Jennifer

42 and my periods have turned into something I genuinely don't recognise. Last month I went through a whole pack of the thick ones in two days and had to cancel a meeting because I was too scared to stand up. The month before that it barely showed up at all. There is no pattern. There is nothing to predict. I've started scribbling things down in my notes app because I kept going blank when I tried to explain it to anyone, how heavy is heavy, how tired is tired, it all sounds vague when you say it out loud. So now I write it down on the day. What I used, how many hours it lasted, whether I could function or whether I just kind of... endured it. I've got a GP appointment next week and I want to go in actually prepared for once, not just saying "it's a lot" and getting a shrug. Someone in another thread mentioned asking specifically about ferritin rather than just general iron, and that's stuck with me because I am exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't touch. Like properly bone-tired by 11am. Also on heavy days I cannot face cooking anything. Last week I just did tinned lentil soup with a fried egg on top and honestly it kept me going. Not glamorous but it was something. Does anyone have a list of what they actually asked at their appointment? I want to go in with questions written down so I don't forget everything the moment I sit down. x

Hi all. I've got a GP appointment in two weeks and I am determined not to sit there and go blank like I always do. So I've started a notes document on my phone and I'm adding to it every day. The bleeding is the main thing. I've been tracking it properly for the first time and honestly it's quite alarming to see it written down. I knew it had got heavier but looking at the pattern over the last three months, it's a lot. There are days where I'm getting through more than I'd want to admit and I'm timing how long I can leave the house without worrying. I feel about twelve again and not in a good way. I'm also writing down the fatigue because I kept dismissing it as just being tired from everything. But it's a specific kind of tired. The kind where you've slept and still feel like you haven't. I want to be able to describe it properly rather than just saying "I'm a bit knackered" and having it brushed off. I've added a section for questions I want to ask. Mainly around bloodwork. I want to know whether iron has been checked recently and whether there are other things worth looking at given everything that's going on. I've read enough on here to know it's worth asking rather than waiting to be offered. Does anyone else have things they made sure to include before an appointment like this? I want to go in prepared rather than coming out thinking of everything I forgot to say. Any details that felt useful to have written down, I'd really appreciate knowing x

42 and I genuinely cannot believe this is my life now. Last month I bled through two pairs of trousers in one week. TWO. I am a grown woman with a job and a commute and I am packing spare clothes in my bag like I am fifteen years old again and it is honestly mortifying. The thing that's getting to me is how unpredictable it's gone. I used to be able to set my watch by it. Now I have no idea if I'm getting three days or ten, light or absolutely horrific. I started scribbling things down after I read something on here - just dates, how heavy, whether I needed to double up. It feels chaotic but at least I have something written down now. GP appointment next week and I want to be prepared because last time I left feeling like I hadn't explained myself properly. Does anyone know what bloodwork is actually worth asking for? I've seen people mention iron and ferritin and I think thyroid? I don't want to go in empty-handed and come out with nothing again. On heavy days I genuinely cannot cook. Last Tuesday I made lentil soup from a tin of lentils and a stock cube and ate it at 6pm in my dressing gown and that was fine, that was enough. Not glamorous but I stayed upright. Anyway. Glad this room exists. x

Can I just ask, is anyone else's period basically unrecognisable from what it used to be? Mine were always heavy-ish but manageable. Now I genuinely cannot predict when they'll arrive, how long they'll last, or whether I'll need to change every hour or barely anything happens. Last month was seven days of absolute carnage. The month before, four days, fairly normal. This month, twelve days and counting. I'm 42 and I feel like I'm back at secondary school panicking in a meeting because I wasn't prepared. I've started scribbling notes on my phone, dates, how heavy, how tired I am, because I've got a GP appointment coming up and I don't want to sit there and go blank when she asks me questions. Has anyone actually had bloodwork done for this? I want to ask about iron levels specifically because the exhaustion is something else. Like bone-deep, not just tired. Also on the practical side, on the really bad days I cannot face cooking anything complicated. This week it was tinned lentil soup with bread and I did not apologise to anyone for it. x

