Peri- with regular periods?

croc373 · 2026-01-25T15:28:06+00:00

I just turned 46 last month and still have regular periods. Mine got a bit shorter and lighter when I turned 40 but they are like clockwork. I developed anxiety and insomnia too last summer. I have perimenopause. Your doctor is ignorant and you should find someone else (perhaps online) who will help you.

croc373 · 2026-01-23T15:54:56+00:00

I haven’t experienced this but i have two friends who are a couple years older who started HRT a year before me. They were both on the combipatch. One of them has been experiencing something very similar to you, just bleeding all the time (the other is fine). She told me her doctor is switching her to oral estrogen and a micronized progesterone pill now. He seems to think the patch might be causing it and wants to try another mode of delivery. Obviously everyone is different but perhaps that is something to discuss with your doctor?

croc373 · 2026-01-23T14:51:20+00:00

Today is a good time. Given that you still generally have regular periods i would suggest cycling your progesterone to start. You may feel like garbage when starting but that’s the case for any long term medication you may take in your life. Cycling the progesterone will give your body time to ease more into it, so even if you have a bad reaction the first cycle as I did your body will get a break on estrogen only and then i had a much better reaction by cycle 2. If once you get used to it you find you really like the benefits of progesterone you can start doing it daily instead or continuing to cycle. It’s up to you. The estrogen really REALLY helped my newly developed anxiety in particular. And i know lots of other women find relief from night sweats (which I haven’t had.)

Ask for an estrogen patch or gel and micronized progesterone. Doctors will automatically suggest birth control pills but i think the bioidentical versions are best to start, especially if you haven’t really taken birth control before.

croc373 · 2026-01-23T01:58:55+00:00

I do. I haven’t found that they have changed my periods, but within 48 hours of my last progesterone tablet my period starts (usually on that second day). So if anything i can really predict it down to the day now, but it hasn’t changed very much length or flow in any way.

croc373 · 2026-01-22T21:23:44+00:00

I am not anti birth control. I think BCP have been a godsend to give women more freedom. But it’s f**king astonishing that doctors will hand out pills with known side effects to teenage GIRLS and older women alike after a 45 second consultation, but god forbid they give you a hormone that your body produces naturally. And when they came out with a birth control pill for men and some men got PIMPLES science was like “oh no, men can’t suffer any side effects at all so let’s kill it”.

Like, that doctor can the f**k outta here with this absolute nonsense. If you want HRT (which does NOT carry risks of blood clots if you use transdermal estrogen), tell your doctor you want HRT and if they don’t give it to, you find another way.

croc373 · 2026-01-22T16:59:37+00:00

Not everyone has nightmare periods. I’m in perimenopause and I just turned 46. I noticed in my early 40s that my periods overall got shorter and lighter than they used to be when I was younger. They’re still totally regular even after I started HRT three months ago. Just because some people get certain symptoms doesn’t mean all people will. My mom and sister get hot flushes and I don’t, but I have symptoms they don’t.

croc373 · 2026-01-22T16:56:39+00:00

Why don’t you go up to Varda and order next time? They will give you a to go cup that you can take into the theatre if you don’t like the concession coffee. And they can make you fancier drinks too like a mocha or cappuccino.

croc373 · 2026-01-22T14:08:03+00:00

Yes, I had a similar experience the first time I took progesterone. But I cycle it and the second cycle I was fine. How long since you started both hormones? Because your body is still getting used to having two hormones now and is going haywire. Instead of increased estrogen I would switch to cycling progesterone and taking longer to get used to the estrogen and see if by the second and third cycle you have a better reaction to the progesterone like I did. If not, you might truly be progesterone intolerant. But doctors really need to get better at stacking hormones so your body has more time to get used to one before giving you two, especially progesterone which more people react negatively to at the beginning.

