Lisa

I don't even know how to start this really. I had a GP appointment last week and I came out feeling like I'd imagined the whole last six months. I'd written things down, I had dates, I had all of it. And I still left without feeling heard. The bleeding, the tiredness that sits in your actual bones, the anxiety that comes from nowhere on a Tuesday. It's a lot to carry and I'm just. tired of explaining it. Anyway. Still here. Still tracking. x

GP appointment next Thursday and I want to actually go in prepared this time, not just sit there going 'um, it's quite heavy I suppose' while she nods and sends me away with nothing. So can I ask, what did you lot actually write down before yours? Like, did you track every day or just the worst days? Did you note clots separately? I've started jotting things in my phone notes but I don't know if I'm recording the right stuff. Also wondering whether to push for iron bloods specifically or just see what she offers. Last time my levels came back 'within range' but I was barely functioning by day three of my period. Feels like there's a gap between the numbers being technically fine and me nearly falling asleep on the school run. Any pointers gratefully received x

My hands and knees have been stiff in the mornings for about four months now. It usually loosens up by mid-morning but some days it lingers into the afternoon, especially if I've been sitting at a desk for a long stretch. I keep meaning to bring it up but then something more pressing takes the appointment. Has anyone tracked this or found a way to make it feel worth mentioning alongside everything else?

follow-up on the knee thing

I mentioned the joint pain a few weeks back, mostly in passing. I did actually bring it to my appointment, which felt like an achievement because I usually let it get crowded out by whatever else is happening. I had written down when it was worst, which turned out to be useful. Mornings, mostly. Worse after I've been sitting for a long time at the desk, which is most of the workday now. My doctor asked whether it tracked with stress levels and I said I honestly wasn't sure, which is probably its own answer. No big conclusion from the appointment. We're watching it. I'm trying to move more in the middle of the day instead of saving it for a run I'm too tired to take by evening. That's been easier some days than others. The anxiety has been higher this week for work reasons that have nothing to do with any of this. It's hard to separate things out when everything is running at the same time.

Jun 20 · 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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Managed to track three cycles consistently for the first time. Dates, length, how I felt. Saving it for my GP appointment. Feels like actual evidence finally.

Jun 19 · Liked post

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52 and I've started writing things down before I even get to the waiting room because the last time I sat in front of my GP my mind just went completely blank. Like, I had been awake at 3am for six nights in a row and somehow when she asked how she could help I said "I've been a bit tired" and left with a leaflet on sleep hygiene. Not this time. I've got a notes app open on my phone that I've been adding to all week. Times I woke up, how long it took to get back to sleep, whether the sweating came before or after the waking (honestly still can't tell), how I felt by mid-afternoon. It looks a bit obsessive written out like that but I genuinely cannot hold this stuff in my head anymore. The thing I really want to ask about is HRT and whether it could help with the sleep specifically. I've read a bit and I know oestrogen is involved somehow but I don't know how to bring it up without sounding like I've diagnosed myself off the internet. Has anyone managed to steer a GP conversation towards that without being fobbed off? I keep rehearsing it in my head and then worrying I'll just go quiet again the second she looks at her screen. Appointment is Thursday. Fingers crossed x

Jun 19 · Liked post

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46 and I genuinely did not see it coming. Like one day things were just... fine. Normal. And then somewhere in the last year or so intimacy started feeling different and I couldn't even explain it properly to myself let alone to my husband. It wasn't that I didn't want to. It was more like my body had quietly changed the rules without telling me. I've been trying to write things down before my GP appointment because I know I'll go blank the second I'm in that room. Stuff like when it hurts, what kind of hurt, whether it's all the time or just certain moments. It feels so strange to be making notes about something so private. But I also know if I don't write it down I'll just say "I'm a bit tired" and come home with nothing. Has anyone else found it hard to find the actual words for this? Not the embarrassment of saying it out loud (though that too 😩), but literally not knowing how to describe it to a doctor? I want to say something like "it feels raw" or "there's a dryness that's affecting everything" but I'm worried they'll just hand me some leaflet and send me on my way. Anyhow. Writing it here felt easier than I expected. x

