Petra

Has anyone actually managed to get their GP to take brain fog seriously? I keep trying to describe it and it comes out wrong. Like... I'm not depressed, I'm just. not there. Words go. I'll be mid-sentence at work and the word I need just evaporates. I'm 41 and I know that sounds young but my cycles have been doing odd things for about a year and I've been writing some of it down. I want to bring it up at my next appointment but I'm genuinely worried they'll just say stress or iron or something and send me off. Did anyone track specific things before their appointment that helped the conversation feel more real? I've got notes on my phone but they're a bit chaotic. x

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

Right, I need to put this somewhere because I've been going round in circles in my head for weeks and googling at midnight is not helping, it's just making me feel worse. I'm 41. My cycles have been all over the place since last autumn. Sometimes 24 days, sometimes 34, once 19 which genuinely scared me. I've had two periods in the last three months that were so light they barely counted and one that was absolutely not that. And I know, I know, that could be a hundred things. Stress. Thyroid. Just... life being too much. Which is why I keep talking myself out of it. But the brain fog. That's the bit I can't explain away. I am not a scatty person. I have always been the one who remembers everything, who tracks the details, who notices things. And lately I'll be mid-sentence at work and the word just goes. Not a dramatic blank, just... a small gap where the word should be. It happens maybe four or five times a day now and it makes me feel like I'm watching myself from slightly outside. The anxiety is new too. Not panic, just this low hum of dread that sits behind everything. I wake at 4am and lie there cataloguing things I might have forgotten to do. I started writing things down last month. Just a notes app on my phone. Cycle dates, how I slept, whether I had breakfast before the school run or not (I've noticed the days I don't eat until 10am are significantly worse, for what that's worth). I want to take something concrete to my GP because last time I mentioned feeling off she said it sounded like stress and I walked out feeling like I'd wasted her time. I feel too young to be in menopause spaces and too old for apps that ask me about ovulation windows. I don't quite fit anywhere yet. So. Hi. x

My knees have been making a sound going downstairs that I am choosing not to investigate too closely. I mentioned it at my last appointment and got a fairly noncommittal response, which I expected. I have started taking the stairs more slowly and that is probably the whole treatment plan for now.

Jun 21 · Liked post

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Is it just me or does 3am have its own specific kind of horrible? I wake up and I'm not quite sweating, not quite anxious, just... awake and convinced something is wrong. I lie there listing all the things I haven't done and all the things that could go wrong and by 5am I've basically had a full catastrophe meeting with myself. I've been trying to work out if this is peri or just stress or both and honestly I can't tell anymore. My GP appointment is next month and I'm already worried I'll get in there and forget everything or it'll sound too vague to take seriously. I'm writing symptoms down on my phone now, dates and times, because at least then I have something concrete to show her. I don't know. It's exhausting x

Jun 20 · Liked post

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Okay so I've been wanting to write this out for a while because my brain is full and maybe putting it here will help it make sense. I am 44. I have been staring at the supplement aisle at CVS for approximately six months. I have watched probably forty Instagram videos from women who are Very Confident about what I should be taking. I have a notes app full of things I've screenshotted and never looked at again. I have spent real money on things I took for two weeks and then forgot about. This is not a system. This is chaos with a credit card. So I decided to actually try one thing at a time and write down what I notice. Just one. Not a stack. Not a protocol. One thing. I started with vitamin D because my OBGYN mentioned my levels were low at my last physical and that felt like the most boring, least hype-adjacent place to begin. No one on Instagram is going viral about vitamin D. It felt safe from a noise perspective. What I'm tracking: sleep quality (just a rough 1-5 in my notes app each morning), how I feel around 3pm (the crash is real), and whether the low-grade anxious hum I walk around with feels any different. I'm not expecting miracles. I'm just trying to see if I notice anything after a few weeks versus the baseline I wrote down before I started. The baseline thing was actually useful. I spent three days just writing down how I felt before I changed anything, which sounds extremely boring but now I have something to compare to instead of just vibes. I'm also trying to eat actual protein at breakfast before I take anything because I kept reading that food context matters and also I was just eating half a granola bar and calling it a morning, which, no. I'm not going to tell anyone this is working or not working yet because it's been like two and a half weeks and I genuinely don't know. But I feel better about it than I did when I was buying four things at once and hoping something would stick. If anyone else is doing a one-thing-at-a-time experiment I'd love to hear how you're tracking it. Not what you're taking, just how you're keeping notes. My system is messy and I'm open to ideas. TL;DR: stopped trying to do everything at once, picked one thing, wrote down a baseline first, now actually watching for patterns instead of just hoping. will report back eventually.

