25 May
what I have learned about keeping track
I have been in perimenopause for about two years now, or at least that is the working assumption, and the thing that has made the most practical difference is not any supplement or lifestyle change. It is keeping a plain notes document on my phone where I write down what is happening and when. Not a diary. Not a wellness journal. Just a date and a short phrase. Hot at 2am. Headache Tuesday. Period late by nine days. Mood low, no obvious reason. Weight up two pounds, unchanged for three weeks. When I took that document to my GP appointment it changed the whole conversation. She could see patterns I had not consciously noticed. The headaches were clustering around the cycle. The mood dips were not random. Having it written down also meant I did not have to perform certainty in the room. I could just say, here is what I have observed, and she could respond to that rather than to my embarrassment. The other thing I wish I had understood earlier is that not every symptom is dramatic. Some of it is just a low-grade flatness that sits over everything. I kept waiting for something more definitive before I said anything, and I think I lost about a year to that waiting. The flat version is still worth mentioning. It counts.