Jun 19 · Liked post

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Right, rant incoming, sorry in advance. Saw my GP last month about the flushes. Told her I was waking up soaked through twice, sometimes three times a night, that I'd had to start keeping a change of clothes next to the bed like some kind of sweaty Girl Guide. She said "it could be stress" and referred me for a blood test that apparently tells her nothing useful at this stage anyway. Sent me off with a leaflet. I've got another appointment booked and I am NOT leaving without a proper conversation this time. I've been writing stuff down, flush times, how bad the sleep disruption is, how it's affecting my concentration at work, because I figure if I turn up with actual evidence she can't just wave me out the door again. What I genuinely don't know is how to ask about HRT without sounding like I've already diagnosed myself off the internet (I have, but still). Like, is there a way to ask about patches versus gel without her getting defensive? I don't mind which form I end up on, I just want to know what the options even are. Does anyone else find GPs weirdly cagey about explaining the difference? Also on a completely unrelated note I've started eating a lot of cold cucumber and yoghurt things for lunch because hot food at my desk is now genuinely unbearable 😂 if nothing else perimenopause is improving my salad intake. Any tips for the appointment gratefully received x

Jun 18 · Liked post

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Got a date on Friday and I'm dreading my own body more than him. That's not normal is it 😩 x

Jun 18 · Liked post

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42 and somehow I have ended up with seven different supplement pots on my kitchen counter and I genuinely don't know how that happened. Every time I see something on Instagram I think oh maybe that's the missing piece and I buy it and then nothing changes and I just have more pots. So I've stopped. Cleared the counter. Going back to basics for a bit, eating actual proper food first, more protein, more veg, not glamorous but I haven't been doing that consistently so it feels dishonest to keep adding pills on top of a patchy diet. If I'm still struggling in a few weeks I was thinking of just trying one thing, probably magnesium because it keeps coming up, but ONE thing and actually paying attention to whether my sleep shifts at all. Writing it down so it's not just vibes. Also want to ask my GP about interactions before I add anything, I'm not on HRT yet but conversations are happening and I don't want to just casually mention six supplements at the last minute. Does anyone else bring a list to their appointment? Does it help or do they just gloss over it? x

Jun 18 · Liked post

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41 and feeling like a complete fraud in here tbh. Every menopause space I find seems to be for women in their 50s and the period tracker apps keep asking me if I'm trying to conceive 🙄 like mate that is NOT the vibe right now. My cycles have been doing weird things for about eight months. Sometimes 24 days, sometimes 34. I used to be clockwork. And I'm exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't fix, which is fun. The anxiety has got worse too but I keep telling myself it's just work, just the kids, just life being A Lot. I've started writing things down because I couldn't remember what was happening from one month to the next. Not in any organised way, just notes on my phone. When I woke up at 3am, how much coffee I'd had, whether I'd actually eaten before noon. Turns out I almost never eat before noon which probably isn't helping anything. Going to try and actually have something before I leave the house in the mornings. Genuinely curious if it shifts the 11am crash. Also trying to figure out how to bring the cycle stuff up with my GP without her just nodding and saying stress. Any tips on how to make it sound like data rather than a complaint? x

Jun 18 · Liked post

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Hi all. 58, post-menopause, finally feeling cautiously better after a rough few years. Here to listen more than talk but glad to be here x

Jun 17 · Liked post

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46 and I have been pretty quiet on here but I need to say this somewhere because I honestly did not think I would feel this much better this fast. Last month I was a wreck. Like genuinely scared of myself. The sleep was shot, the rage was unreal, I cried at a FedEx notification. So yeah. Not great. This past week though. Something shifted. I don't fully understand it and I'm not going to pretend I do. But here's what's different for me personally: I started eating the same breakfast every single morning. Eggs and some kind of grain, sometimes leftover rice, sometimes oats. Nothing fancy. I just stopped making it a decision. That's it. That's the whole breakfast thing. Turns out decision fatigue at 6am was quietly destroying me. Also I have a follow-up with my OBGYN on Thursday and I actually have things to REPORT this time instead of just crying at her. Sleep is more consistent. Mood is less like a live wire. I wrote it all down so I don't blank when she asks how I've been doing. I'm being careful not to get too excited because last time I had a good week I got cocky and then crashed hard. But this feels different. Steadier maybe. If you're in the really dark part right now, I just want you to know I was there like four weeks ago and I'm not there today. That's all I've got. 💛

