30/08/2026
Let’s start at the beginning…
Perimenopause is not an illness, it’s a life stage all women will eventually experience. How it’s approached can drastically alter your experience. There is still a tendency with primary care providers to focus on HRT.
HRT is great of course…..when it’s needed. It’s only a small part of the larger puzzle. Things change and we need to change with them.
So my own journey? Yeah….that.
I felt symptoms around age 47 roughly. I was put on body identical HRT around age 49, which was fine initially. I still felt low mood, excessive fatigue, weight gain, stress, anxiety, brain fog etc so I ended up on 3 pumps of gel alongside the progesterone. I was ‘ok’ until I hit a period of extreme stress. It was then that I realised I wasn’t coping. My periods had become almost non existent by this point and my GP surgery assumed at age 51 I was in menopause. Understandable. However, I knew something wasn’t quite right and as a menopause practitioner, I started to come up with a plan of my own.
It started with a blood test to check my estradiol level. Blood tests are not normal practice in the NHS and care is driven by symptom control. There are arguments for and against this approach and both have their merit, however, I am in favour of blood testing in certain circumstances, like to rule out other differential diagnoses, but that’s a story for another day and another post.
I digress….
I was floored with the result! (Swipe to see). I was 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 over replaced. The symptoms I had been putting down to under replacement were actually that of oestrogen dominance. The only other differential would have been that I was ovulating at the time of the blood test. That was a (very) slim possibility so I ruled that out quickly 😂
Fast forward a bit and I’ve lowered my HRT down to the lowest I can go and so far so good. I’m hoping I can remain symptom free with some better lifestyle changes and focusing on more non medical aspects of perimenopause.
Hormone replacement is NOT a magic fix. Mark my words! Part 2 I’ll go over the impact of stress during perimenopause.
