odd symptoms/hrt/menopause?

[LadyBlair64]

Hi. I'm new to this post & am not even sure if this is the right place to post, if not I am sorry but any help is appreciated. I'll try to ask all the questions I have at once. Hopefully it won't be too confusing.

FIRST: I AM NOT ON ANY HRT YET!!

#1: I'm 42 yrs old. 1.5 yrs. ago began "menopause" with FSH levels at 56.5. In January '07 had "period", went to gyno, got checked out, took another FSH & it came back 8.5. On 2/28/07 had FSH done and it's back up to 55.1. Is this normal or is something else wrong? I'm being treated for Hashimoto's Disease - hypothyroid.

#2: Are these symptoms menopausal & HAS ANYONE ELSE HAD THEM: LIGHTHEADEDNESS - CONSTANT SINCE MAY. Stomach bloat/belching/gas.....cancers are ruled out THANK GOD!! All started with thyroid/menopause troubles. Thyroid numbers are excellent now so I'm left to think it's menopause.

#3: Doc prescribed a VERY LOW DOSE of Prempro to start me on due to symptoms. Anyone have luck or adverse effects on this??? I need something. NO FAMILY HISTORY OF CANCERS (FEMALE OR OTHER), no heart disease, etc....

Please try to address these for me. Nobody can seem to help me with the lightheadedness and I feel like I'm high all the time which honestly isn't fun to be high constantly (LOL).

Peace & Love to all.....

[mrs canada]

Now why on earth are you so worried about cancer! :) Lightheadedness is extremely common with hypothyroidism (I have it too).. and even if your numbers are appearing normal, you can be.. oh can't remember what it is called.. but basically you're right on the border of normal so you can still be feeling the impact of hypo.

On another note, lightheadedness is also common with hormonal imbalance (I believe it's either too much estrogen or too much progesterone).

As for the gas issues - you may have mild IBS or something totally unrelated to your other symptoms. You should try adjusting your diet to see if you have a specific intolerance - we can develop these at any point of our lives.

If you were not already on medication, I would recommend the herb Vitex to you as it works miracles for the issues you describe it is absolutely not recommended if you are on hrt.

[LadyBlair64]

Hi! First I thank you for your comments and advice, and second, the reasons I am "so worried about cancer" is because that is the main reasons my doctors made me do all the reasearch on HRT before prescribing it to me.  Evidently, studies have shown that a women's risk increases - albeit slightly - with HRT use, however, due to the hormonal imbalance, and all of the lightheadedness going on for close to a year now, I feel I have no other choice since my quality of life is greatly affected by this, & if indeed it's related to the estrogen or lack of as my docs seem to feel - then I must add some estrogen via HRT to my body therby creating a bit of a risk of cancers.  If, my family had a history of female cancers, my doctors would not prescribe it for me.  So, hopefully that answers the question as to why I am so worried.  I'd stay lightheaded if the risk outweighed the benefit.....

By the way, you mentioned that you have/had lightheadedness and have hypothyroidism.  Did it go away with proper treatment?  I'd like to know if you don't mind.  This is absolutely horrible for me and I feel stoned all the time.  Any help is appreciated.

[mrs canada]

Hi again... the following is my longest post on here ever, but I may be able to help...

I was having dizzy/lightheaded spells so bad that I would fall over sometimes, or if I stood up too quickly my heart would race and I was FREEZING all the time. Now, I am tall and thin so I always thought it was just a circulatory thing because of my size. Turns out, I had hypothyroidism and FOURTEEN "hot spots" on my thyroid that they wanted to monitor. I was put on levothyroxine and felt better about a month later. After a year of good thyroid results, my doctor said I could stop taking the medicine and my results have been consistently good.

However, about a year ago, my symptoms started up again and here's where it gets complicated.

I started to chart my fertility at that time as we were going to try for a second child and noticed my temps were a bit on the low side, post ovulation. So I went to the doctor and a blood test showed my progesterone to be too low to sustain a pregnancy (not severely, but enough to be a problem). Also my doctor said that this deficiency could "thyroid-like" symptoms..

So, because my doctor is cool and is heavily into naturopathy, she let me first try Vitex (agnust castus, chasteberry) to correct the problem. And within my first cycle, my progesterone was up to normal, and even better, I had NO pms anymore... none at all and I had been a lifelong sufferer of severe life-changing pms.

Anyway so what I am saying is, hormonal imbalances cause these symptoms in people and I tend to think that is why I felt bad again, because the problem went away when I treated the progesterone issue. I wish I had learned that hormonal imbalances caused all these problems years ago because I suffered needlessly.

So, if you are not currently on HRT, you may want to try this yourself, under your doctor's supervision. You are still young and I doubt you are in real need of synthetic hrt.

Anyway - sorry for the blather - happy to clarify if you have any more questions.