The REAL 50ish group...Nov 17th

Other than my cholesterol going sky high I had a pretty easy time of it. A couple of surprise months, a few hot flashes and I was home free. And I maybe felt sad about the idea for about 3 seconds. I don’t mind getting older. I have lowered my give a shit factor by about 90% and retiring at 58 eliminated it completely. I wouldn’t go back in time for any reason. I’m enjoying this season of my life immensely.

I was almost 7 months in the clear, then boom, last month right on the 1st it came back. Son of a beesh! I'm 50 and was enjoying not having monthly IBS symptoms anymore. I'm in the clear this month and resetting my countdown again. I'm kind of used to the hot flashes/flushes now that keep me warm during cold nights that I started having last year. The struggle is real.

ha ha. Don't you worry. Since you have missed several months, your period will come back with a venaence. Will be at least 10 - 14 days of heavy flow!!1

I am just now starting to enter peri-menopause, I believe. I am 48. This Fall I had 3 months of really off-track periods. Two weeks late, then nearly 4 weeks late, then a week early...and now I’m suddenly back on track. Very bizarre. I feel like it’s going to drag on forever, if it’s anything like my sister and my Mom. We shall see.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about menopause. I think it kinda hit me in the face so suddenly that I really haven’t let it sink in that it will be here much faster than I realized. I sure as heck don’t want to get old, but I won’t mind ditching the monthly period nonsense.

I have been on and off of Provera for years now so I haven't really had monthly periods in that time. Of course instead of that I have had months of daily spotting/bleeding. So, fun times!
Anyway, since the beginning of this year things have tapered down. My last episode of spotting was mid August. I thought I was in the countdown.... then last week- surprise! I was so ticked, haha!
I have endometrial biopsies every 6 months.(I have hyperplasia) My oncologist said that this could all end when my periods do, so I am hoping that is real soon!!

On those same lines. Has anyone had ovary cysts during this time period? I have had the normal smaller ones, but now I have a 4cm one. They did a repeat ultrasound and it had gotten very slightly bigger. 
I go again in December. I just thought it was odd to get one that was larger this late in the game!

Loss of bladder strength. I take a pill and i still p a couple of times at night and it causes sweating. I am not in menopause as I had a period in September maybe. Before that was March. My hair is thinning and I have a ghostly look to my skin. I turn 51 on the 29th. 

We say that in the UK too

I'm done. I'm 58, however I still have some hot flushes although they're lessening now. A couple of times II went 6-8 months without a period then got caught out so don't assume anything yet. I'm getting towards 3 years without one now and it's the best thing about menopause that's for sure!
Thinning eyebrows and lashes, loss of skin tone, downy upper lip...nothing too awful but the anxiety has ramped up for sure! 

*Raises hand*

Yes. I had a hysterectomy in 2015, they left the ovaries. But I was getting what I thought were hot flashes (it was mostly my head, to the point where I now have an undercut to help) so they put me on an estradiol patch.

2 weeks ago, I was getting these full body hot flashes like at least 5 times a day. I am now dressing in layers all the time, and it came with night sweats too. It is so much worse than before. Appt scheduled this week. 🙄

I'm partially there.

Hot flashes are ramping up for sure. They come in clusters. I can go a week without any and then have 8-10 in a day.

I've been 11 days late ONCE. They are around 25 days apart on average, like clockwork. I use an app to keep track.

Irritation is at an all time high. DH has been warned lol.

But seriously - DS is 18. We were done having children after him. I'm done with my reproductive organs. But for the last 18 years, every 26-28 days like clockwork. Ugh.

I know I should be thankful they are fairly easy periods, no cramping or any other effects other than a killer headache a few days before. But I'm tired of it!

I'm not emotional about it being done - DH was snipped after DS, so there is no regret about my child bearing years being over. I just want it done.

I have exactly what you describe, that my head was hot, my neck, ears, face, head, but that is it. I thought hot flashes were more full body....my MD said she called what I had flushes instead of flashes. I'm grateful they aren't worse. I'm also grateful to be avoiding worse symptoms of menopause also...I feel very lucky!





