• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2026 Survey »

The start to going through the change or just pcos symptoms?

ickihun

ickihun

Master
Messages
13,696
Location
Sunderland
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Bullies
I've crying a lot and periods has started being weird.
I'm wondering if my pcos has come back or I'm starting the change. At 45 it won't be long away.
I guess common sense rells to go see my gp so he can test my hormones? I'm starting to hate going to doctors. I feel there's times where I'm never out of there with my little family. Innoculations, sick notes, blood tests and advice. Oh and calls for medication for me and hubby.
Is the hot flushes the only difference between going through the change and the pcos symptoms?
 
Greetings @ickihun! At 45 I would be surprised if you haven't been in perimenopause for at least a little while already! Perimenopause, basically the opposite of puberty, can last for some years. But yes, periods being erratic - too heavy or very light, and skipping a month and so on, is a common sign of the onset of the end of them altogether. (Either that or you are pregnant? But chances are...) Many women don't have hot flushes at all, or only a bit (I only had a wee bit of overheating a few times a year. And nothing stepping out onto my porch for a few seconds in subarctic Sweden didn't resolve.) (My worst symptoms were from undiagnosed diabetes! Which I mistook some of for menopausal symptoms combined with what I thought was anaemia.) (So did several A&E doctors!) (Severe vitamin D deficiency and the T2, is what it was.) I wouldn't say that perimenopause and PCOS have anything in common! Except the irregular periods? Yes.
 
I did a bit of reading on PCOS and the menopause a while back. Fascinating.
Not good news, but fascinating.
You may find it worth doing some reading around too.

Apparently we tend to have much longer, more drawn out menopauses, but they are often milder because our hormone issues tend to swamp the 'normal' meno symptoms.
PCOS menopause can last 20 years. Joyful, eh?
Also symptoms like hirstutism and insulin resistance escalate. No surprise there.

Well worth doing some reading. It is one of the reasons I decided to delve deeply into trying to sort out my insulin resistance before hitting the Big M, rather than continuing with the status quo.
 
I've been using metformin to treat my pcos in the past and wondering if I now have the full symptoms back.
Pcos is a hormone imbalance causing hairy face and body, irregular periods, infertility and weight gain. As well as insulin resistance.
I guess hairy face isn't in keeping with menopausal symptoms? I'm not sure. I see some hairy faced women in their 60s but not sure what causes that?
I have had the sweats but put it down to my occasional high sugar. In fact they come together. Is high sugars a symptom of the menopause?
Will you always have type2 @AloeSvea ? Like pregnancy can bring on gestational diabetes then can go. Can the menopause cause similiar?
Gestational diabetes has now been prompted as the start of type 2 in later life.
I'm wondering if I should see gp for hormone tests so I can prepare myself and my family for further symptoms. I know its on it's way but I'd like to help myself through it as best I can.
My mum and gran had very few symptoms. My mum's depression was exhorbitated but then used HRT to relieve her symptoms. My gran lost a teenage girl which the grief was confused with menopausal symptoms too.
I'll try and determine what my hormones are doing, medically as how am I to support changes if they catch me unawares? Not necessary in the modern world.
All the research and effort put in so suffers have an easier time should not be rebuffed.
 
Brunneria said:
I did a bit of reading on PCOS and the menopause a while back. Fascinating.
Not good news, but fascinating.
You may find it worth doing some reading around too.

Apparently we tend to have much longer, more drawn out menopauses, but they are often milder because our hormone issues tend to swamp the 'normal' meno symptoms.
PCOS menopause can last 20 years. Joyful, eh?
Also symptoms like hirstutism and insulin resistance escalate. No surprise there.

Well worth doing some reading. It is one of the reasons I decided to delve deeply into trying to sort out my insulin resistance before hitting the Big M, rather than continuing with the status quo.
Click to expand...
Thanks @Brunneria . I knew you'd know more. You're my oracle! Where would I be without you? You truely are a god send. Thank you for your support. ♡♥♡
 
Good question. I'm almost 43 and it's crossed my mind. Although for me I'm not sure how I'd tell as on the pill and I skip periods and only have one on the 3rd round. I dread it though because mine triggers migraines and I get quite sick. The last one I wound up in an ambulance and I was taken to ER and given a cocktail.

If you find out any info... happy to know myself. To be frank I'm too **** scared to go off the pill right now as I'm having a lot of pain issues and trying to avoid migraines and cysts.
 
ickihun said:
I've crying a lot and periods has started being weird.
I'm wondering if my pcos has come back or I'm starting the change. At 45 it won't be long away.
I guess common sense rells to go see my gp so he can test my hormones? I'm starting to hate going to doctors. I feel there's times where I'm never out of there with my little family. Innoculations, sick notes, blood tests and advice. Oh and calls for medication for me and hubby.
Is the hot flushes the only difference between going through the change and the pcos symptoms?
Click to expand...

Ickihun, I don't have and have never been diagnosed with PCOS, so can't comment around that with any experience or confidence.

One comment I will make is the peri-menopause can be very difficult to diagnose or pinpoint, even with blood tests, due to the cycling nature of hormone levels, even in "normal" women, pre, peri and even post menopausal.

Post sub-total hysterectomy, where I salvaged my ovaries, I was found to be having ovarian cysts (how lucky is that, eh?), and embarked on very, very regular hormone testing (medical insuarnce paid) to try to get a grasp on things as cysts beginning in more mature ladies tend to resolve more slowly and can go a bit wrong, in a very small percentage of cases. It was all rather needle in a haystack. In fact, in the end the Consultant just decided to continue with regular bloods and scans until there was a pattern of hormones, cysts and resolving cycts to reassure him.

I reckon my insurers funded his kids' education for a few years on that. ;)

I think, in a very long winded way, what I'm saying is you may not find the hormone tests to be very forthcoming - they're expensive, results take a couple of weeks to come back, and if the timing isn't quite right they reveal nothing useful.

I'd go for tracking things for a short while, unless you have concerns making you anxious.
 
In answer to your question @ickihun - Officially I now have 'Impaired Glucose Tolerance' or IGT, which makes more sense for me, as I skipped a prediabetes diagnosis before becoming T2 diabetic. I have been insulin resistant for at least about 25 years, closer to 30. How do I know? Because of the PCOS in my 20s. I didn't know anything about metabolic syndrome, or hear even a whisper about insulin and high insulin in response to high glucose at the time. When i had high cholesterol in my mid 40s my doctor prescribed low fat, and I upped my carbs in response, and well - we all know what that meant! (My doctor, bless her, still gets cognitive dissonance now when I tell her about LCHF and glucose control.) (I think she is coming around, because of me.) Oh yes, if only I had had Dr Fung's The Obesity Code at the time! If I had known about carbohydrate intolerance. About the devastating effect of grains on my constitution. And for the positive - about Paleo and LCHF! Will I break the insulin resistance? I would like to think so! I think 25 years of insulin resistance is hard to shift. (And I may have lost too many beta cells, and they don't really know, it seems, whether beta cells regenerate or not. I hope they do!) I'm working really hard at regaining insulin sensitivity. And I may never move out of IGT. But I am an ongoing experiment. And I live in hope.
 
Back
Top