Jun 20 · Liked post

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Right so I finally started actually writing it down instead of just thinking I'd remember. Every day I'm noting how heavy, whether I needed to change plans, how tired I felt by 3pm. Nothing fancy, just a notes app. Two weeks in and I can already see a pattern I couldn't have described out loud before. The fatigue isn't random, it tracks pretty closely with the worst days. Obvious in hindsight but I genuinely hadn't clocked it. GP appointment next month. At least now I'll have something to show her instead of just saying "it's a lot" and hoping she believes me 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 20 · Liked post

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Can I just ask, without anyone trying to sell me a whole programme, what do you actually eat for breakfast that keeps you going past 10am? Because I am 46 and something has shifted in the last year or so and I genuinely cannot work out what changed first, the weight or the tiredness or the not being able to face food before 8 and then being ravenous by half nine. I keep reading about protein at breakfast and I do believe it, I just cannot face eggs every single morning and I am also not spending a fiver a day on fancy yoghurts. We are a family of four and the food budget is what it is. What I have managed: Greek yoghurt with a spoonful of peanut butter stirred in if I buy the big cheap tub. Sometimes I hard boil a batch of eggs on a Sunday and eat one cold with some crackers which sounds grim but honestly it works. Cottage cheese on toast has grown on me and I never thought I would say that. The thing is none of this is a diet. I am not doing a diet. I have done enough diets. I just want things that are filling and not expensive and do not require me to think very hard at seven in the morning. Also, slight side note, I want to write down what my weight has been doing over the last year before my next GP appointment because I feel like I have put on about a stone without really changing anything and I want to be able to say that clearly rather than just shrugging when she asks. Has anyone done that, just kept a rough note for doctor prep? Did it actually help the conversation? x

Jun 19 · Liked post

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44 and genuinely can't work out if what's happening to my brain is perimenopause or just... five years of too much. My job involves a lot of talking. Presenting to senior people. Sounding like I know things. And lately I've been standing in front of a room and the word just goes. Not a complicated word either. Last week it was "procurement". I've said procurement about four hundred times in my career and it disappeared completely. I stood there and said "the buying people" and moved on like I'd meant to. I've started keeping a notes doc open in every meeting, not for the meeting, for me. Little prompts to myself. Names of people I know I'll blank on. Words I might need. It feels slightly mad but it's got me through a few things without anyone noticing, I think. The thing I genuinely don't know is whether this is hormonal or whether I'm just burnt out and need a holiday and some sleep. Both feel plausible. Both feel equally unfair. I've got a GP appointment in a few weeks and I'm trying to write down actual examples because I know I'll sit there and say "I'm just a bit fuzzy" and she'll say "aren't we all" and that'll be that. So I'm keeping a list. "Forgot the word procurement in a board meeting." "Called my manager by the wrong name twice." "Lost the thread of my own sentence mid-presentation." Has anyone else tried to figure out where burnout ends and peri begins? Because from the inside they look identical to me.

Jun 19 · Liked post

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Got a follow-up GP appointment in two weeks and I'm actually writing stuff down this time instead of walking in and saying 'yeah I think things are a bit better' when honestly I'm not sure they are. So I've got a notes page going. Sleep first because that's the one I can actually measure, sort of. I've been logging wake-ups on my phone and there's definitely a pattern around certain nights of the week which I think is connected to work stress but I want to show her rather than just say it. Hot flushes, I'm writing down rough frequency. Not obsessively, just morning and evening check-ins with myself. Mood is the hard one to put into words. I'm trying to write 'low and snappy by Thursday' rather than just 'mood bad' because that's actually more useful I think. And then the things that have genuinely improved, because I don't want to go in and only talk about what's still hard. Energy in the mornings is better than it was eight weeks ago. I'm noting that. I've also written one question I actually want answered and I'm going to say it even if it feels awkward. Last time I ran out of nerve at the end and just nodded along. Not doing that again. Anyone else find that writing it down before you go in makes the appointment feel less like a test you might fail?? x

Jun 19 · Liked post

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56 and postmenopausal and honestly I am so tired of feeling tired. Not looking for a whole new lifestyle, just... something that actually works for breakfast? Because I've been having toast or nothing for years and by half eleven I'm absolutely done for. Someone at work mentioned protein at breakfast and I sort of rolled my eyes but then I tried eggs a few days running and I did notice a difference? Still not sure if I was imagining it. I'm not suddenly eating perfectly, I'm just trying not to hit the wall before lunch. The energy crashes are the bit I actually want to talk to my GP about. I've been putting it off because last time I mentioned tiredness she looked at me like I'd said something unremarkable. But it's not normal tired, is it. It's floor tired. I want to go in with something more concrete than "I'm knackered" so I've started noting down roughly when the worst bits happen. Mostly afternoons. Mostly when I've eaten something rubbish in the morning. Anyway. Does anyone have breakfast ideas that aren't a massive faff? I don't want a recipe with seventeen ingredients. I just want to not be running on fumes by mid-morning. x