Jun 21 · Liked post

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44 and I cannot work out if I am burning out or if this is peri and honestly does it even matter because either way I am sitting in meetings at work and the word just... goes. Like I reach for it and there's nothing there. Last Tuesday I said "the thing, the report, the... numbers document" to my line manager. She's lovely and she waited patiently but I saw her face. I saw it. I've started writing everything down before meetings now. Not like a to-do list, more like I'm briefing myself. Key words I might need. Names of projects. It sounds mad but it actually helps me get through without looking completely vacant. Whether that's a coping strategy or a red flag I genuinely don't know. I've got a GP appointment in three weeks and I want to go in with actual examples rather than just "I feel foggy" because I know how that sounds. So I've been keeping a note on my phone. Specific moments. The word thing. The time I sent an email to the wrong team. The time I sat down to write a report and just... stared at the screen for twenty minutes. Does any of this sound like peri to you lot? I eat a proper lunch now, protein, not just a sad desk sandwich, and that does seem to help the 3pm crash a bit. But the word thing is still there in the mornings too so I don't think it's just blood sugar. I just really miss feeling sharp. x

Jun 20 · Liked post

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Hello everyone. I've been lurking here for a few weeks and I finally feel brave enough to ask this because I genuinely don't know how to handle it. I have a GP appointment coming up and I really want to talk about dryness and some discomfort I've been having, but every time I rehearse it in my head I just... freeze. I'm 59 and I've been with my husband for over thirty years and I still can't seem to say it out loud to a doctor without wanting to disappear into the floor. Which is ridiculous, I know. It's not just dryness either. There's a sort of rawness that comes and goes, and a couple of times I've had what felt like a UTI but the test came back clear, which apparently can be a thing? I read something about that here last week actually. And the libido piece, well. I don't even know where to start with that one. My husband is kind about it but I can tell it's affecting us and I hate that. I've been writing things down so I don't bottle it when I'm actually in the room. Things like: when it started, how often it bothers me, what it feels like, the UTI-type symptoms. I want to ask about local oestrogen because I've seen it mentioned here a lot, but I don't even know if I'm using the right words or whether my GP will just brush past it. Has anyone found a way to bring this up that doesn't feel mortifying? Or even just a way of framing it so the GP takes it seriously? I'd be so grateful. x

Jun 20 · Liked post

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Right so I got my DEXA results back last week and I've been sitting with them ever since trying to work out how I feel. Osteopenia. Not osteoporosis, the GP was keen to point out. But also not fine. And I think I needed to hear something concrete because I've been vaguely worrying about my bones for about two years and doing absolutely nothing about it. I'm 57, been postmenopausal since 53, on HRT the whole time. I genuinely thought that meant I was sorted on the bone front. Apparently it's more complicated than that, which my GP did explain but I'm not sure I fully took in at the time. So now I've got a list of questions for my next appointment. Things like: what does this score actually mean for fracture risk over the next decade, when do I need another scan, is my current HRT doing what we hoped, and is there anything else I should be doing alongside it. Meanwhile I've started walking every day. Not dramatically far. Just actually doing it instead of meaning to. And I've been thinking about food differently since the scan, more calcium-rich stuff, sardines, fortified oat milk, cheese (genuinely delighted that cheese is on the right side of this), and trying to get outside for the vitamin D even when it's grim out. I don't know. It's not a crisis. But the scan made it real in a way that the vague worry never did. Anyone else had a DEXA that kind of woke them up a bit? x

Jun 20 · Liked post

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58 and I have become the woman who plans her whole day around whether her knees are going to cooperate. I don't talk about it much. My husband asks how I'm doing and I say fine. My daughter calls and I say fine. I come here and I say it: my joints are the loudest thing in my life right now and I have just been quietly managing around them for months. The walking plan is helping, genuinely. Thirty minutes most mornings, nothing heroic, just out the door before I can talk myself out of it. Some days it loosens everything up and I feel almost normal. Other days I'm limping back in thinking okay that was too much. I've been reading about calcium and vitamin D and I've been more intentional about food lately, more dairy, more sardines, which my husband thinks is hilarious. I'm not making any claims, it's just something I'm paying attention to. I've been on HRT for six years now and I have a checkup coming up and I want to actually ask the real questions this time. Not just "is this still okay" but like, what are we thinking about long term? What does staying on it look like at 60, 65? I keep chickening out of that conversation and I don't know why. Maybe because I'm scared of the answer. Maybe because I don't want anyone to take the one thing that's been keeping me functional. Anyone else navigating that appointment anxiety? The kind where you finally have the questions ready and then you walk in and somehow say nothing.

