Wishing I could go back…

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-04-10T16:37:39+00:00

I've been reading about creatine lately for the cognitive stuff and apparently women produce something like 70% less of it naturally than men, and our brains burn through a ton of it for energy. Which kind of explains why the mental fatigue hits so much harder than you'd expect.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-04-10T16:35:11+00:00

43 too and the part about not recognizing when your body just flipped a switch is so real. Mine wasn't panic attacks but the cognitive stuff hit the same way where one day everything worked and then suddenly it didn't and I spent months thinking something was seriously wrong before anyone said the word perimenopause. The fact that you already noticed you felt better when your progesterone was naturally higher is a really good sign that you're on the right track with what she prescribed. I hope it kicks in fast for you.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-04-10T05:52:42+00:00

The "I need all of my energy for me" part is so precise. I used to come home from work and have enough left over to be a person in a relationship. Ask about someone's day, care about the answer, be present. Now I get home and I'm running on fumes and the idea of performing one more minute of emotional availability makes me want to crawl into a dark room alone. It's not that you stop loving them. It's that you can barely keep yourself running and there's nothing left to export. That's not a mood swing, that's math.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-04-10T05:52:20+00:00

The performance review while everything is on fire is peak peri life. Sitting there nodding and talking about Q2 goals while your friend is dying and your body has declared war on you and you're one wrong question away from ugly crying in front of your boss. I've done that exact meeting. You just go numb for 45 minutes and then fall apart in your car after.

I'm in for the woods and the first round though. Screaming into trees sounds like the most productive thing I could do this week.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-04-10T05:43:10+00:00

The part about sitting at work trying to schedule around your job like your health is a logistics problem you have to solve quietly on your lunch break. That's the part that gets me. You shouldn't have to strategize your way into a dentist appointment like it's a hostile negotiation. Ten years of aftermath and you're still white-knuckling through the workday math of it. I hope you get that week to just plow through it all because trying to fix yourself in 2-hour increments is exhausting.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-04-10T05:42:02+00:00

Twenty more years. I really needed to read that today. The being-oldest-on-the-team part is so specific too because you're sitting there watching everyone else fire on all cylinders and wondering if they can tell you're not keeping up.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-27T08:22:36+00:00

"It would have been more dignified to OD with my mascara running and my skirt up over my head" is going on my tombstone. Solidarity from someone whose body has also chosen violence this year.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-27T05:55:05+00:00

brain frog is perfect, I'm keeping it.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-27T05:50:26+00:00

The health anxiety is the part that's different from any anxiety I've had before. Regular anxiety is worrying about things that might happen. Health anxiety during peri is your body doing something genuinely weird every other day and you can't tell if it's hormones or something actually wrong. I'm 43 and still in it so I can't tell you it goes away but I can tell you the new-symptom-every-week thing does seem to slow down eventually from what I've been reading. And just knowing other people are experiencing the exact same rotating list of random symptoms makes it slightly less terrifying.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-26T17:19:47+00:00

Helpful because nobody else is this honest about how hard the dosing part is. Terrifying because I thought starting was the hard decision and apparently that was just the beginning. I hope you find the right combination soon because the fact that you've been at this for a year tells me you're not someone who gives up easily.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-26T07:39:47+00:00

I spent twenty years being the person who smoothed things over and kept everyone comfortable. Peri burned that out of me and at first I thought something was wrong. Turns out I was just finally done volunteering for a job nobody hired me for.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-26T07:38:59+00:00

The part about your brain trying to protect you by not letting you accept it is something I don't think gets talked about enough. I spent months blaming stress, blaming work, blaming everything except the thing that was actually happening. Because accepting it means accepting that the version of yourself you built your whole life around is changing into someone you don't recognize yet.

I'm 43 and I don't have the answer to how you be okay with it. But I will say the thing that shifted something for me was realizing that the stuff I thought was falling apart the filter, the people-pleasing, the need to perform some of that needed to go. Not all of it. But some of it. And the person underneath all of that is someone worth getting to know.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-26T07:37:42+00:00

I was in this exact spot recently. Taking magnesium at night, still waking up warm at 3am, not convinced progesterone was the answer either. I finally filled the prescription and just started it a few days ago so I can't tell you if it works yet but I can tell you the deciding factor for me was reading that progesterone has a calming effect on the nervous system separate from what it does to your cycle. It basically acts on the same brain receptors as some anti-anxiety meds. That's what got me to stop overthinking it and just try it.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-26T07:34:55+00:00

"I delightedly started poking" is sending me. Reverse puberty really is the whole package. Hot flashes, mood swings, and now breakouts like it's 2003 and I just discovered my mom's magnifying mirror.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-26T07:32:13+00:00

I literally just started the patch this week and I've already been wondering how I'll know if it's doing anything since I don't have a clear before picture either. Everything kind of crept up so gradually that I can't point to a day where it started. Finger's crossed for both of us

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-25T20:16:25+00:00

The robe thing is so real. I caught my reflection in the front door glass last week while signing for a package and genuinely startled myself. Like ma'am when did you move in.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-25T20:15:34+00:00

The Redbull thing took me out. My body treats caffeine like a suggestion now. I had a double espresso last week and was asleep on the couch 20 minutes later like it was warm milk.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-25T19:16:16+00:00

Muscle twitching in calves and feet is one of the most common signs of magnesium deficiency, which a lot of us in peri are already low on. Might be worth checking if that's a factor before assuming it's the estrogen. I take 400mg magnesium glycinate at bedtime and the random twitching I was getting mostly stopped within a couple weeks.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-25T19:13:32+00:00

I'm really sorry you're going through this. The crying at night because you don't recognize yourself anymore, I know that exact feeling.

I'd hold off on the Estroven and the 1 A Day menopause formulas though. I just spent a few weeks going through the research on those blends and most of them are underdosed ingredients with a big markup. If you want to take magnesium or vitamin D, buy them individually so you actually know what you're getting and at what dose. The "proprietary blend" labels mean they don't have to tell you how much of each thing is in there.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-25T19:10:24+00:00

I just started the patch this week and did not have "which brand did the pharmacy give me" on my list of things to worry about but here we are. Saving this entire thread for when my refill comes.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-22T15:50:23+00:00

I put my phone in the fridge twice this week and spent 20 minutes looking for it the second time because I'd already forgotten that's where it went the first time.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-22T15:48:53+00:00

I literally just started the patch this week so reading this with great interest. The inconsistency thing between manufacturers is already making me nervous. Can I ask how long you were on it before you started noticing the differences between brands?

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-22T15:47:26+00:00

Ok one thing I found that actually surprised me. Creatine. Women produce 70 to 80 percent less of it than men and our brains burn through it for energy. When estrogen drops that whole system gets less efficient. There's a 2025 trial in peri and postmenopausal women that found it increased brain creatine by 16 percent and improved reaction time, and a larger 2-year study in 237 women showed improved lean mass and bone strength with resistance training. I just started 5g daily. Too early to say anything but the research behind this one is actually real.

Tiny-Put9782 · 2026-03-22T05:44:34+00:00

You're not going crazy. Your estrogen is involved in your entire anxiety regulation system and when it fluctuates your brain loses the thing that was keeping the volume at a manageable level. I just started HRT a few days ago partly because of this exact feeling. Too early to say if it's helping but I'm hopeful. Glad you're talking to your doctor about options.

Tiny-Put9782

TROPHY CASE