I've been pondering this for way too long: Are folks more interested in (have more time for) a newsletter or a blog?
Relatively brief thoughts/questions about culture, society, freelancing, an interesting link or two, and maybe an original outdoor photo.
@FrozenPeach I started with 2.5mg daily oral progesterone. After about 3 months I noticed symptoms worsening, so now I'm taking 5mg. (3.75 didn't quite cut it.)
Doing a 3-day estrogen patch of 50UG (not sure what UGs are, but I suspect it's a patchy measurement with an mg equivalent).
2024 has been, by far, the most difficult of my life. But as I reflect I'm reminded that someone boosting a post here pretty much saved me.
Seriously. Not kidding even a little.
It was a post mentioning how dopamine levels drop when estrogen drops, so lots of people experiencing perimenopause are discovering they're ADHD.
It caught my attention because I'd developed nearly incapacitating anxiety and depression and I was not okay. At all. Didn't occur to me it was connected to menopause because I was already three years in. But the dopamine mention made me wonder.
I thought I was well-informed about peri/menopause symptoms and impacts. I was not. Many of us are not. But that's a rant for a different post.
I initially blew right past the ADHD mention because I was so desperate to find some answers. I can see some of you nodding with wry smiles.
Called my then-NP. "I am not okay. I have two suspects. One is very much at the top of the list."
So we decided to try hormone therapy first. She said some people begin to experience good results in as little as a week.
A week? Try 36 hours.
It took a day and a bloody half to see a huge change in my mood. For anyone taking notes, the hot flushes (a minor thing in comparison) settled down after about a month.
I circled back to the ADHD thing a couple of months later. Because why not flip your life upside down just after spending months feeling like you were losing your entire damn mind?
Anyway.
Whoever wrote that estrogen/dopamine post, thank you. And whoever boosted that post into my timeline, thank you, too.
This place has some definite problems, but I'm so grateful for the good people here.
Afternoon update. Contentment.