Jun 19 · Liked post

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So we had tinned salmon fishcakes last week, proper cheap to make, and I bulked them out with mashed potato and a bit of frozen sweetcorn. Kids ate them, husband ate them, I ate them and didn't feel ravenous by 9pm for once. That is genuinely rare in this house. I've been trying to sneak more protein into dinners without making two separate meals or spending a fortune, because we are not a household that can do the fancy stuff. Eggs, tinned fish, lentils, chicken thighs when they're on offer. Nothing exciting but it seems to be helping with the 4pm slump that was absolutely flooring me. Also started doing a little walk after dinner, just ten minutes round the block while my husband does the dishes (finally). I don't know if it's doing anything but I feel less like I'm going to fall asleep on the sofa before the kids are even in bed. GP appointment coming up and I want to ask about bloodwork because my energy has been all over the place for months. Does anyone know what's actually worth asking for? I keep reading about ferritin and B12 but I don't want to go in and sound like I've just been on Google for three hours (even though I have). x

Jun 18 · 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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Right. Sixty one, postmenopause, and the three o'clock wall is absolutely flooring me at the moment. Not tired exactly, more like someone's pulled a plug somewhere. I used to just push through it but lately I genuinely cannot think straight by half two. I mentioned it to my GP last month and she nodded and moved on, which was helpful. I'm going back in a few weeks and I want to actually be useful this time, so I've been scribbling down when it hits and what I've eaten beforehand. The pattern I'm seeing is that on days I've had a proper lunch I'm slightly less wrecked. Slightly. It's not a miracle but it's something. Food-wise I'm on a tight budget so I can't do the whole buy seventeen different seeds situation. What I've started doing is cooking a proper dinner three nights a week, something with actual protein in it, eggs, lentils, tinned fish, that sort of thing, and making enough to have leftovers for the next day's lunch. It's saved me from eating toast at one pm and then wondering why I'm face down on the desk by three. Has anyone else tracked the crash and actually found something that shifted it? I don't want to go to the GP with nothing. I want to be able to say here's what I've noticed, here's what I've tried, what should we look at. x

Jun 17 · Liked post

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Okay totally off topic but I need help. I have two teenagers, it's been a week, and I have approximately zero bandwidth left for dinner decisions. What are you all actually making on the nights when you're running on fumes and one wrong comment from a family member away from losing it completely? Bonus points if it involves minimal dishes. Double bonus if nobody complains. (I know. I know that's not possible. But a woman can dream.) Seriously though. Hit me. 🙏

Jun 17 · Liked post

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48 and perimenopause and I genuinely cannot open Instagram without some wellness person telling me I need ashwagandha AND maca AND lion's mane AND magnesium glycinate AND collagen AND a $90 "hormone support blend" that's probably just sawdust in a pretty jar. Like where are the normal people just... trying one thing and seeing what happens? That's all I want. Real stories. Not a before/after reel with a discount code. I decided a few weeks ago I was only going to change one thing at a time, because otherwise how do you even know what's working? Right now I'm just trying to actually hit my protein at meals before I add anything else. Eggs, Greek yogurt, chicken. Boring grocery list. But if sleep or brain fog shifts I want to know it was something I can actually identify. I'm also putting together a list of everything I'm taking or considering to bring to my next appointment. I have no idea what interacts with what and I'd rather ask than assume. Anyone else doing it this way? Just... slowly, one thing, with actual notes instead of vibes?

Jun 16 · Liked post

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42 and I have basically become a woman made entirely of Post-it notes. Every meeting I go into now, I've got a little notebook open on the table. Used to think people who did that were just being performative. Now I understand. If I don't write the word down the second it comes to me, it is gone. Not misplaced. Gone. Like it was never there. Had a one-to-one with my manager last week and she asked me to summarise the Q3 priorities and I just... sat there. Four seconds of absolute silence that felt like four minutes. I could see the shape of what I wanted to say, I just couldn't find the actual words. Eventually got there but honestly I wanted to cry in the car on the way home. I've started prepping a rough bullet list before any meeting that matters. Just three or four points so I've got something to anchor to if my brain decides to go offline mid-sentence. It does help. Not a cure, just a handrail. Also noticed the worst of it hits around 3pm. I've started keeping some mixed nuts and a bit of dark chocolate at my desk because the afternoon crash seems to make the fog so much worse and at least if I've eaten something I can half function until I get home. I want to talk to my GP about it but I feel a bit daft saying "I forgot a word in a meeting" like that's a medical complaint. Is that enough to bring up? Has anyone actually managed to explain the work impact in a way that got taken seriously? x

