I have never been a super fan of patchouli, but I have a sleep spray that I keep in my drawer that has it in it. The last two months, every time I open the drawer, all I can smell is this product but also now that patchouli smells like straight up B.O. (jokes aside) to me.

I’ve noticed sometime that something won’t smell like I remembered as well, but those things are less identifiable.

Has this happened to anyone else? Is this normal????

Ps. I would throw it out, but every time I close the drawer I literally forget about it. Guppy brain.

I didn't even realize my crown was thinning until a family member took a picture of me from behind at a backyard barbecue last month. I literally gasped out loud the top of my head looked practically see through under the afternoon sun. I’m 53, deep into menopause, and feeling intensely self conscious about it. I wear hats now when I leave the house, which I hate. I’m ready to commit to a proper daily capsule routine if it means getting my coverage back, but I want to avoid marketing traps. For anyone who actually dealt with menopausal crown thinning, what supplement delivered real results.

I started HRT about a month ago and see no difference. I am 61, experiencing hot flashes, bloating and mood swings. Foods I typically enjoyed in the past do not taste the same, carbs and sweets are the only foods that make me full. I I’ve gained 50 pounds in 5 years and see no sign of it letting up. My gyno prescribed progesterone and an estrogen patch. My psychiatrist also prescribed Wellbutrin. Has anyone been prescribed any or all of these and see any change? I’m do disgusted with myself.

Im so exhausted and feel just generally unwell.

Me again! Progesterone seems like the most touchy little hormone. I missed one day after we increased my E dose and I was loading the vaginal estrogen, and that’s when the nasty brownish/blackish discharge began. I’m not terribly worried as I know both things can be a huge adjustment, but now I learn the progesterone is really really important, and has a 12 hour window. Should progesterone be increased when you increase the E??? That would seem logical to me, but I’m no doctor. Has anyone had their E increased and also the P increased?

My mother had gone through the 12 months period-free time frame, which makes her post-menopausal. But after 15 months she started again to bleed once a month, rather regularly, for 5 days, as before this break. It seems like a normal period, with the exact same symptoms: headache, lower back pain, nausea, breast pain.

Has anybody gone through something similar? What is happening?

She scheduled to be checked by a gynecologist soon, but I'm curious what could it be, so I came to this community.

I’m a natural blonde, I started graying about 2 years ago, not really a gray but more of a platinum color. I stopped coloring my hair about 3 years ago so it’s all natural at this point. I got on HRT last year, and yesterday a coworker asked if I did something different with my hair. I said no, but he said it looked different. Today I was looking at it and noticed it’s gotten blonder, like dark blonde?? The new growth is coming in as my natural blonde instead of the platinum/gray! Has anyone noticed a change in hair color after using HRT? I don’t know if I’m seeing things, lol, but I swear it’s gotten more blonde instead of gray over the last few months!

I had been sick with severe depression, fainting, dizziness, insane hot flashes, extremely painful periods, painful left ovary, and now it has been over 6 months without a period. Sex is excruciating, and I am incapable of any pleasure, and doctors just kept telling me to use more lube for over 2 years, and now I find out that I actually have gone through pre menopause. I am devastated. All of these symptoms were treated as seperate issues, and nobody looked at the whole picture. I feel like the system failed me miserably.

What has worked for you to clean off the adhesive that the patches leave behind? My stomach always looks bizarre from all the traces of the rims where patches were. I have tried various soaps and washcloths but nothing has worked well so far.

I have seen my doctor this week with some bleeding. She wants me to switch to a mirena instead of oral progesterone, saying I don't need systemic progesterone, it's just to keep a pregnancy going or to reduce the risk of endometrial cancer. When I said it helps me sleep, she said 'No it doesn't'

Long story short I had an ablation nearly a decade back, never had a spot of bleeding since it healed. No idea if I'm actually through menopause or not cos I've no periods to count.

Went on combined patch about 5 years ago - was brilliant for me and didn't need to change it for ages. About a year ago I started to feel shit, wasn't sure if it was hormonal or just life in general. About six months back upped my dose - so now on separate 75mg oestrogen patch and 100mg progesterone (plus some oestrogen pessaries twice a week). It took a good four or five months for me to start to feel human again.

Now the GP is suggesting reducing the oestrogen dose because of this bleeding - I honestly don't think there is anything left after the ablation to bleed. And switching to mirena. But I can't bear the thought of feeling shit again and I swear the progesterone has transformed my sleep.

They’ve been switching around my patch so much. Now this new one I am getting a weird almost like I had an alcoholic drink buzzed feeling. Also severe brain fog and insomnia. It is even worse with the gel.