I'm sorry for your loss. I had similar issues as you and gyn said i'd be a candidate for a hysterectomy due to the excessive bleeding/anemia. That's before she found a polyp and cell changes in my uterus. Then she strongly recommended one! Like you I was completely over having periods and didn't feel like I was nearing menopause because they were fairly regular (and closer together like 21-23 apart.)  Very happy that I went ahead with the hysterectomy....and after reading here about all the surprise periods, it makes me even happier to be avoiding stuff like that.

Crazy how different we all are. My mom and older sister all started perimenopause in their late 30s and it lasted for years with widely varying cycles and hot flashes.

I got pregnant for my first time a month before turning 35. It ended in a miscarriage. I quickly was pregnant again and miscarried. Again quickly pregnant and miscarried. Ugh. Got pregnant one more time and had my son (4 pregnancies in 9 months). After the first pregnancy, I never saw my cycle again. I breastfed ds for 21 months and thought maybe I was part of why that old wives tale about not getting pregnant while nursing was the issue. On ds first birthday I found the lump that turned out to be cancer. Took 7 months to diagnose and shortly after I stopped breast feeding. Did all my cancer junk and finished up almost exactly a year after diagnosis. The whole time my blood work was not showing me as peri menopausal. About 6 months after chemo my numbers started showing a change and within 4 months they called me post menopausal and I had just turned 39. I was pretty stoked that I had gotten thru without much issue, and then the never ending hot flashes started. All night long, all day long. They were awful and I was positive I was going to spontaneously combust. Because they were pretty sure my cancer was connected to all of the hormones from the pregnancies, I couldn't take any hormones to help my cause. I continued with crazy hot flashes for 13 years! A couple of years ago they started dropping off and now at 55 I only have 1 or so a month. There were times I begged for my cycle to come back if only the hot flashes would stop.

Yup, were all different, and I wouldn't wish my experience on anyone.

I am 6 years post-menopause at age 56. Post has been tolerable, but perimenopause was 5 years of torture for me. Among many other symptoms, I had YEARS of insomnia where I'd be wide awake at 1:00 am for several hours, or for the rest of the day. Thankfully, unless I'm very stressed the insomnia has gone away.

No hrt for me, family history of breast cancer.

Here's a list of the 35 common symptoms of menopause:

www.project-aware.org/Experience/symptoms.shtml

At 59 I can't remember the exact date of my last period but it's been several years (5-7? or more). I also never used HRT. I didn't want to use the chemical kind because of the cancer risk so I just skipped it and used Evening Primrose Oil instead. I did have awful hot flashes in the beginning but the Evening Primrose Oil takes care of all of them for me. I am so relieved about that. A couple of years ago my trusted doctor suggested I try the bio identical HRT (which doesn't have the cancer risk that chemical HRT does) so I did but I stopped within a week. It made my migraines so much worse. I'm happy just using the Primrose Oil. 

When I turned 50 is when I decided to get healthier so that's when one by one I stopped drinking soda and switched to water, stopped eating fast food, and stopped eating processed food and starting cooking mostly at home by using 100daysofrealfood.com which is what taught me how to stop eating processed food. Still after all that I'd only lost 20 pounds and my cholesterol was very high (220 total) although my blood pressure was normal. It wasn't until I started the whole foods, plant based diet at 54 that I saw real changes in my body. My cholesterol went down to 165 very quickly without ever using cholesterol medication-just from the new diet alone.The doctors behind the diet believe cholesterol comes from eating animal products. Once I eliminated all animal products from my diet my high cholesterol number went down to a healthy number. I lost 40 more pounds to get to my goal weight, and I've kept that number steady for the past 5 years, although since December of last year I did gain 10 pounds (from the munchies side effect of my medical marijuana for my migraines) that I'm still trying to get off 

I'm glad I did what I decided to do when I turned 50. I think for me menopause would have been much more difficult and even the last few years if I hadn't. I don't know if it's menopause related but I've had my right shoulder damaged by a rotator cuff injury and a frozen shoulder diagnosis (got surgery for that and has healed to have 100% movement) and now my left shoulder has frozen shoulder. My ortho doc says they don't know why this occurs but it does in women over 40, when I asked him what causes it and did it come from me carrying a tote bag filled with heavy library books? 

Other than that I'm doing pretty well. Do I like how my boobs now sag instead of being perky like they were in my 20's? No, of course not. But I'll tell you what. I wouldn't trade the wisdom and the confidence I've gained in myself now at 59 for the much more youthful me in my 20's. No way. I like who I am now. We should celebrate our years!