connecting the dots
Peri-menopause creeps up on you. Seemingly disparate symptoms start cropping up, with equally disparate recommended treatments:
GP: Your cholesterol numbers are higher than before. Stop eating cheese.
Optometrist: Your eyes are dry. Try using a warm compress, and remember to blink.
GP: Yes, your intense heart palpitations and anxiety (which you never had before) are likely caused by hormonal challenges. I’m going to prescribe anti-anxiety meds for when you’re PMS’ing, to help take the edge off.
Gyno: What your GP said sounds good.
GP: The sudden flair up of intense joint pain after getting your TDAP booster (which you have literally had multiple times throughout your life with no issue) is curious. We’ve ruled out rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune inflammatory diseases (thank goodness), but don’t know what else to do for you, so hopefully it will just go away on its own. Acupuncture? Sure, can’t hurt.
We grow up not hearing anything about menopause, other than a few jokes about hot flashes. Oh, were it that simple. The symptoms experienced by just my personal friend group range from crippling brain fog, intense hot flashes, violent mood swings, and murder-scene-level periods to stuffy ears, skin rashes, and headaches when the barometric pressure changes.
Most of our doctors aren’t equipped to treat peri-menopause or menopause. It’s not in their medical school curriculum (you read that correctly—a medical issue that half the population will experience is essentially ignored by medical schools). And many of them, like the rest of us, were scared off by the poorly managed Women’s Health Initiative study (read this book to learn why its findings were pretty much useless).
And because the symptoms can be so wide-ranging, we, as the patients, are likely seeing a variety of doctors and specialists. They’re treating us for individual ailments without connecting the dots.
I personally had to seek out a menopause specialist to finally bring it all into focus.
If you’re over the age of 40 and struggling with a multitude of new physical and mental challenges, do yourself a favor and read through a list of peri-menopausal symptoms (this is a good one).
Then talk to your doctor. If your doctor isn’t knowledgeable, help educate them. Or find another one.
-LR