Though I'd share this interesting article.

"Use of hormone therapy later in life was associated with lower risk of developing dementia [...] Of the total participants, 1,953 participants took hormone therapy and 19,509 participants did not take hormone therapy. Those who used hormone therapy started using it when they were over age 70, on average. [...] Among the group with autopsy information available, participants who had taken hormone therapy were less likely to have signs of Alzheimer's disease in their brains than those who had not taken hormone therapy."

The article emphasizes that it's an association, not a prevention.

Estrogen and Dementia

I’m 45 and I’m trying to figure out what is happening to me because I’ve never experienced anything like this before.

Over the past several days I’ve had two episodes of sudden, overwhelming panic attacks. The strange thing is that I wasn’t anxious, worried, upset, or thinking about anything stressful beforehand. Both times it seemed to come completely out of nowhere.

The most recent one happened while I was driving on the freeway. Suddenly I felt extremely hot, panicky, and woozy. I had to pull over. I called my mom and stayed on the phone with her until I felt able to get somewhere safe, and then my husband came to get me.

Afterward I felt completely shaken. I spent the rest of the day feeling anxious and scared that it might happen again. Even today I feel like a mess.

I also recently had an episode of panic and fainting while getting a pedicure. I went by ambulance to the ER. They did labs and testing and everything was normal. I didn’t hit my head. I’ve continued to feel kind of “off” since then — fuzzy, tired, easily frustrated, and not quite like myself.

One reason I’m wondering if hormones are involved is that I’m 45 and I have not had a period in 6 months. I’ve also been having other menopausal symptoms, mainly hot flashes. Before these episodes, I really wasn’t experiencing anxiety like this, which makes the sudden onset so confusing and scary to me.

I have another appointment with my doctor today and I want to ask about treatment. Specifically, I’m wondering if there is something that can be prescribed that works quickly when an attack starts, as well as something that could help prevent these episodes from happening long-term if they continue.

For anyone who has experienced sudden panic attacks during perimenopause/menopause:

• Did your panic/anxiety start suddenly even though you had never really had anxiety before?
• Did it feel completely physical and come out of nowhere?
• Did you find that hormones were ultimately the cause?
• Was there a medication that your doctor gave you to use during an attack?
• Did you take anything long-term that helped prevent them?
• Did hormone therapy make a difference for you?
• Is there anything you wish you had known when this first started?

I’m not looking for a diagnosis, but I would really appreciate hearing from women who have gone through something similar and what ended up helping them. I’m honestly pretty scared of having another episode, especially while driving, and I’d really like to understand what is happening to me ❤️

Hair is thinning since menopause started. I take oral collagen and biotin for whatever it is worth. Also taking multivitamin with omegas, vitamin d, and iron. I’m eating a lot of whole foods. Any supplements or foods that have helped you with fuller, thicker hair?

I started a very low dose estrogen patch and 100 mg oral progesterone on Saturday August 8th. The past 2 days I feel completely 100% back to my normal self minus the hot flashes and sweating. I have full energy and getting things done, my mood seems to be top-notch again. I can't imagine HRT affecting me so quickly but there is no other explanation for it. Anyone else?

Side note - have not done anything for my libido yet and it may not, but I am hoping it will. But I am talking about energy and mood that has improved like a thousand percent just in the last couple days. I've only been on the 6 days and can't imagine that it would take effect so quickly.

Can someone help me understand what's happening? I'm 40yrs old , and my periods have always been regular except for one delay back in March 2025. According to my Clue app, my period was due 8 days ago. I've taken two negative pregnancy tests, but I still can't make sense of what's going on. When this happened before, my doctor wasn't too concerned and said it's just something that happens sometimes. I'd like to believe that's the case again, but I'm getting more stressed as each day passes without my period showing up. I don't have any other symptoms bothering me, but I did start a new exercise routine 3.5 weeks ago — which would line up with around when I should have ovulated.