Jun 19 · Liked post

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Okay so. Divorced fourteen months ago and I have a doctor's appointment next week and I genuinely don't know how to say half of what I need to say out loud to another human being. Like. How do you tell your OB that intimacy feels terrifying now, not because of him (my ex) but because my body has become this unpredictable stranger I don't fully recognize anymore? The dryness, the way I feel weirdly detached from myself some nights, the zero libido that I keep hoping is temporary. I've been jotting stuff down in my notes app for the appointment. Not organized, just fragments. "Tell her about the dryness. Tell her about the anxiety spike around dating. Tell her it's affecting how I see myself, not just physically." I figure if I write it I might actually say it instead of doing that thing where you get in the room and suddenly everything feels fine and you walk out having talked about nothing real. Also I've been cooking for one for over a year and I still make enough pasta for four people every single time. That has nothing to do with menopause but it feels related somehow. Like I'm still figuring out what my life is sized for now. Anyone been through this? The starting-over thing on top of the body-changing thing? It's a lot.

Jun 18 · Liked post

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Okay so can I just say how disorienting it is to not fit ANY of the standard timelines. Like I had my ovaries out at 42 and everything hit me within a week. A WEEK. And then I'd read these articles about perimenopause being this gradual transition over years and I'd just sit there like... that is genuinely not my story at all and I don't know what to do with that. I've been keeping notes on my phone because my follow-up with the specialist is next month and I don't want to show up and forget half of what's been happening. Hot flashes at 2am that wake me up completely soaked, mood stuff that comes out of nowhere, appetite that is just... weird. Some days I'm not hungry until like 3pm and then I'm starving. I've been trying to get protein in earlier when that happens, like eggs or Greek yogurt, not because I read it somewhere life-changing, just because it seems to help me feel less unhinged by noon. The thing I want to ask my doctor and keep forgetting to write down: is what I'm experiencing now even comparable to what the research talks about? Because most studies seem to be on women who went through this gradually and I feel like I'm in a completely different category that nobody has a pamphlet for. Anyone else surgical who felt like the whole language around menopause just... didn't apply to them?

Jun 18 · Liked post

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Started a notes doc for my GP. Cycle changes, mood stuff, the 3am wake-ups. Feels less dramatic written down than it does in my head at midnight. 🤞

Jun 17 · Liked post

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Not strictly on topic but I know you lot will have answers. What are you actually eating on the nights you cannot be bothered. I'm talking five ingredients max, teenagers will tolerate it, and ideally something with a bit of protein because I'm trying to be good about that. I've done jacket potatoes to death. My current rotation is embarrassingly short and I am bored of myself. Bonus points if it's cheap. Go.

Jun 14 · Liked post

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Geraldine, 50. I have my follow-up next Thursday and I've actually been looking forward to it for once, which is not a sentence I thought I'd be typing. Seven weeks ago I came home from the GP feeling like I was falling apart. Couldn't sleep, flushing every hour on the hour, crying at adverts. You know the drill. And now... I don't know. Something has shifted. Not everything, but enough that I noticed. The thing I keep wanting to tell my doctor is about the food and movement piece, because I think it matters and I'm not sure she'll ask. I started eating something with proper protein after my walks and weights sessions, just eggs or Greek yoghurt or whatever was in the fridge, nothing fancy. I don't know if that's done anything or if it's the HRT settling or both or neither. But my sleep has been genuinely better for about three weeks now and my mood is less like a weather system. I'm writing it all down before Thursday so I can actually say the useful bits out loud instead of going blank the second I sit down in that room. Still having flushes. Still tired by 3pm. But frightened? Not like I was. That's the bit I keep coming back to. x