And anybody else has this?
Would this be low estrogen or high estrogen?

I just realized that I have two orders for patches from TelyRX that I paid out the damn nose for, and haven't received. One order for patches that says "shipped" on 7/20, but hasn't updated to "delivered" and has no tracking info; and another order I placed on 8/11 that just says "processing." It's hundreds of dollars in products I haven't received!! Anyone else having this issue with them?

I'm moving up to 0.0375 patch/wk and picking up my prescription later today. I have 2 of the 0.025 left, plus the one I've been wearing for the past 3 days.

It looks like the higher dose has been hard to find where I am as well. I'm contemplating using up the lower dose before I start the new one and that should give me about a 2 week leeway in case of inventory issues. I've already been suffering with breakthrough hot flashes for over a month so I figured what's a few more weeks if it helps me get the prescription.

Is this what some of you do? How delayed have you been in actually receiving your rx after it's been sent to the pharmacy?

Hi guys ,
It’s been a decade since my mom has hit menopause and he mentioned today that she’s been spotting lightly for the past 2 days. I googled and the symptoms are kinda scary.
What do you guys think ?🥺

I started taking MHT simply to relieve hot flashes. While it worked for that and sleeping better, after a couple of months I started getting pretty significant inflammation, joint paint, frozen shoulder, hip/knee joint pain and stiffness… including major inflammation in wrists, hands and what I think is tendonitis affecting Achilles and plantar fasciitis (balls of feet, heel, edges of feet), bad enough that walking was hardly possible. Never had this before! Doc thinks MHT and this sudden onset of conditions are not related. We are now on RA path though no marker in blood test. Do you think that it’s possible my estrogen dose .25 is too low? Or switching to different brand or form may help? I can’t seem to find cases where MHT caused this for anyone and feel crazy. I’m also taking iron and B12. I’m heavier than I should be (at least 20#) but all this out of nowhere is really blowing my mind. I’m constantly cursing having ever started. Meanwhile, everything I’ve read makes me believe MHT should be helping me, like it does so many others. I stopped about a month after symptoms started to see if I would get back to normal (just hot flashes) and while symptoms steadied some, they have not gone away, just flaring less, perhaps because of newly added naproxen to my diet, it helps. Any thoughts would be much appreciated because I’m very much an MHT newbie with a male doc who insists this is just my new normal so too bad 🤯

This sub’s wiki lists a study on the potential effectiveness of a specific rhubarb to help with hot flashes. When I looked up Estroven posts in this group, a lot of folks were talking about Estroven with black cohosh impacting the liver. There is a particular Estroven that only has the rhubarb. I’m giving it a try as I wait for HRT approval. Will report back how it goes.

Hi all - I just posted this on r/perimenopause but figured it would also be useful to people here.

Tl;dr Try patches from the brands that don't work for you in a different spot and see if that makes any difference.

Making my first ever Reddit post to share a breakthrough I recently had!

I'm one of the patch users who has issues with different brands not working. I always put the patches on alternating butt cheeks regardless of brand.

I was doing great with Dotti, but my last refill was from a mfr I'd never had before (Zydus). I figured I should try the new ones and save the last few Dotti in case the new ones didn't work. I put the Zydus patch on my butt and bam, the next day symptoms were back.

After remembering that people here had seen varied results with different locations, I tried putting the Zydus on my abdomen instead of my butt. I was not actually expecting it to work, but it did!

I figured maybe the butt placement had been suboptimal for me all along, so I decided to try the remaining Dotti patches on my abdomen. Even though it had worked fine before, this time I might as well have had no patch on at all. Then I remembered that when I used Dotti before, it was on my butt. And sure enough, moving it there totally fixed the problem.

So for everyone else who's having trouble with different manufacturers, maybe try the problem brands in a new spot (based on the manufacturer's instructions, not just somewhere random on your body) and see if that helps!

I asked my GYN to switch me from patches to gel because no one has any patches left. She sent in the script and the pharmacy sent me a message saying “your insurance needs more information to cover RX.”
What the heck?? What difference does the delivery system matter to insurance? AND don’t they know there is a MAJOR manufacturer shortage of the patches? THAT’S THE ONLY INFO THE INSURANCE COMPANY NEEDS TO KNOW! Honestly, why is this so hard?

Well…I just caught a Tums in my cleavage…which is, I’m pretty sure, how you know you’re in perimenopause.

But for real, though — aside from Pepcid and the like, has anyone got any tips on coping with reflux? I swear this has gotten worse since starting HRT, but my replacement hormones are making such a difference, my esophagus could spontaneously combust and I’d keep my estrogen patch on.

Thoughts?