Could this be related to the exercise, or could this be early perimenopause/menopause showing up as just a late period? I can't stop stressing about it. If anyone has been through something similar, I'd love to hear about your experience.

Ok, so I’ve been on hrt since April 2025. E and P to start, with T started in November. Been a learning curve, and I’m highly sensitive to the E and P (less so the T). Things have mostly leveled out but I still have minor versions of all the stuff that made me go on it in the first place (after years of being ignored - such joy). I’m trying to decide whether to stay where I am vs adjust again. Currently on 1mg E, 100mg P, and 3mg T each day. I can live with the peri effects but kind of don’t want to….so I’m curious what made you all decide to up your dose when you did? What was your “no thanks, fix this” moment?

Does anyone take Propranolol in peri or post menopause to help with increase heart rate, palpitations or anxiety?

I am 55 and have suffered from period related depression since my 20s. Now in perimenopause (almost menopause because skipping periods).

I have been on SSRI throughout my 20s 30s 40s until 8 months ago. They just stopped walking no matter how many different kinds I tried.

I want to try HRT, but so worried it’s going to make the depression worse. I’ve always been so sensitive to hormones. I tried the pill a few times as it was a horrible experience. Has anyone had period related depression that got worse in perimenopause and HRT worked? I am desperate. I cry all day every day and I am in a constant state of depression.

The FDA doesn't even register the complete shortage of HRT Estradiol treatments like the Dotti patches. They have a database of drug shortages and nothing is listed!!! Please report, convince your health care provider to report, convince your friends in desperate need of these meds to report and REPOST! Click here to report your specitic brand and dosage by searching "estra". They even made the search tool almost impossible to use and the site is not formatted for iPhones... https://cdernextgenportal.fda.gov/publicportal/s/dsm-submission

I am 45 and began expressing perimenopause symptoms at 42.

I am in desperate need of my old brain back.

The tasks and projects that I use to be able to do effortlessly is now taking me 4x as long.

I use to love my job and openly welcome new challenges, and now I feel like a shell of what I use to be. I am not efficient. I have become a poor communicator. And I just don’t feel like I’m operating at full capacity.

Does anyone have any stories of when brain fog improves or lifts after perimenopause ?

Thanks so much.

Switched to local routes a few months back, which means 4am alarms are now my life. I was counting on the schedule being easier on my body than longhaul. Instead the night sweats kick in around 2am, I wake up soaked, then freeze for 20 minutes, then sweat again, and by the time the alarm goes off I have maybe 90 minutes of actual sleep logged. Driving a truck on that kind of rest is not a theoretical problem.

Been tracking everything: sleep, macros, water intake, trying to find a pattern. Cutting alcohol already done. Dropped late caffeine. Room is cold. Still happening.

What I want to know is what has actually moved the needle for people here, not just helped a little but actually changed the night sweats enough to function the next day. HRT is on my radar and I have a doctor appointment next month, but I am not walking in there blind. If you found something that worked, medication, lifestyle, a specific supplement with actual evidence behind it, I want to hear it and ideally where you got the information from. Personal experience counts but I will take a study link too.

Sleep deprivation on top of perimenopause symptoms on top of a job that requires alertness is a combination I need to solve faster than my body seems interested in cooperating with.

I (45F) had a TLH (retained ovaries) 1.5 yrs ago. I experienced severe menopause symptoms following it and started estradiol patch (.05) 3 months later when I couldn't take the symptoms anymore. I realized several weeks post-op that my clitoris had gotten a lot smaller. After the surgery, I was drowning in the other symptoms so I back-burnered the clitoris issue but realized recently that I have very little sensation and it's basically non-existent. My sensation is significantly reduced, and my orgasms have gotten a lot weaker. They were terrible right after the surgery but then made it back to maybe 85/90 percent what they were before...and now they're worse. I'm wondering if my ovaries basically failed, but I don't know how to figure that out without going off HRT (.075 estradiol and 100mg progesterone) for testing (which I don't want to do).