Jun 14 · Liked post

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Hello wise ladies. Been lurking for a bit but this feels like the right place to ask. I'm 61, been post-menopausal for about eight years now, and I've been on HRT for most of that time. Generally I feel like it's been the right thing for me but that's just my own experience, not something I'd push on anyone else. The thing I keep not mentioning at my GP appointments is the joint pain. It's in my knees and my hands mostly, worse in the mornings, and I've just been sort of... accepting it as the price of getting older? But I was talking to a friend recently who'd had a DEXA scan and it made me think I should probably be having a more joined-up conversation about all of it. Bones, joints, the long-term HRT picture, whether I should be asking about a scan. Here's the thing though. Every time I go in I end up talking about something else. The joint stuff feels less urgent somehow, even though it's actually the thing affecting my day-to-day the most. I can't lift my granddaughter without my hands complaining and that bothers me more than I let on. I've started writing a little timeline of when the joint pain started and when it got worse because I genuinely couldn't remember when I'd last had a pain-free morning. It's been useful just having it written down, even if just for me. Has anyone managed to get a proper conversation going with their GP about joints alongside the long-term HRT stuff? Did you have to push for a bone scan or did it come up naturally? I feel like I need to go in with a proper list this time rather than letting the appointment drift. Any experiences gratefully received x

Jun 13 · Liked post

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I was mid-sentence in a team meeting this morning. Knew exactly what I wanted to say. And the word just... wasn't there. Gone. I said "the thing, the overview thing" and my manager finished my sentence for me and everyone moved on but I sat there feeling absolutely mortified. This is happening more and more. I've been in this job twelve years. I know what I'm doing. But lately I feel like I'm performing competence rather than just having it, if that makes sense. I don't know if it's peri or burnout or both. Probably both. But I'm starting to write things down because I want to be able to describe it properly at some point rather than just saying I'm a bit foggy. It's not a bit foggy. It's unsettling x

Jun 13 · Liked post

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Tamsin, 60. Started going to a gym for the first time in my actual life eight weeks ago and I want to talk about the awkwardness because nobody seems to mention that part. The instructor is about 28. He is very kind and very patient and every time he corrects my squat form I feel like a giraffe learning to use a stepladder. The other women in the class are mostly younger and very confident with the equipment and I spend half the session pretending I know what I am doing while quietly reading the labels on the machines. But here is the thing. I went. And I went again. And last week I lifted slightly more than the week before and I nearly texted my daughter about it like it was news. I started this because my GP mentioned bone density at my last review and I left the appointment with a referral for a DEXA scan and this low-level hum of worry that I could not quite shake. Started reading about what actually helps and strength training kept coming up. So here I am, in leggings, mildly terrified, trying to eat more protein than I ever have in my life because apparently that matters too. If anyone else came to this late and felt completely out of place at first, I would genuinely love to know it gets more normal. x

Jun 13 · Liked post

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53 and I have genuinely started printing out my own meeting agendas just so I have something to anchor me. Not because I'm organised. Because if I don't have words in front of me I will lose my thread mid-sentence and just... trail off while six people stare at me. It happened on Tuesday. I was chairing. I chaired the same monthly catch-up I have chaired for four years and I forgot what we were supposed to be discussing next. Just gone. I covered it but my face went red and I spent the rest of the day feeling like a fraud. I've started keeping a little notebook open on my desk during calls too. Not minutes, just anchors. A word or two so if my brain skips I can look down and find my place again. It helps a bit. The afternoons are the worst. By three o'clock I'm running on nothing and I've been trying something this week, keeping some nuts and a bit of cheese at my desk instead of going for the biscuits in the kitchen, to see if that helps the 3pm slump. Early days. No conclusions yet. I do want to talk to my GP about whether this level of fog is hormonal or whether I've just quietly broken. I want to go in with actual examples rather than "I feel a bit fuzzy sometimes" because I know how that sounds. Has anyone managed to get their GP to take the cognitive stuff seriously? x

