Perimenopause

[Klane1118]

I'm a 41 year old woman experiencing perimenopause.  I'm looking for other women who are experiencing perimenopause as well so we can help support eachother through this roller coaster ride.

[Melrey]

Hi Xmnuz
I too began to have my heart racing. It started in January . At first I
though it was due to a UTI I had. Then I noticed it would go up when my
period was approaching. Last month it shot up to 175. I called my doctor
and asked to be put on a beta blocker to prevent from having to go through
this again. I been on high blood pressure medication for years and my pulse
was always good, until few months before my 41st birthday is when I started
having this problem. It is very scary, I don't like it. So far it's been
pretty much controlled except for when I had a bad anxiety attack it shot
up to 118. I am also taking metoprolol. If your heart rate is still going
up they may need to increase the mg . Only thing I don't like about this
medication is the crazy dreams I have.

[Melrey]

Has anyone tried magnesium vitamin to help with anxiety/panic attacks? I'm
reading it helps just wondering if anyone has tried and if there was any
success with it.

[Jp21]

Yes. Magnesium is great.

Sent from my iPhone

[Vylent_Fyre]

Hi Melrey. How long did your hr stay up at 175? What did they do to check you out and determine what the cause was? I'm on 37.5mg of metoprolol ER. My electrophysiologist tech who monitors my loop recorder events data said that on that high of a dosage my hr should not have gone up to 150s and BP shouldn't have gone so high either. I don't know what's causing it but I'm scared I'm just going to die next episode. My hemotologist nurse doesn't think it is anemia related. Both the nurse and tech think it is hormone surges most likely from my adrenal gland tumor. I'm just I standby waiting to see what to do next.

I am glad your hr hasn't gotten that high again. Before the metoprolol and even on 12.5mg my hr would jump to 170s. 25mg it would jump to 150s. 37.5mg until this past Saturday it didn't go past 130s. 

[Vylent_Fyre]

Yes actually I started taking Triple Calm Magnesium (from Amazon) and it does help. I don't take 2 at once, I take one during day and if my palpitations are bad at night I take another one. It also helps you go to sleep. Some days I skip, I don't feel like I need it and I don't want to get too high magnesium in my system as that can cause other symptoms. 

[Melrey]

It took about an hour for it to go down. I had to take two bayers and it
was still taking a while to go under 100. Mine is most likely due to
premenopausal . I am seeing a cardiologist next week have a holt heart
monitor to be on the safe side. At first my doctor thought it maybe related
to the thyroid , but blood work came back normal. I will keep you in
prayers. That the doctor finds a solution quick to help keep you in good
health .

[Dana24]

I had a reaction to licorice root last year and it made my heart race. I took one of my stress relief pills and my heart calmed down within 10 minutes. It's called Stress Relief and is made by Bluebonnet, it's adaptogens: ashwagandha, eleuthero, rhodiola, holy basil, etc...  I was taking them to calm down my anxiety,  I take magnesium too, but have found that I'm limited to how much magnesium I can take. Remember too that there's different kinds of magnesium and you should read up on them to see which is the best your symptoms. 

[Vylent_Fyre]

Mine lasted more than hour this past weekend. For almost 2 years it would crescend / peak in about 15 minutes then it'll reset itself and start coming down. I use to get severe shaking chills the last 15 minutes. We thought hit flashes but perimenopausal hormones do not cause the heart rate to accelerate that fast or high. They also checked me for hyperthyroidism. Up until last year my TSH was always 4-6, hypothyroidism since I was 17. Then it dropped down to 1.10? I keep asking if that could be hyperthyroidism for my body because it is such a drastic drop but I keep getting brushed off like I'm an idiot. I get these doctors of PhD's in their respective medical fields, but I have the PhD on my own body. 😆

The cardiologist did extensive tests and workup. Heart of a teenager, which makes me feel great. But after more than a year of these episodes I'm worried these episodes will dip permanent damage to my heart of a teenager. 😞 

No matter how good your results are, KEEP PUSHING!! I did and I wore holster monitor 1st time for 2 weeks then 1 or 2 months later for 3 weeks. They caught multiple episodes of PVC's and PAC's, all considered benign and most likely due to my perimenopausal crazy hormone fluctuations. After repeated episodes so many times a month I kept pushing harder and cardiologist referred me to his colleague, a fabulous electrophysiologist. My first patient visit with him he told me point blank he is not convinced I have any type of arrythmias, he believed i had another underlying medical condition which I agreed with wholeheartedly. He scheduled and performed the procedure to install / implant an implantable loop recorder / implantable cardiac monitor. It is similar to the holter monitor you're wearing but it'll last 2-3 year's. Best thing I ever did!!! These doctors kept doubting me and thinking i was exaggerating on how high my heart was going, so this little guy in my chest proved me right. Now it is just getting something DONE to figure out the root cause(s).

