I hit rock bottom last week.
I literally sat in the middle of my living room floor, in tears, and said “I can’t carry on like this.”
The anxiety. Brain fog. Lack of interest in… well, anything. Loss of confidence. Indecision. Amongst other things.
Perimenopause symptoms had increased beyond what I could tolerate, and I’d had enough.
My poor hubby didn’t know what to do, but I did.
I made an appointment with someone at my GP’s practice.
Now, let’s be clear here. I don’t have a specific GP at the moment, but I’m registered with the local surgery. I’d had a phone consultation with a nurse practitioner about 6 months ago, but at the time hadn’t taken things any further because I was coping with my symptoms.
But they’ve been kicking my arse so hard for the last three months that I felt I had reached the end of my tether. I was going to fight back!
With HRT.
I didn’t need to argue. I didn’t need to scream and shout. I just walked in with a list of my symptoms – because hell, I’m likely to forget them otherwise – and said I wanted to try HRT.
After a few minutes’ discussion, and a brief consultation with a colleague – because I still take contraception although nearing the end of it now – the nurse did me a prescription for combined patches.
Now I wasn’t expecting a miracle when I collected them, and I haven’t yet signed up for the certificate you can get here in the UK: You pay the cost of two prescriptions and have access to HRT for an entire year. I think that only came in around April this year. I have to go back in a month to let the nurse know how I’m getting on anyway.
But around 24 hours after first sticking on a patch, I realised my head felt clearer. I felt more purposeful. OK not massive improvements in either, but enough to notice.
So I figured, why not bring you readers along for the journey? I’ll check in every week with how I’m getting on, and give you honest and blunt feedback on how it suits me, or not.
I know this already, though. Getting those big old patches to stick is a frigging nightmare. They’re 4x4cm. Just over 1.5 inches each way. I should only be on my second, but when I changed it Sunday night it didn’t last and had already come mostly unstuck by Monday morning.
<sigh>
I find something that might help and guess what! Now I’ve got the fun of getting it to stay on my skin so I can derive the benefits from it!
Microporous tape might be my new best friend…