Jun 16 · Liked post

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53 and I genuinely cannot decide if my brain has gone on strike because of perimenopause or because I have been running on empty for about three years. Probably both. Probably impossible to separate. Work has been the thing that's really scared me. I've been in my role for eleven years and I used to be the person who could hold six conversations in my head at once. Now I sit in a meeting and the word I need just... isn't there. I watched myself yesterday say 'the thing, the report, the, you know, the one we do quarterly' to my director. She waited very patiently. I wanted to disappear into the floor. I started eating more protein at lunch about three weeks ago after reading something on here. Nothing dramatic, just eggs or chicken or sometimes just a big handful of nuts before I go back to my desk. I was sceptical honestly. But the 3pm slump where I used to basically stop functioning? It's not gone but it's less like a wall and more like a hill. That's the best I can describe it. I've got a GP appointment coming up and I want to ask specifically about the link between oestrogen and cognitive stuff. Not just 'I'm a bit tired', I want to actually go in with examples. The quarterly report thing. The three times last month I forgot a colleague's name mid-sentence. Whether what I'm experiencing is hormonal or whether I'm just burnt out and need to quit everything and move to a cottage. Has anyone actually had a useful conversation with their GP about brain fog specifically? Not just been told to rest more? x

Jun 15 · Liked post

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Has anyone actually brought up the caregiving piece at their OBGYN appointment? Like, does it even register as relevant? Saving this question for mine next month.

Jun 15 · Liked post

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First post! 43, LA, perimenopause I think. Periods went from manageable to absolutely unhinged in about six months. So glad this community exists.

Jun 14 · Liked post

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Fiona, 43. Something happened in a meeting on Thursday that I keep turning over in my head. I was mid-sentence, talking to my manager about a project I genuinely know inside out, and the word just... wasn't there. Not a complicated word. A completely ordinary word I've used a thousand times. I stood there smiling like an idiot for what felt like about forty minutes while my brain rifled through empty drawers. Eventually I said "the thing, you know, the" and waved my hand and moved on and nobody said anything but I wanted to dissolve. I've been sharp my whole career. That's the bit that frightens me. It's not that I'm having a bad day here and there, it's that I'm starting to wonder if people are noticing a version of me that I don't recognise. Afternoons are the worst. By half two I'm basically decorative. I've started keeping a little bag of things at my desk, cashew nuts, a hard boiled egg if I've been organised, oatcakes, because I read somewhere that the blood sugar crash can make the fog worse and honestly anything is worth trying at this point. Some days it does seem to help a bit? Hard to tell. Also trying to be stricter about when I look at my phone before bed. I know that sounds basic. But I've had three or four weeks of getting to sleep before eleven and I think, maybe, the mornings are fractionally better. Not fixed. Fractionally. I've got a GP appointment coming up and I want to actually describe this properly rather than just saying "I'm tired" and walking out with nothing. Does anyone have any sense of how to explain the cognitive stuff in a way that lands? Like, what language works? Because I feel like if I say brain fog I'll get a leaflet about mindfulness and that will be the end of it. x

Jun 13 · Liked post

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Hi all. I posted here a while back when I was in a really dark patch, couldn't sleep, flushes every couple of hours, felt like I was disappearing into myself. I said I'd come back if things shifted and, well, things have shifted a bit so here I am. I don't want to be one of those posts that makes it sound like everything is fixed and perfect, because it isn't. But I had a week last week where I slept four nights in a row without waking more than once. Four nights. I actually cried on the Thursday morning because I'd forgotten what that felt like. What I've been doing differently, not saying any of this is the reason, just noting it for myself really: I've been keeping a sleep and mood diary. Just a notes app, nothing fancy. It helped me go to my follow-up appointment with something real to show rather than just feeling like I was catastrophising. I've been trying to eat something proper in the evening rather than picking at whatever's easiest. Simple dinners, nothing complicated. I noticed I sleep worse when I skip a proper meal and I don't fully understand why but I've written it down. I'm still on HRT and we've been tweaking things. I won't go into detail because everyone's situation is different and I really don't want to accidentally nudge anyone in a direction that isn't right for them. My GP has been much better since I started bringing notes. There's still stuff that needs attention. Energy isn't back fully. Mood is better but fragile. I've got another appointment next month and I've already started a list of what still needs looking at. I just wanted to say to anyone who's in that really frightening early bit: it felt permanent to me. It doesn't feel permanent now. That's all. x

Jun 12 · Liked post

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Right. Tiny victory. I remembered the word 'arbitrary' mid-sentence in a meeting today without having to do that thing where you just gesture vaguely and hope someone fills it in for you. I've been keeping a rough note of sleep and caffeine for a few weeks now mostly out of desperation and I think I can see a pattern forming. Not going to jinx it. But brain fog has been marginally less catastrophic this week and I'm taking that. 42 and celebrating remembering a word. This is my life now 😂 x

Jun 18 · Replied to Community post

Thank you Susan, 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.