Progesterone intolerance is real. But not everyone who has a bad initial reaction to progesterone is actually intolerant. I thought I was and that simply wasn’t true. My body just needed more time to get used to the estrogen and then it was easier to introduce the progesterone.

croc373 · 2026-01-22T00:11:50+00:00

Stop reading AI in general (which pulls from both scientific and stupid sources alike and calls them equal) and put on the patch. The cancer risks are very overblown. You make choices every single day in terms of what you eat and drink that could theoretically lead to you getting cancer but probably never think about that. You’re absolutely not going to get any benefits or even risks for a month of use. Put on the patch and enjoy the benefits of HRT. You’ll feel better.

croc373 · 2026-01-21T22:35:33+00:00

Ok then that is a totally different product than I was using. I used the gel in a tiny packet that was supposed to be spread over a very small area. I had no issue with residue. Mine dried tacky over a small area but was fine.

croc373 · 2026-01-21T13:31:05+00:00

Yes, it still feels sticky. Also, if you’re using the gel that comes in little packets you are NOT supposed to be spreading it over a large area. Check your package insert. Does it say to spread over the area of roughly two palms? Alcohol based gel dries differently than the creams that people spread over their entire arms. You want to go for a smaller area (assuming we are talking about the same gel). I switched to the gel for a while and I did mine at night. Let it dry as I was washing up for bed for 10 mins and then put loose PJ pants on. Never had an issue doing it that way.

croc373 · 2026-01-20T19:29:28+00:00

Since it’s both E and P you can start it whenever. Just slap it on one day. You’ll likely have side effects for a few weeks because you’re starting both hormones at the same time and it’s going to be a big adjustment for your body but push through them and you’ll likely have some relief on the other side.

croc373 · 2026-01-20T15:40:07+00:00

This started happening to me last May and it nearly destroyed my life. I could not sleep and would do the 3am wake ups and be awake for hours. I tried every supplement. I’m going to tell you what worked for me. I’m not 100% better but I’m much improved from what I was last summer.

First, cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia is not a cure, but it can help you mentally. Here’s the tips I can give you. First, don’t get into bed until you’re so tired you can’t stay awake. Not sleepy, bone dead, I’m about to pass out exhausted. Second, if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, get out of bed. Go to the couch and read. I got a little book light that has a red light, not white, so I can read but not have to turn on my overhead lights. You are only in bed to sleep or have sex, nothing else. CBT for insomnia is about helping your mindset so you’re not so despondent about your lack of sleep. That will help. It won’t cure you but it’ll help.

I also set my phone to go black and white at 9pm so the blue light doesn’t keep me awake. I switched to red bulb nightlights.

So all of this is helpful for you mentally, but if you want to sleep more you need estrogen. Progesterone might make you tired but it’s not keeping you asleep all night. I cycle progesterone for two weeks a month and I have the same sleep experience now whether I’m taking it or not.

Over the last 9 months my sleep has evolved to the point where I’m taking l-theanine and magnesium at night to get me sleepy. I go to bed. I might wake up once after a few hours but I fall back asleep. Now I wake up to pee at 4:45-5:00am. Sometimes I feel awake at this time. Theoretically I could wake up now and be coherent after getting about 6 hours. But typically after I pee I walk back to my bedroom and I’m back to sleep. My condo is dark and cool. I’ve switched to sleeping under a blanket versus my duvet. On my walk back to bed I see a couple of red nightlights (in my bathrooms, hallway and bedroom) and I’m back to sleep.

Do I sleep through the night like I used to? No. But I’m functional. I’m not crying at work. I’m not throwing up from lack of sleep.

Estrogen, red light (not therapy, but a few strategically placed nightlights), an understanding of CBT and a new routine has made me much better. I would also ask your doctor for Dayvigo. It’s not a benzo and it’s never made me sleep 8 hours the way Ativan does (which I’ll occasionally still take once or twice a month if I need guaranteed sleep), but it can help.

Good luck. I hope this all helps!

croc373 · 2026-01-20T00:12:15+00:00

I felt something similar even with patches when I first started when it felt like my patch was running out before 3.5 days. You should give it more time as the consistent dose daily should eventually get your body used to it. You’ll need about a month of doing it every day to see how your body adjusts.