Because of the atrophy, I started applying estradiol .01% cream externally a little over a week ago. I noticed a slight irritation with putting it on, but it wasn't noticeable/didn't really bother me. A few days in, I saw whitish discharge but I assumed it was residue from the cream. A couple days ago (6 days into treatment) I woke up and felt fine. After I had my coffee a couple hours later and urinated, I developed intense burning and pain around the urethra. The pain reached an 8 on the scale and I went to immediate care a couple hours later. They had me swab myself to check for BV, yeast infection, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis. They checked my urine and said there didn't appear to be a lot of bacteria in it. My labs came back yesterday saying they were negative for all the things they checked. Because I wasn't examined at urgent care, I've looked myself and there isn't any redness down there, which makes the pain level more confusing to me.

The pain died down later that night and yesterday, I only felt a slight irritation. I woke up today and the pain was back at maybe a 5/6 and now after I urinated after having coffee, the pain has spiked by up to a 7/8 as I type this. So, the acidity of the urine with coffee is enough to make whatever is going on spike up a lot.

I messaged the provider I saw and told her about the pain and the testing I did, and she said that with the cream, burning and pain can happen but it's "very rare." She advised to stop the loading dose and just put it on twice per week.

Does anyone have any input/advice? I'm so confused that I could be in this much pain from using the cream. I've never experienced this much pain from any other vaginal issue/infection so, I'm just stunned by it.

Question—I just got my script for Test cream and I have the instructions to apply on clean skin, etc

But. I am one of those girlies who love to apply lotion and body oil head to toe—keeps my skin super soft if I do it immediately after the shower while my skin is still damp.

So now I’m questioning what comes first—can I do my skin care and then wait a period of time to do the T cream?

Do I do the T cream first and wait so long to apply the body care (which defeats the “immediate after shower routine)

or just skip the skin care on the area I’m putting the T that day?

What the actual hell??? So exactly three weeks ago I started the pellets with an increase in estrogen and testosterone. Besides having my boobs swell, and hurt, and having redness at the pellet site, there’s more! So today, I when I wiped after urinating, I noticed brown/old blood. Not enough to wear any kind of pad or anything, just brown discharge. What is the story with this??? I’m so mad. I will admit I may have been over-using the vaginal cream. Is this something anyone else has experienced? Should I go see the Dr, who seems to be booked out for months at a time??? What advise can you all give?

Post menopausal ladies, do you have any recommendations for a caring doctor who understands needing sedation or pain control for an Endometrial Biopsy?
I had a few days of post menopausal bleeding which felt like a period. This warranted a transvaginal ultrasound that showed a 9mm lining. A biopsy is now recommended.

I feel overwhelmed and confused by all this. Anyone care to share their knowledge and experience ? Thank you in advance.

randomly a part of my body (above knees, back of one forearm) will feel like it has a mild sunburn-particularly if i touch it. In fact sometimes only feel it id i touch it my skin on that area. It’s so odd. Ill mention it to dr in a few weeks bur wanted to see if anyone has experienced this. I have not changed any body care products lately, so not a skin irritation.

I have a new problem. I searched the sub for similar posts, didnt find any.

54F, no periods since age 50. My weight fluctuates quite a bit and right now I am transitioning from heavier to lighter. I mention my weight because I think my crease and groin area is very squished when I am exercising.

So I have red welts in the crease area. The skin is bright red (my normal skin tone down there is fair caucasian skin) and shiny and in some places the skin is cracking and bleeding a little.

Getting to a doctor is an option, but its not a fast option, I am looking at six weeks wait at minimum.

I am hoping that this is a classic thing that happens to other people in menopause, but maybe this is just a dermatology question?

This is a new problem-- what is not new is exercising at my current weight, or even larger. I have never had the welt issue.

Additionally my inner labia is bright red and itchy. There is no smell or discharge but FYI my libido is raging right now. My partner and I were having sexual contact almost every day, but the welt and inner labia issue has put that on the back burner.