Jun 12 · Liked post

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Sixty-one years old and I feel like I need to say this loudly because nobody seems to talk about it: my last period was eight years ago. Eight years. And I still wake at 2am most nights like clockwork, lie there for an hour or so with my brain doing its worst, then fall back into the kind of half-sleep that leaves me feeling like I've been chewed up by morning. I stopped HRT about three years back, joint conversation with my GP, felt right at the time, no regrets. But I genuinely assumed the sleep thing was a hot flush thing and once the flushes went it would sort itself out. Reader, it did not sort itself out. What has helped, or at least what I think has helped because honestly who can tell anymore, is the strength training I started last year. Two sessions a week at a local gym, nothing dramatic. I went partly because I'd read enough about bone density to frighten myself before a GP appointment, and partly because a friend dared me to. Turns out I quite like it. Sleep is not fixed but I feel less fragile during the day which makes the rubbish nights slightly easier to absorb. I've also been making more of an effort with protein since my daughter kept sending me articles about muscle mass in older women. Eggs most mornings, bit of Greek yoghurt, actually thinking about it rather than just grabbing toast. Whether it's doing anything measurable I couldn't say but it feels like doing something sensible at least. Got a GP review coming up and I want to ask properly about bone and heart stuff, long-term picture, not just a five-minute brush-off. Writing it down here so I remember I'm allowed to ask. Anyone else still in the thick of sleep issues this far out? Would genuinely love to know it's not just me. x

Jun 11 · Liked post

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49 and I genuinely don't know how to start this conversation with my husband. We've been married twenty-two years. Twenty-two years. And I cannot find the words to explain that sex has become uncomfortable in a way I don't fully understand myself yet. It's not that I don't want to be close to him. It's more that something changed without asking my permission and now I'm sort of bracing for it before it's even happened, which probably doesn't help anything. He's not the problem. He's lovely actually. That almost makes it harder to say out loud. I've been writing a few things down before my GP appointment next week because I know I'll go blank the second I sit down. Dryness, discomfort, that sort of low-level UTI feeling that comes and goes. And the libido thing, which feels like the most embarrassing one to put on paper even though I know it shouldn't. I keep crossing it out and rewriting it. Has anyone here actually managed to bring this up with their partner in a way that felt okay? And did anyone find their GP took it seriously first time? I'm half expecting to be told it's just part of getting older and to get on with it. x

Jun 11 · Liked post

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My husband and I have been together 31 years. Thirty-one. And about eighteen months ago something shifted and I genuinely did not have words for it at the time, I just knew I was... absent. Like my body had quietly changed the locks and not told me. Sex became uncomfortable. Then painful. I started making excuses and he didn't push, because he's kind, but I could feel this gap opening up between us and I didn't know how to explain it because I barely understood it myself. I thought maybe I just didn't fancy him anymore, which was its own horrible spiral to be in. It was only reading things here that I went, oh. Oh this is a thing. This has a name. GSM apparently, which sounds like a mobile network but is not. I've written some notes down for my GP because I know I'll go in there and my brain will go blank and I'll say "I've been a bit tired" and walk out with nothing. So I've written: dryness, pain during sex, recurring UTI-type feelings that come to nothing on the dipstick. Just the facts, on paper, so I can hand it over if I lose my nerve. I haven't talked to him yet. My husband. I keep almost doing it and then finding something urgent to do in the kitchen. But I think I need to. I think he deserves to understand what's been happening, because right now he probably thinks it's him and it absolutely isn't. Anyway. 58 years old and writing about my sex life on the internet. Here we are. x

Jun 11 · Liked post

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60 next birthday and I still see women posting things like "will this ever end" and I want to reach through the screen and say: yes, mostly, but also it changes shape rather than disappearing, and that is honestly okay. I came off HRT about two years ago after a long conversation with my GP and I won't pretend the transition was seamless. Sleep went wobbly again for a good few months. Joints creaked in ways I hadn't expected. But I'm on the other side of that now and genuinely more settled than I was at 52, 54, 56. What helped me most, and I only share this as my own experience, was stopping treating my body like a problem to be solved and starting treating it like something that needed consistent low-drama maintenance. I do a short strength session three times a week. Nothing dramatic. I eat something with protein in it before I leave the house in the morning, usually eggs or yoghurt, because I noticed I was just having tea and then feeling awful by 10am. That's it. That's the whole glamorous secret. Sleep is still not perfect. I want to be honest about that because I think some of us expect it to snap back and then feel like we've failed when it doesn't. But it's manageable. I'm not lying awake for two hours catastrophising anymore. I've got an appointment coming up and I'm planning to ask properly about bone health and how to think about the next decade. I keep meaning to write my questions down beforehand so I don't walk out having forgotten the main one, which is absolutely what happened last time 😂 Anyway. For anyone early in this who's scared it'll always be this intense: it won't. You'll still be here, still figuring things out, but you'll have more tools than you do right now. That's worth something x

