I am so glad that I found you guys. I have been driving myself crazy.....how can you tell the difference between pregnancy symptoms and perimenopause? I'm in a unique situation where I can only see my BF twice a year because he's working 5000 miles away. Anyway, I had a normal TOM just after he left in Dec. and then again in Jan (actually, both were a little heavier than usual). During the past couple of weeks I've just not felt myself.....a few days of extreme exhaustion, rumbling in my stomach, bloating, sore breasts (along the sides), hungry, very moody, etc. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the pain I have during my ovulation period......terrible pelvic cramps. Before I finally found this board, I drove myself so crazy that I bought two home pregnancy tests because I was convinced that I was pregnant. Both tests came back negative and I've felt the pains of ovulation again for the past couple of days. There's no way I am pregnant, right? Do you think I'm in perimenopause? Now that I've read through so many of your posts, I'm realizing that I've expereienced many of the signs during the past couple of years. Yikes, I thought that 38 was too young for this kind of thing? Am I crazy?

Hello,
I didn't get it from your post, but did you miss a period? usually pregnancy tests are pretty accurate. I took one with my last child about a week after ai was late and it was pos. That was 10 yr's ago.

I am 39 and fairly close to menopause itself so the Dr. says. I have been in peri since 31ish. I beleive the symptoms come on gradual though You don't just wake up one day and things have come undone oevernight. Maybe it seems that way. I have had a rough few mo. as things have escalated for me , periods are irregular I am flashes daily, dizzy/spacey feeling, pains everywhere and sooooo tired...just weird things and feelings in my body daily. I get most of the 35 symptoms(and there is proabably more)some are daily , but can be dealt with and some are disabaling for me.

I can tell you at about 36 or so my breast got so tender and swollen no one could touch me, hug me, I would jump and flinch when the kids played around me fearing I would get hit there. I had a mammogram and all was fine this went on for a couple of yr's. Then over the summer I started with hotflashes and different symptoms and now my breast are rarely sore, almost never. I would have bouts of nausea also, not often though.

Have you ever been preg.? When I was I was so sick...there is a big difference between the nuasea I had preg. and the one I have now. I would literaly get sick often, it didn't matter where I was if I got nausious I threw up anywhere. The feeling of tired is about the same though I was actually comparing it to the first few weeks of my last preg. recently, butif you took a test I wouldn't be oeverly concerned. Was it first morning urine? Can you go to your Dr. and just confirm, it would ease you mind. If your not welcome to a wild ride, hop aboard...but the girls here are wonderful and have been my one of my places refuge when things are really tough. We are in different places which makes us even more able to help one another. HUGS Mikki

Hi K,

First of all welcome. This a great place to be when starting to go through this transition. And from the sounds of it you are entering peri. 38 is sort of at the young end of the spectrum, but as you read here you will find that a lot of women start noticing signs in their 30's (some even early 30's).

Since you have had 2 periods since you last saw your BF why would you think you are pregnant----especially since an EPT turned out negative? Don't fret. It doesn't sound like you are going to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet any time soon.

Visit here often. There is sooooo much to learn and there are sooooo many wonderful, caring and loving women here.

Have a good day. Donna

Hi Mikki,
Thanks so much for your quick reply. I just feel like I'm losing it. No, I have not missed a period. One came the day after he left in December and then the next was a couple days early in January. My periods have always been pretty regular but now they're sometimes very heavy. When I took the pregnancy tests, I tested once in the afternoon (negative) but I got so scared that maybe there wasn't enough hormone in my urine that I took the next one with my first morning urine (again negative). I was so relieved when both came back negative and I felt great for a few days (still bloated and moody) but just happy that the pg tests were negative. Now I'm back to where I began but even worse! Yesterday, I just felt so overwhelmed by everything. I'm pretty sure that I just ovulated again because of the pain I was having mid-cycle. If I were pg, I'd be about 7 weeks along and think that the urine tests would be pretty accurate at this time. No, I don't think that all of this came on that quick....after reading through some of the posts, I realize that I've had symptoms for some time but I didn't put it all together. I didn't realize that I might have been having hot flashes but I do recall waking up a couple of mornings last week without my pajamas on.....it seems I got so hot during the night that I took them off! It's so funny, though, because I'm always freezing when I go to bed...especially my feet. I've even had to get up a couple of times and put them in warm water because nothing I did would warm them.