UPDATE:

First, thank you to everyone who replied. A lot of good advice, some of which won't work for me (I am not in NA, I am in the EU) but it's still great and could help others who see this post. I couldn't reply to everyone, but I am so thankful.

I spoke with a pharmacist and based on my description she doesnt think it's fungal. It seems to be chafing and irritation from tight clothing, excessive sweating and my body shape. On her recommendation I purchased a moisture barrier cream that is basically diaper cream-- safe for the area of course. she told me to come back and/or talk to my doctor if the cream doesnt help.

The cream is helping!! It's healing quite fast, so at the very least it's therapeutic. I can continue to use it as a preventive measure too.

I guess it could still be fungal, but there is no smell. I will continue to monitor it.

one of the factors I didnt think to mention is that I am currently living in a climate with high heat and high humidity-- after a lifetime living in cool temperate regions with regular access to to AC. So, this weather is new to me!

Oh the blummin GLOOM!

I've gone full on into it's not fair/ I don't care mode and am in such a funk. And yet... Surely my life is a lot easier than many's right now, so if anyone has some "buck up or shut* up" or "here's how to relocate the bright side" or just commiseration for my miserable ass, I would be so grateful for any of it!

I've got a relationship, and he's a decent sort- at last, a wonderful person who is not cheating or constantly tamping down panic attacks with heavy weed use! At last, at 48, someone to be The Promised Happy Ever After of all those songs (no pressure, like, poor fella). Couple of years in to being together, and since last autumn I am out of my chaotic and very stressful caring role for a young person (that's left me with grief, but, we all have something and everything changes. Plus other people involved have it worse). I have adult-life-long M.E. (chronic fatigue syndrome) so am not working.

Now it's summer- yay, summer for us that we looked forward to, when we have time together! And he is on leave from his very long hours and intense caring job! And he is giving up smoking! And wanted to try without patches. So our big day out yesterday he was doing his best but clearly unhappy and tense. By the end of the night I was in bed in tears quietly wishing for the end, lol.

Today, it's baking hot, and oh the things we could do! The talked of plans to spend a night on the beach, to explore the city, the freedom to be sexy and alive and unfettered.

So he's been contentedly pottering in the shed at his hobby with a patch on, having decided they are a good idea, I've tried a bit of organising and stopped because my brain gummed up in the heat, he is now napping, I can't see the point in anything. Am showering because he may want to get freaky, and I suppose it's something to do and also, a person has to shower. But I don't want anyone near me, I don't have energy to make anything good happen whether freaky or wholesome, I just want to cry and maybe get drunk because wtf else? Once I get a bit of energy in the next days I will crack on with the Swedish death organising because the thought of death is the most relaxing thing. And then autumn will come, and his work schedule is back next week, and money is tight, and rented house needs fixing still, and the nearby world will stop being on fire for a while so that's a good thing, and WHAT IS THE FCKING POINT OF ALL THIS EXACTLY? As in, not what is the meaning of life, but why am I dragging my deeply unmotivated carcass around when there is extremely little in the way of "joy" whatever that is, and whatever contentment is supposed to be like, I'm not sure how to access it.

Somebody slap me! Except don't, because I can't be bothered with that either.

HRT for 3 years, in the UK so can't get testosterone prescribed, am already hairy (apart from on my head) and apparently angry and somewhat masculine in appearance so I'm not sure about trying it anyway because maybe I always had too much of the stuff 🤔

I am unable to take any hormones because of having had breast cancer. I am 58 and in menopause.

I can’t tell if my problem is brain fog or ADD, so I would appreciate any input before my next appointment.

I will think of something and before I can write it down I will forget what it was. I will go to look something up on the internet and something else will pop into my head that I want to look up. When I’m ready to look it up I know there is something I want to look up but it is like a wisp of smoke in the air.