My suspicions: combination of hyperthyroidism (I believe when the thyroid is overactive it'll burn up the excess hormones quicker, hence another reason why they don't ever catch the excessive hormones) plus I've had two pill cam procedures done, 13 months apart, and both times the pill cam exited my body in 3 hours or less. That is NOT NORMAL. Everyone in my GI office are stunned and perplexed, they have never seen that happen in any other patient. 

Then I think the tumor they found on my adrenal gland is functioning sporadically. Maybe even because of my crazy perimenopausal hormone fluctuations is aggravating it, or vice versa. 

Either way... I truly appreciate you sharing your life story with us and I extra specially thank you for the prayers!! I'll also keep you in my prayers that they find out your cause and help you very very soon! ❤

[Vylent_Fyre]

You are so right on the different types of magnesium, Dana. I started taking Triple Calm because it has malate and taurate plus Glycinate. The Glycinate helps the absorption and I believe the taurate is specifically for the heart/cardiovascular. I think the malate is the calming type. I did extensive research for over 2 weeks on magnesium and at first i was overwhelmed by Google's searches but after 2 weeks I finally felt confidant i try out triple calm. It came highly recommended from several other perimenopausal women in a FB Perimenopausal group. 🙂 

With me on a high dose of my beta blocker I'm too scared to take anything else. During my sleep my hr will dip to low 50s. Only once or twice in the past 14+months did i see it hit 49. I hate that I'm on a beta blocker but without it my hr will skyrocket during my episodes. ❤

[Jp21]

I sympathize with you. I woke up with my heart beating fast one night. Thought I was going to die for sure. And I am not exaggerating. What changed things for me is that I started a veggie smoothie each morning and I eat well. I mean well. It’s what you have to do during this time. I finally realized that. My body dipped so bad it couldn’t handle stress, and I started to hear voices. I will pray for you. Avoid caffeine and alcohol. Pay heed to food cravings. Your body tries to tell you all the time how to take care of it.

Sent from my iPhone

[Vylent_Fyre]

Oh my Jp21, my heart breaks for you that you also went through a scary time. Unfortunately I am still trying to control my Crohn's disease. I'm still not convinced I have Crohn's, I really think my overactive hormones are causing the inflammation but no one will listen to me and i have no PhD for them to take me seriously lol 

However I agree with you. I've cut out all carbs for the most part. I have 10oz or max 20oz coffee with 2 tsp sugar. That's it a day. I eat mostly meat and cheese. Very little carbs and sugars. With my Crohns I've been told to stay away from veggies due to inflammation, cruciferous and fiber foods will aggravate my inflammation more. It feels like such a vicious cycle I'm in and can't win 😆 but I'll persevere and get through this somehow. 

I don't drink but very rarely. Maybe a glass of wine every 3 months of that. But I agree, alcohol consumption of not done moderately or less can make you worse. 

I'm glad you're doing so much better Jp21!! Here's to your continued success and hopefully mine and others going through similar will start having success! ❤

[Jp21]

I will pray for you, my dear. I do have carbs. Do even have bread. I think those are good in moderation.
The veggies helped me, but my body acting like it was in shock, so I take things slowly. If your adrenals are hurting, you’re hurting pretty bad. My adrenals are low. I know that’s my problem. No one wants to solve it. So I worked on it on my own. God bless you. Keep trying!
Sent from my iPhone

[Melrey]

Thank you for the info. I hope this can help with my anxiety\panic attacks.
It seems to hit me whenever I go out to the stores, I hate it. I don't want
to be confined to staying in my house all the time. I love to go shopping.
How many milligrams does it have? Not sure what is the exact safe dose we
should take.