I'm just so happy that I found this wonderful place where I can share my situation with others because it's so confusing!

Thank you for your help and insight! Any advice is welcome!
Karen

Hi Donna,
Thank you for your warm welcome. You can't imagine how happy I am to have found all of you! I honestly thought I was losing my mind. I know it sounds crazy to have thought I was pg (I have read so much about how many women have monthly bleeding and still found out they were pregnant), however, the bloating is what scared me! That's the only reason I decided to take the pregnancy tests and I had convinced myself that I could be pg. I am a teacher and as strange as it may seem, I have never wanted to have children of my own. Before I took the pg tests, my mind was spinning out of control thinking that I was pg and unmarried, afraid that I'd lose my teaching position because I wasn't a good role model for the kids because of my situation. Some days I feel better than others but when I read through the 34 symptoms of peri, I felt such relief! I have or have had so many of them during the past year....heart palpatations, sweating, tingling in my leg, skin crawling, heavier periods, terrible pms (I've never had pms in my life until the past year or so), painful ovulation....I could go on and on.

You and Mikki have been so wonderful to have replied so quickly. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Karen

You are certainly not losing it I felt this way up until a few mo. ago. I just slowly started to not feel right over time, and started to get more and more symptoms and they were intensifying. My husband and I would search for anxiety programs, anti anxiety this or that. I have tons of books on the subject. As things got worse this summer and I took a leave of absence from work thinking ok I am really coming unglued, wondering if I needed serious help and then feeling hopeless thinking that I don't recognize myself anymore and it is all in my head and going to get worse..I'll be locked up. my body is unpredictable. I had every test they could run( well not every test) Echo for heart palp's, mri for dizzy, blood work, thyroid several times, mammo. ultrasounds blah, blah all normal. I was officially a hypochondriac...so I thought. I was told I was too young even though I had virtually every symptom, here have an ativan or antidepressant and go see a shrink. So I took the ativan and did see a head Dr. spent alot of money didn't help. Until finally someone did the blood work for hormones and what do you know...even hormone tests don't tell much though they fluctuate so wildly at this time.

I started the same way about 3 yr's ago my periods were so heavy and longand would stop and start with days between( ultrasounds at this time) again breast were sore constanly...now at least I knew this symptoms could not be in my mind. A few mo. ago they started to come 2 weeks early. Now I'm not sure when to expect them.

I also get the midcycle pain. I have had it for 20 yr's every mo. For me this stated to get funny too. It would come directly after my period..I mean the day after my period stopped, and now it seems to last longer than it should like a week or so. Also there have been mo. now where I don't feel it at all.

Please spare yourself the agony I went through of thinking you crazy. You are not, your body is going to try to convince you otherwise though. Start supporting your body, there are creams and vitamins out there that are good, but they take time. Don't fight it...find things to do and preoccupy your mind this has helped me lately. When you feel bad don't feel guilty for resting, this was hard for me. I have always taken care of everybody else now I needed to be supported. Anyway keep us posted on what is helping you. Mikki

kmw629, it might help to have your hormones tested. You can purchase saliva test kits on the 'net and do it yourself. Also, approach your doc, though your doc will likely order blood tests which I've read are not as good as the saliva tests. But IMO the more tests the better.

If you are perimenopausal, and 38 is absolutely not too young for you to be peri, your hormones will be fluctuating so low or high readings from the tests don't mean those hormones are always low or high. It might be good to run a couple of tests at different times of the month.

The sooner you figure out what's going on, the better, if only for peace of mind. If you are notably low on some hormones, you can actually start treatment now, you don't need to wait until you start to suffer more severe symptoms.

If it turns out you are peri, you could be peri for many years before you actually have your last period. The best predictor is probably your female family members, when did your mother become fully menopausal, and what side effects did she experience ? What about older sisters, if you have them ?

There is so much great info on this board, I hope you are finding it !