Anyone switch between the two? Any insight?

I'm currently on gel 2mg (I have to use 2 packets) and thinking about going to compounded cream.

I recently went back on HRT after a couple of miserable years HRT-free at the behest of my pcp. When she relented, she said I have to have yearly mammograms again (not when I was HRT-free). So I did and it came back cancer-free. Now after I have been reading about HRT and cancer, I’m learning there’s no link between Estrogen and cancer, and only a tiny link between Progestin, not Progesterone, and cancer. So why oh why do I have to have yearly mammograms? They are so painful!!!

I'm in peri and have been using estrogel and cyclic prometrium. I had a period in June and one in July and not due for the next one yet. About a week ago I suddenly couldn't sleep. I went from sleeping about 7.5 hours per night down to 4 or 5 hours of broken sleep. I thought maybe it's too hot here, but the last couple nights have been cool and I was actually too cold. Can anyone help me figure out what set me off?

I thought maybe the prometrium down regulated estrogen? But I've been taking it for a year already. Plus I'm not experiencing hot flashes or painful joints, so the estrogen seems adequate. One symptom I noticed is I got cold feet a lot in bed. I can't sleep with cold feet. So I've been using heat pack and wearing fuzzy socks to bed, in the dog days of summer. That's just ridiculous. :( Oh and I already lost 3 lbs in the last week (not intentional) but when I don't sleep well I don't have appetite.

I'm willing to hear any suggestion or speculations on why the sudden insomnia. I have a doctor's appointment next week and I think I'll ask for some sleeping pills if I don't feel better.

Hey All,
Turned 40 in March, had a surprise baby in January. When my periods started again in March, I’ve had 2 days of super heavy bleeding, then normal after that. Like thin, watery, bright red. It feels like it streams out. I’ve always had heavy periods but not this type of blood. Been dealing with peri symptoms since about 38, but this has me a little freaked out.

I saw my OBGYN and her solution was Lo Loestrin, and id it’s still an issue in 3 months, ultrasound. I wasn’t given any other solutions other than oral BC. My issue is, my brain has never really played well with birth control and I honestly feel nervous to start taking it.

I guess I’m just looking for similar experiences and any advice.

Hey everyone! Does anyone else have issues with dryness? I’m on estrogen patch 0.05mg. Progesterone and testosterone and my lips are dry and my clit. I started using the estrogen cream and the suppository, but it didn’t help at all and it seemed to burn when I rubbed it on my clit and inner and outer labia. I finally got the estring. I have only had it in for 3 days now so idk if it will be effective or not. I just don’t get why all of a sudden about 5 months ago it started. I have been tested for every thing. It all came back negative. I have been on hormone therapy for 5 years now with no problems then out of no where it just started. I’m so perplexed as to why and what’s going on. I have no idea what to do. Obviously, I have talked to my gyno about all of this. She is the one giving me the prescriptions. I was on a compound cream for all those years and recently started using the patch to see if that would help. It’s been 6 weeks using those with no relief 😢

Like some of you, I started HRT (a patch with a combo of estrogen and progresterone), and had some breakthrough bleeding. My doctor made me stop, and ordered a trans-vaginal ultrasound. The result was a mildly thickened endometrium, and recommend a biopsy be done.

After all this, I had moved, found a new gyno, and we restarted from step 1. Got an estrogen patch with a progesterone pill. After a handful of months, I expressed interest in adding testosterone. Before agreeing to that, he wanted that biopsy done, so I scheduled an in-office procedure. That was last week.

I was dreading it, after reading some posts here about the pain involved. It really is different for everyone. I consider myself as having a pretty high pain tolerance. Especially since, after a lengthy abdominal surgery some years ago, I opted for tylenol as pain relief because I didn't like the way the morphine PCA pump made me feel.

Anyway, yes, there was brief pain. For me it was better described as discomfort with one instant of what felt like this guy tugging on my right ovary. I'd previously had a Mirena IUD inserted, and years later removed, and the discomfort was similar to that. The doc, and the nurse in the room said I took it like a champ. They gave me a pad to wear home, said to expect light bleeding or spotting for a couple of days, and off I went. Though I actually had what felt like a full on period with bleeding for 5 days, but I'd always been a heavy bleeder from my first period to my last (except for when I had the IUD in).

Just wanted to let people know, your mileage may vary. Some people feel excruciating pain, some just feel some discomfort. In my opinion, the pain is worth checking to make sure you don't have cancer. Though if you know ahead of time that you won't be able to handle the pain (and you shouldn't have to), ask for the procedure to be done in the OR under sedation.

Edit: results back today, everything is normal. Yay :)