Jun 11 · Liked post

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53 and genuinely trying to work out whether what's happening to my brain is perimenopause or just... years of working too hard. Because how do you even tell the difference? I used to be the person who remembered everything. Client names, project details, what was said in a meeting six months ago. Now I'm sitting in a Teams call yesterday and the word 'procurement' just vanished. Gone. I said 'the, um, buying process people' and my manager definitely noticed. So I've started this slightly embarrassing experiment with my lunch. I kept reading that protein at midday might help with the afternoon fog, and honestly at this point I'll try anything that doesn't require a prescription. For three weeks I've been bringing actual proper lunches instead of grabbing a sad sandwich and eating it at my desk while answering emails. Eggs, chicken, that kind of thing. I'm not entirely sure it's doing anything yet but I haven't faceplanted quite as badly at 3pm this week, so. The thing I actually want to know, and I'm hoping someone here has thought about this: when you went to your GP about brain fog, how did you describe it? I want to go in with something more useful than 'I feel thick'. I've been jotting down specific moments at work, the word-finding stuff, forgetting what I was about to say mid-sentence, losing the thread of conversations. Is that the kind of thing that's worth mentioning in terms of hormones, or do GPs just tell you to sleep more and reduce stress? Because I've had that conversation before and I cannot cope with having it again.

Jun 10 · Liked post

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43 and I lost the word 'escalate' in a meeting yesterday. Just... gone. I was mid-sentence, presenting to my manager, and I stood there opening and closing my mouth like a fish. Said 'make bigger' in the end and wanted to crawl under the table. This has been happening for months and I keep telling myself it's stress or too much on my plate but honestly I think something else is going on. I used to be sharp. Like, annoyingly sharp. Now I'm rereading my own emails three times because I can't trust what I've written. The afternoons are the worst. By 3ish my brain just fogs over completely. I've started keeping a packet of those peanut butter oat things in my desk drawer and eating one around 2:30 and it does seem to take the edge off slightly? Not a cure obviously but it stops me feeling quite so underwater. Sleep is the other thing I'm trying to sort. I've started being really strict about screens after 9pm which felt dramatic but the nights I manage it I do feel fractionally more human the next day. I've got a GP appointment coming up and I want to actually explain the work stuff properly this time, not just say 'I'm a bit tired'. I'm writing down specific examples, like the meeting yesterday, because I know if I don't I'll just sit there and say I'm fine. Anyone else doing this? Feels slightly mad to be preparing evidence about my own brain x

Jun 9 · Liked post

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Okay so I have to ask. Is anyone else's period just... unrecognizable? Like I've had a cycle for 30 years and suddenly I don't know what my own body is doing. Last month was 19 days apart. The month before, 38. And the volume. I went through everything I had at work on a Tuesday and had to stuff paper towels in my underwear like a teenager. I'm 43. I have a job title and a mortgage and I should not be doing this. I finally started keeping a calendar. Not an app, just a notes page on my phone where I write the start date, how heavy, and how wrecked I feel. Because I've got an OBGYN appointment coming up and I know if I walk in there with just vibes she's going to tell me it's normal and send me home. I want to walk in with receipts. The fatigue is the part I really want her to take seriously. It's not tired-from-a-bad-night tired. It's like my bones are heavy. The heavy days I can barely get through a meeting without my brain going completely blank. I've started putting that in the notes too. Work calls where I could not track the conversation. Days where I drove home and genuinely couldn't tell you what route I took. Anyone prepped for an appointment this way? What did you actually bring? I want to make sure I'm asking about iron levels because I have a feeling that's part of what's going on, but I don't want to go in there and forget half of what I meant to say.

Jun 18 · Replied to Community post

Thank you Rachel, and everyone who replied. This is exactly why I posted. Reading these has made me feel much less ridiculous, and I am adding a few notes before my next appointment.

Jun 13 · Replied to Community post

Just popping back to say thank you, especially Janet. I read all of these with a cup of tea and had a little cry, in a good way. This community is such a relief sometimes.

Jun 9 · Replied to Community post

Thank you Siobhan, and everyone who replied. This is exactly why I posted. Reading these has made me feel much less ridiculous, and I am adding a few notes before my next appointment.