I may have essentially gone into menopause overnight after years of the perimenopause journey, but it turns out managing that is, in itself, going to be quite the journey. And I am not talking here about the journey with medication, though that is part of it. I am talking about the social journey, the gatekeeping of alleged "support groups", and the life management.
To start with the medication, nearly two months ago, I started on Tibolone. It was a first step suggestion from my doctor, based more on my extreme symptoms rather than the hard and fast rules of the medication (usually only prescribed to those 12 months post-bleed). On doing so, he warned me that migraine return was a potential side effect, but given my situation, I was ready for the "risk versus reward" journey. And two weeks in, the medication proved pretty life changing. My half-hourly hot flushes had almost disappeared, same with my thrice-nightly night sweats. The tremors had stopped. And the mental health and despair had evened itself out. In short, the medication had been life-changing.
But things are not that simple. My migraines did indeed return. I have experienced three of them in a seven week period. They are not the brain-busters I was experiencing about 5 years ago, but they are lingering and limiting. I require migraine medication for a few days, rather than just one dose, as a start. The other day I woke with one, and it also had me calling into work stating that I needed to work from home because though I had taken my triptans, I could not be sure that would be successful in seeing it off. It wasn't - I managed to feel fine, but the low ebb ache just kept sitting there in the background, threatening, and the only thing that got it manageable was additional triptans. My one previous to this involved almost five days of nausea (my classic migraine is never without some form of digestive disturbance), as did the one before that.
There's been a couple of other things - some I won't share, but others I will. One I will share is that suddenly, I started losing time. What I mean by this was that I was hit by very strong bouts of uncontrollable tiredness, and the next thing I noticed was that it was ten, twenty, even sixty minutes later. It happened one day in the office, as I was attending a seminar. It happened again as I was watching a play. And then again, as I was watching a show on the couch. They're not the only times, but it has been scary because it has been so uncontrollable and so quick. The only reference point I have for it is narcolepsy, and though I obviously do not yet have a diagnosis on what is actually going on, Doctor Google has told me that onsets of narcolepsy are not uncommon when menopause hits, and so I will be seeking further advice on that.
I am certain my current medication is not causing the latter, but it is causing the former. And I am therefore having to weigh stuff up via a further medical appointment. I did, though, attempt to put the feelers out in a perimenopause/menopause support group on Facebook. THAT, was a fucken hopeless exercise. Not only was I met with judgement, and people telling me my reality was not correct, but only one of them bothered actually addressing the question I had asked. It was a really gross display of gatekeeping in a place where I expected support, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised: not only has my experience online over the years taught me not to expect better, but literally the only thing this group did seem to be keen on was talking MHT. The more I looked, the less space I noticed for nuance amongst the posts, so I left. I know what my journey has been, and my doctor knows what my journey has been, and even my specialist has known what my journey has been, so that's where I will head. I add the additional advice that others beware of online spaces.
So yep, TLDR: I am not there yet. I am still very much in the process of finding out what works for me, if indeed, anything does. I cannot live with these migraines, of that I am sure. But is other medical assistance going to leave me in the same boat, or will I need to find some way to push through what was utterly unbearable and sent me seeking help in the first place? TBC
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