully solved pains with pain killers (1-3 tablets of Ibuprofen each month solved the problem) but during last 3-4 years pains became stronger, almost unbearable, period shorter, I have been little bleeding almost a week before a period finally starts…my gyn doctor told me all these are symptoms of perimenopause and my troubles are more severe due to several myomas I have in my uterus. 
What he recommends are hormones, birth control pills. I already tried Mirena a year ago to somehow ease my bleeding and pains but I didn ´t agree with Mirena and had to put it out after 3 months. 
I don ´t know what to do?

Give a try to birth control pills?

Live with painfull monthly bleeding for another 5-10 years untill I am menopausal?

Try some herbal therapy?

 

You can imagine how the quality of my already bad life in wd is affected by almost nonstop pains and gyn troubles…

 

Myomas are not growing for last 2 years. Doctor sees me every 6 months. 

I am scared to put anything new and chemical into my system as I am in wd for so long time and still not healed from psych drugs!?

Any advice appreciated. Thank you. 
 

Katerina

did you start the pill? 

[Katerina]

@Ma205 No I didn ´t start

[Ma205]

7 hours ago, Katerina said:

@Ma205 No I didn ´t start

 Are you doing any better? Are your waves worse on your period? 

[Katerina]

Yes, symptoms are usually worse during my period. Unfortunatelly no change in severity of bleeding and pains after being off off antidepressants. 

[Superwoman]

How do you know if you are in perimenopause or if it is withdrawal causing periods to become irregular?  I woke up to a surprise a couple of days ago to my period starting.  It has been only 2 weeks since my last period.  My periods have always been fairly regular.  I have never had a period this close together.  I just turned 43, which seems kind of young to start perimenopause.  I looked it up and read that 47 is the average age of perimenopause and 52 is the average age of menopause.  My mother had menopause at 51 and she thinks she started perimenopause in her late 40's.  I had my first period at 12.5 years old, and have never been pregnant, if this makes a difference.   

 

Could one irregular period like this just be a fluke or does this mean I am starting perimenopause?  I feel really anxious about this.  I plan on getting in to see a gyno soon.  Other possible factors to the irregular period are that my thyroid levels was still in range, but close to the hyperthyroidism range, in December.  I get it checked again in March/April and if it raises more my doctor will probably lower the Armour Thyroid med.  My thyroid levels have jumped all over the place since WD.  I have also been under a lot of stress due to a shift change.  I was forced to shift from 2nd shift to 1st shift 1 month ago and feel that this has thrown my body out of whack.  I read that shift changes, stress and thyroid problems can cause menstrual irregularities.