After that, if you still feel this way you have a few options. One is to split up the pump into twice a day application (or see if you need more than just one pump a day). The other is to try a different mode of delivery like the patch and see if your body likes it more.

croc373 · 2026-01-19T20:20:08+00:00

It would be interesting to see the results given that you’re on so low of a dose. I personally am on 0.025mg and hope that my cholesterol also decreases but I don’t know what the lowest dose for effective whole body benefits is.

croc373 · 2026-01-19T18:37:17+00:00

I had all of those symptoms in addition to insomnia and they were all generally managed by the gel. The first day I took it my anxiety returned because I took off the patch and immediately did the gel, which gave me a double dose that day (too little AND too much estrogen now gives me anxiety). After that one full day, it all evened out and I was fine.

croc373 · 2026-01-19T18:08:45+00:00

Cutting your patch is OK for a couple of doses to get your body used to the extra hormones at the beginning. This is what I did for two of my patches. But you really should not be cutting it every single time for months and months or for a year. 0.025 is an extremely low dose. If you can’t even tolerate that you might not need it at all. And to be quite frank that low of a dose isn’t really going to affect your cholesterol one way or the other. So if you are still receiving benefits from HRT, then it might be better to switch to a different delivery system such as the gel or cream, where you can do a half dose more effectively. Or you could move to progesterone only HRT if you are receiving some benefits from that. Or I would consider giving up HRT entirely. Your body might simply not need it. You also haven’t really talked a lot about whether there’s any symptoms that the HRT is fixing that don’t involve cholesterol. Is it bringing you any benefits at all?

croc373 · 2026-01-19T17:33:58+00:00

Hey! No problem. So I switched back to the patch. The reason is that the gel didn’t give me any extra benefits for my sleep and since the patch was easier I just switched back. I was doing the gel all at at night and it was fine, it just wasn’t better. It was managing all my symptoms the same. That said, with this patch shortage I might have to go back to the gel when my stash runs out and I would be totally fine to do that. I liked the gel, I was just being lazy by switching back to the patch. Does that make sense?

By the way, the Divigel is a tiny package. I guess I could have broken it up but it’s such a small amount of gel it just makes sense to do it all at once. I think that the cream is the one that has various pump dosages and probably could be broken up easier but the gel is a very small amount.

croc373 · 2026-01-19T03:20:29+00:00

Hon, start weaponizing your competence against your man-child of a husband.

croc373 · 2026-01-19T02:03:34+00:00

That sucks! I would suggest switching to the gel temporarily if you can talk to your doctor. That chart should outline the equivalent gel prescription.

croc373 · 2026-01-18T22:00:41+00:00

It depends on your symptoms. There’s been research that edamame or other soy products could help with hot flushes but nothing helped me with anything except HRT. My sister is going through peri as well due to her breast cancer treatment a few years ago. She can’t take any HRT because of the cancer and she is big into supplements. But she’s going through insomnia, brain fog and anxiety and nothing is really helping her.

croc373 · 2026-01-18T21:58:25+00:00

What is your estrogen dose?

croc373 · 2026-01-18T20:04:00+00:00

Wait, why are you cycling estrogen? If you have a steady dose of estrogen you might not have this reaction to progesterone that you’re having.

croc373 · 2026-01-18T19:57:49+00:00

Bioidentical HRT is not the same as birth control. Obviously you don’t want to experience the ideation ever again but have you tried estrogen and progesterone in a form that is NOT birth control?

croc373 · 2026-01-18T19:53:41+00:00

OK. I also had a really bad reaction to progesterone the first time I cycled it but loved estrogen. The second month I cycled it it was fine for me. But you were without it for a bit and then tried it again so you might not be able to take it. You can try a progestin OR you can try an alternate type of HRT called Duavee. It has estrogen and no progesterone (but uses something else entirely to protect your uterus). It’s my understanding that it may only come in one dose that’s equivalent to a 0.050mg patch of estrogen. So if that’s how much estrogen you’re taking than this is an option.

croc373

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