[Dana24]

It sounds like to me that we're not really getting support from our doctors, which is a shame. We all seem to tell the story of how we're pushing the doctors to listen to us, and end up trying to address our symptoms on our own. When I pushed for my last doctor to at least consider that my problems were hormonal, she said, "take Estroven" as she was walking out the door. Out of 6 doctors, she's the only one that gave me 'some' advice on how to handle this. I always pray for the women who are going through this, it's a scary time for us and it feels like very little attention is given to menopause in the medical community. I wish they'd do more research on how to balance hormones.

[Melrey]

I know how you feel being on beta blocker. It is scary having to worry about your pulse going up too high if your not on it and when your on it you have to worry about your pulse dropping too low. I drink 2 to 3 small cups of coffee throughout the day. I make them half decaf to help from my pulse dropping too low. The lowest mine was 54. I wish I could go back to my old blood pressure med.

[Vylent_Fyre]

This past Tuesday my electrophysiologist medical assistant called me and my EP Dr wants me to increase my metoprolol succinate ER to 50mg. I expressed my concerns about low heart rates and this is what they explained to me. Anything in 50s to 60s is good, it all depends on how you feel. If you don't feel right or just too tired then it may be too low. 

My rhr has not decreased even on the increased dosage. My sleeping hr at the lowest averages low 50s. That hasn't changed. My rhr is still 61-64, so that's not too terrible either. I was worried of course but I don't feel bad at all when I check my hr and it is 58. I actually feel normal. Before all this started my hr was always 50-60s. 

I recall about 5 years ago Going to the gym and the trainers there made comments about how good my heart rates were. After changing and walking to the treadmill it'll be 68-75. 3-5 minutes warm ups my hr will be 80s. After a 30 minute medium-high intensity (very fast walking/light jogging) it would be 120s. 

Huge drastic difference now and I'm just not quite understanding 100% why but I'm not giving up on figuring it out. I'm 90% positive it is all hormone related. I know I'm getting older but 20bpm+ increase in rhr out of the blue to me is a signal worth looking into medically. It is just getting the right doctors who have experience in this. 

If you're worried and are having symptoms I strongly urge to keep logs of your symptoms and track your cycles to better understand when it happens. I have done this for 18 months and I finally pinpointed I have 3 boxes of symptoms, most likely for different reasons but they're all connected via hormones I'm fairly certain. It helps and I hope it'll help doctors to help me better. ❤

Thank y'all for allowing me to vent and for sharing your life story as well ❤

[Melrey]

It is very scary with some of these doctors in today's world. This summer I went to the doctor three times complaining about my extreme fatigue, hot flashes , it took the nurse practitioner to do some extra digging find the cause of my fatigue. Turned out that I was exposed to mono either as a child or teenager and something triggered me to come down with Epstein bar virus, which was the reason I was extremely fatigue. The combination of the start of menopausal and the virus doesn't help. Especially when am in the PMS I feel wiped out.  I have learned that premenopausal  is the cause of some autoimmune disease and viruses I have found another doctor and I pray this one is better then the last one. 

[Dana24]

I have had perimenopause symptoms for the last 4 years, I had my blood work done and was told that I have post menopausal hormone levels. I was even told that I should be going through the transition soon which I took to mean that I would start skipping periods soon. But I´m a constant 27 days and very frustrated because my estrogen surges keep me on schedule. My doctor wanted me on the estrogen patch to calm the surges, but that scares me, Iḿ trying to be as natural as I can. I wish I could get rid of these surges naturally so that I could get on with the transition. Iḿ ready to be done with this! Does anyone else out there have these estrogen surges?

[Melrey]

I had my hormones checked for primenopausel they said is normal. But am
sure my symptoms are related to pri menopause. I get tired in the mornings
then my energy will go up later on. When I have pms, I become very fatigue
all throughout the day my menstrual as well, having no strength to stand
for more than five minutes . I have to sit and lay down. I am always
hungry. On top of that having to take metoprolol to control my pulse that
would go up days before my period.

[Dana24]

Either the Estroven is working on my fatigue, or my body has decided to hit me with something else now. My fatigue, dizziness, and weakness are just about gone and I´ve been taking Estroven for 2 months now. My problem now is depression. I read where your serotonin decreases as your estrogen decreases, so I´m battling that now. If my surges would go away, then I would start transitioning into menopause and it would be the beginning of the end (I hope). I just want this to be over! Everyone says that once it´s over you feel so great, I´m ready to feel ¨so great¨! I feel like every 2 months, I get hit with a new set of symptoms.