Jun 17 · Liked post

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So I downloaded a period app a few months back because my cycles started going a bit weird and I thought, fine, I'll track it. Except the whole thing is pastel pink and keeps asking me about my "fertile window" and whether I'm "trying to conceive". I am 42. I am not trying to conceive. I am trying to figure out why my period is now anywhere between 22 and 34 days depending on what mood my body is apparently in. And then I googled the symptoms I've been having, the anxiety that arrives out of nowhere, the bone-tired thing that isn't fixed by sleep, the way I lost a word mid-sentence last Tuesday and just stood there, and everything that came back said perimenopause. So I clicked on a few forums and felt immediately like I'd wandered into the wrong room because everyone seemed to be talking about hot flushes and HRT and being post-menopausal for five years and I just quietly closed the tab. I don't know where I fit. Too old for the app. Too young-feeling for the forums. Not sure enough to say it out loud to my GP yet without sounding like I've been catastrophising on the internet at midnight (which, fair, I have). What I have started doing is just writing things down in my notes app. Cycle dates, how I slept, whether I managed breakfast or just inhaled coffee and called it a morning. That bit has actually helped, not because anything is clearer yet, but because I feel less like I'm imagining it when I can see it written down across six weeks. Anyone else in this weird in-between bit? Would just be nice to know I'm not the only one x

Jun 16 · Liked post

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I have an appointment on Thursday and I have spent the last hour trying to write down what's actually been happening. Which sounds simple. It is not simple. Every time I try to describe it I end up writing something vague like "discomfort" and then crossing it out because I know that's not going to get me anywhere with a GP. So I've been sitting with a notebook trying to find the actual words. Dryness. Pain during sex. The way I now sort of dread it rather than want it. That last one took me about twenty minutes to write because even in my own handwriting it felt embarrassing. My husband doesn't know I'm going. Not because I'm hiding it exactly, more that I don't know how to start that conversation yet. He's kind. He hasn't said anything difficult. But I can feel us both sort of tiptoeing around something we used to just... have. Fifty eight years old and I feel like I'm failing at a thing I never expected to fail at. Anyway. The notebook exists. The appointment is Thursday. I've written "ask about local oestrogen" at the top of the page and underlined it twice so I don't bottle it and talk about something safer instead. Has anyone else had to basically coach themselves through saying the actual words to their GP? I don't want to come out with a leaflet and nothing else. x

Jun 15 · Liked post

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Right. I need to put this somewhere. I am 57 years old. I have been eating sensibly, more or less, for most of my adult life. I know what vegetables are. I know that protein matters. I do not need another reel from a woman in activewear telling me that the reason I'm exhausted is because I'm not eating enough collagen powder or whatever it is this week. I am tired. Genuinely, properly tired. Not lazy. Not unmotivated. Tired in a way that starts before I've even opened my eyes in the morning and follows me through the whole day. I used to be someone who got things done. I planned meals, I walked, I held a job, I looked after my mum when she was ill. I did not fall apart. And now I am struggling to get through a Tuesday without hitting a wall at half two that feels like running into a door. I've been trying to sort out breakfast, something that actually holds me, because I read that can help with the crashes. And it does seem to make a small difference. I'm writing that down because it's the kind of thing I forget when I'm in the middle of a bad week. But I am so sick of the whole conversation being framed as though we just haven't tried hard enough. Eat less. Move more. Have you tried cutting out sugar. Yes. Yes I have. For thirty years. Thank you. I've got a GP appointment next month and I'm going to try to explain the energy thing properly this time. I've written some of it down. The pattern of it, when it started, what makes it worse. I don't want to be dismissed again. Just needed to say all of that out loud. Thanks for being here x

Jun 14 · Liked post

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Ok so I've got a GP appointment in three weeks and I'm trying to actually go in prepared for once instead of just saying 'yeah it's quite heavy' and leaving with nothing. This week I'm writing down the days, how heavy (like, pad changes per hour on the bad days), and how wiped out I feel after the school run. Not glamorous but I figure if I can show a pattern rather than just describe a vague feeling she might take it more seriously?? Also wondering if anyone else tracked energy separately from the bleeding itself, like whether the exhaustion hits before or during. I genuinely can't tell at this point. Might start a little fatigue column. Will report back x

