I'm currently on month 3 of a 4 month induced menopause. I tried one of these last year with terrible results (I only made a month because the Zoladex injection had such awful affects I couldn't function at all). This time round we tried Synarel nasal spray and HRT (Add Back) patches instead of tablets and so far I've been doing ok... tired and achy but ok.
I was also put on antidepressants and for a while was doing pretty darn good. This past month, however, the menopausal symptoms have got to me. Hot flushes catch me out, sleepless nights tire me and headaches spoil my day. I'm at the doctors every month at the moment and last time I went I spoke to her about the lack of sleep and headaches. When I say headaches I mean the ones that make you feel physically sick, throb when you move and/or make it hard to focus on anything. At first I thought it was because I spend more time looking at a computer screen in artificial light all day but then I realised I did that before and my head was fine. Suddenly I was suffering from them 70-80% of the time and painkillers did little to help.
The doctor prescribed yet another antidepressant, only this time in a low dose that is commonly used for chronic pain. Amitriptyline it's called, and since being prescribed it I have found several people I know who have tried it. My doctor warned me that I might feel "groggy" or "slightly hungover" for a day or two but to persevere with the tablets. So, I tried my first one when I knew I didn't have to work the next day. Unfortunately, "groggy" is no a word I would use... I was completely out of it!
It took Tim about an hour to drag me out of bed. I just couldn't stay awake and every time he woke me up I'd drift back off to sleep but not even realise I was dreaming until he said something to me and I woke up again. Then we proceeded to move some of the stuff from our house to his parents and I just wasn't with it at all. I almost fell asleep on our niece's bed whilst she was playing with her dolls and talking to me... this never happens, I usually take ages to fall asleep!! The worst part was that I returned to work the next day and still wasn't really with it. And I found out from my colleague and my aunt that both of them had experienced the same thing. Neither had taken more than one tablet and I have refused to take another one too.
So now I am stuck... do I try half a tablet and hope it has less of an effect but helps with the headaches or do I just try and live with the headaches for the month I have left of this menopause? I see the doctor in two weeks time so I will talk to her then, she told me to go back sooner if things got worse, but with all that is going on I don't know if I'll manage to get an appointment anyway (you can't make advanced appointments wit our doctor, it's a call on the day and hope there are some left kind of surgery and as it is in another village I can't get to unless someone drives me there, getting to see someone is somewhat difficult.)
Has anyone else suffered from this kind of pain when going through an induced menopause? Has anyone used Synarel or Amitriptyline? I could do with some advise about this one...
No comments:
Post a Comment