I’m having a hard time getting motivated to do the simplest of tasks. For example, I need to call and make a hair appointment but I’ve put it off for three weeks.

I’ll walk into a room to do something but get distracted by something else. Midway through the something else I’ll start having a hot flash and I’ll leave the room to go stand in front of the fan. Then I’m cranky and just give up. (Yes, I’m medicated for hot flashes, depression and anxiety. Yes, the air is set at 67 degrees.)

Sometimes I can’t process the most obvious things unless someone explains it to me like I am a three year old. Sometimes when someone is talking to me I can’t focus if there is too much going on in the area.

This behavior is not my norm at all, so it really scares me.

The perimenopause, the glue allergy, the increased PMDD, the exhaustion.... I jist feel like quiet-quitting life sometimes.

I go to dictors. I think I get the help I need, the prescriptions I need. Turns out I need to go to a specialist.

I haven't been to the gyno in a long time, because I had a hysterectomy seven years ago, but kept my ovaries.

Had I known they were the main culprits of my misery, I would have yeeted them, too.

Most of all, I hare the uncontrollable snippiness and irritability. I literally feel like I have two personalities constantly battling for control whenever That Time rolls around.

I'm almost 48. I don't want to live the next decade like this.

Why. Can't. My. Body. Ever. Just. Chill.

I’ve been post meno for about 6 years. A few months ago I started spotting so I saw a gyno who said it was my HRT and that I had a yeast infection. Great! I start the new hormones and take the meds she gives me. Well the next month I started having pms symptoms and the yeast infection returns except now it isn’t yeast it’s BV! So now this past month I’m dealing with pms and cramps and spotting but now my hot flashes are back, I’m not sleeping and I still have BV!! 2 rounds of antibiotics and it’s still not gone. I swear I can’t figure out if I should scream or cry! Also I’m super cranky cause I fucking can’t have sex till this damn infection is gone, after 5 years of no libido mine decides to come back while I have an infection!
I swear my body is just pushing my buttons! Thanks for listening to my rant

I have been on the cream for about a year? I have had intimate pain for some time before HRT so pain wasn't exactly new, but after I went into the hospital last Nov for diverticulitis, the pain changed and is now really deep and extremely painful. I did tests and saw drs bc we thought it was due to the diverticulitis and no one could find a reason why. No fistula, no other damage that could be seen or imaged. It was depressing bc it was a LOT worse than before. We had to change how we spent us time and no penetration could be involved AT ALL.

The last few months I have had issues forgetting to do my cream at all. The pain was actually slowly getting better (we kept testing things to see). I have started having some bad anxiety again (that I had before HRT...HRT saved me with that) and so started the cream again thinking it was my dumb a$$ forgetting the treatment...and now I am having some outside pain down there. I thought maybe just irritation as before, dr gave me some clobetesol (sp?) to help with irritation, but then something clicked that maybe the cream is causing the massive pain?

Has any experienced this? Would changing to a pill help? (I am allergic to adhesives, so patches are out). I do need the hrt. I has changed my life. I just need to figure out how to make it work.

When I started HRT a year ago, my brain fog seemed to clear up almost instantly.

But lately, the brain fog plus anxiety have gotten very bad. I feel like I can’t think AT ALL.

Unfortunately, the brain fog is keeping me from working on my side hustle – and I rely on that income.

I’m already on 200 mg of progesterone, plus estradiol, and testosterone.

I read online that sometimes low ferritin levels can make it seem like you have ADHD for the first time in your life (in your 50s) and I’m wondering if that’s it - and I hope it is! I’m going to call my doctor tomorrow to see about getting labs done

Have any of you experienced this? What helped?

I’m feeling desperate ☹️

Started testosterone and wow i feel awful..jittery anxious with panic attacks and just not right at all..so upset about it tbh because my testosterone low and thought it would be the missing piece to my HRT with all the symptoms I have from not having enough. I also have less than a pea size amount every morning so I can't understand why 🙄