Jun 14 · Liked post

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53 and genuinely cannot tell if my body is falling apart or if work is just that bad right now. Waking at 3am almost every night, completely alert, heart going a bit, then lying there for two hours thinking about absolutely nothing useful. It's been months of this. My sister said peri. My husband said stress. My GP said "let's see how it goes" six months ago and I didn't push back because I never do. So this week I've just been writing it down. Time I wake, what the night felt like, whether I had wine the night before. That last one is interesting actually. The nights I skip the wine are not perfect but they are noticeably less chaotic. Not cutting it out completely, I'm not a saint, but I've knocked it down to weekends and the difference is real enough that I'm keeping track. I want to go back to the GP with something more than "I feel off". I know what I'm like in that room, the words just go. So I'm building a little timeline, dates, patterns, how long this has been happening. Hoping that if I walk in with notes she'll take me more seriously than last time. Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? The 3am thing especially. Is it peri? Is it just me falling apart slowly? Honestly asking 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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Karen, 55. Nobody warned me it would just... stop. Not gradually. Not with some graceful winding down. One year things were fine and then they weren't and I genuinely thought something was wrong with me, or with us, or both. My husband hasn't said anything unkind but I can feel him being careful around me and honestly that almost makes it worse. I've finally written some things down to take to my GP because every time I've sat in that chair I've somehow talked about my sleep and my mood and then left without saying the actual thing. So this time I have it on my phone. Dryness. Discomfort. The fact that I'm avoiding something I used to want. That I feel like a stranger in my own body in this particular way. I've also been trying to eat properly again, not because I think a bowl of spinach is going to fix this, but because when I'm eating well I feel slightly more like myself, slightly more present. It helps with the brain fog at least. Has anyone actually managed to say all of this to their GP without going bright red and leaving half of it out? Because that is my current challenge and the appointment is Thursday. 😩

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 13 · Liked post

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44 and genuinely cannot work out if I'm falling apart or just knackered. Like, is this perimenopause or have I just been grinding for fifteen years and finally hit a wall?? The thing that's got me is the words. Not dramatic stuff, just... I'll be mid-sentence in a meeting and the word evaporates. Last Tuesday it was 'provisional'. I stood there saying 'the, um, the not-final version' while my manager looked at me. I wanted to die a little bit. I've started writing everything down before I go into any meeting now. Not notes exactly, more like a little script of the key words I might need so I can glance down if my brain does that horrible blank thing. It helps? Probably looks odd but I don't care anymore. I've got a GP appointment in a few weeks and I'm actually collecting examples now. Specific ones. Dates, what I forgot, what the situation was. Because I know if I just say 'I feel foggy' she'll tell me to sleep more and send me on my way. Whereas if I say 'on the 14th I couldn't retrieve a word I use weekly, in the 18th I forgot a colleague's name mid-introduction' that feels harder to dismiss. Anyone else doing this? The gathering-evidence thing? It feels a bit mad but also like the only way I'll be taken seriously x

Jun 12 · Liked post

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39 and already deep in perimenopause apparently, which means I've spent the last four months being absolutely bombarded by supplement content the second I googled one symptom. One search for 'sleep perimenopause' and now my entire feed is someone selling me a £65 powder with a before/after that is clearly just better lighting. What I actually want is someone to tell me what they spent, whether it did anything, and how long they waited before deciding. That's it. Not a transformation story. Not a discount code. I've started writing down what I'm already eating before I buy anything else, because honestly I think my protein is embarrassingly low and fibre is basically nonexistent on a busy week. Feels like sorting the foundations out first makes more sense than adding a sixth supplement on top of a bad diet. Also I'm making a list of everything I'm currently taking to bring to my GP because I have no idea what interacts with what and I'd rather ask than assume. Has anyone done this? Did your GP actually engage with it or just shrug? x

Jun 17 · Replied to Community post

Thank you Janet, 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 16 · Replied to Community post

Just popping back to say thank you, especially Denise. 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.