SandraSmith,
Thanks for your insight. Unfortunately, my mom, sister, and grandmother are of no help in this department. My grandmother died of cervical cancer at the age of 66, and my mom had a hysterectomy at 45 because of cancerous cells in her cervix, and my sister had a hysterectomy at 27 because of the same. I've been lucky since all of my pap smears have been normal over the years. It's strange because I had a scare last year at this time when I began having my period every two weeks for a couple of months and then bled regularly for a month. When I went to my gyno, he just put me on a pill to stop the bleeding and to regulate my cycles. He never mentioned perimenopause! It has just been in the last couple of months that I've had the anxiety, depression, stomach flutters, hot flashes, hunger, and bloating. A few months ago I began having the painful ovulation but I really didn't think too much about it. I guess I'm so worried about NOT becoming pregnant and that's why I started to look up my symptoms. As I said before, my periods are regular (maybe a couple of days early) so I couldn't figure out what was going on with my body. I honestly convinced myself that I was pregnant even though I had two regular periods, ovulation pain, and two negative pregnancy tests. I'm just glad that I'm not crazy....although I still do wonder sometimes.

I am due for a gyno appt. next month so I will definitely discuss these things with him. I feel bad because as a teacher, I can't continue to put my students through these mood swings! It's funny because they have noticed something I hadn't given a second thought to.....one minute I'm freezing and the next minute I'm opening the windows!

Thanks again for all of the help that I'm getting here. This message board has been a great relief!

Have a wonderful day!
Karen

Are you still on the pill ? I've read that the pill acts to suppress your natural estrogen and progesterone production, replacing the hormones with the synthetics. If you do hormone tests I would think the estrogen and progesterone would read low. (Someone with experience please add your comments !) I've read that for at least the progesterone test, it does not pick up the synthetic progestins, only the natural progesterone which under the pill's effect would be suppressed. The same might be true of the estrogen test.

I am, btw, against taking the pill for peri. I was given a prescrip from my GP for low-dose pill, but after all of the reading I decided it would be counterproductive. It might alleviate hot flashes and other symptoms, but because of the hormone-suppressive effect and the fact that the hormones in the pill are not the same as the hormones in a human, I'm afraid they will cause more problems than they solve. At some point I would have to go off the pill and, if I choose, go on HRT. Will my natural hormone production be so suppressed that it is then flat-lined ? Women who are on the pill who want to have babies are advised to stop the pill months in advance of attempts to conceive, probably for this very reason. It takes months for the body to start producing normal amounts of hormones again.

If you are on the pill and want to stay on it and you are having hot flashes, perhaps you need to switch to a different pilll ? I think the hot flashes are caused by low estrogen, so perhaps you need a higher dose of estrogen ? You might also consider going off of it, letting your system balance itself out, see where you stand, and go on HRT if necessary. There are probably threads on this board for both options.

I hope you continue to share your experience with us, it will be really interesting to see what you find out, what you decide to do, and how well it's working for you. I'll be sharing the same as soon as I get my test results back and devise an HRT plan.

Thanks for all of your advice! I'm becoming addicted to this site because I want to learn all there is to know about this. I've been so anxious lately and I've found that coming here makes me feel just a bit better.

Well, I had the classic signs and pains of my normal ovulation and now I'm anxiously awaiting TOM. Despite having two normal (perhaps even heavy) periods and now FOUR negative hpt's (yes, I did one three days ago and another again this morning), I'm still worried. I'm hoping that I'm just extra-anxious because of my hormones. I called my doc the other day and he laughed at me because I've been doing so many hpt's. He said that if I've had no positive test results then I can be 99.9% sure that I'm not pregnant. My appointment isn't for another month and we'll discuss all of this mess then!!

Has anyone else really thought that they might be pregnant but it turned out to be peri? Please share your stories with me!!
Thanks!
Karen

I just wanted to once again thank all of you who shared your thoughts and ideas with me during the past couple of months. I finally got to see my doctor on March 5 and of course he doesn't think it's peri. Just like last year at this time, I once again began to bleed every 12-14 days about 6 weeks ago. When I explained it all to him, he decided to do some blood work and an ultrasound. The bloodwork came back normal but the ultrasound showed that I have two fibroids on my uterus. He gave me a prescription for Errin BC. I started my period again today so I'll begin taking the Errin tonight.....we'll see what happens next! My anxiety is finally gone....those six negative hpt's couldn't convince me that I wasn't pregnant but the bloodtest and ultrasound finally did the trick! Thank goodness for that! It's just that I've never been so bloated in my life. I've actually lost five pounds in the past couple of weeks but my stomach is bigger than it's ever been. Has anyone else experienced this and what on earth can I do about it?

Thanks again!
Karen