This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/LiluLay on 2023-08-23 14:31:02.
I’m 45 and have been having terrible symptoms I was scared were real problems. Being a cancer survivor, I was convinced I had developed it again because of the way I have felt in the past months. I have my hormones labs done multiple times a year because of my previous diagnosis and continued cancer surveillance.
Word to my ladies entering this age: it can hit you quickly and viciously. In December I was not in perimenopause. By late February, the symptoms began. It’s awful and I really don’t know how every woman gets through this as part of their lives. I literally thought I was dying, riddled with cancer, idk. I am so tired all the damn time, I’ve been bleeding for 23 days, I cry and yell. Everything aches. I was getting what I thought was an insanely painful UTI every time I had sex with my husband.
Finally saw my OBGYN, gave her my previous labs drawn by my endocrinologist/oncologist, described my symptoms… and she just said, “my dear, you are in perimenopause”. She snapped on the latex, busted out the speculum, and once in the zone proclaimed, “that is a low estrogen vagina!” She put me on low dose birth control to help with symptoms.
I don’t know what I am trying to say with this post other than this feels like the final insult flicked at women as they enter the later part of their lives. We just don’t get to ever have it easy with our bodies. You’re used up now, babe. Plus the psychological aspect wherein you realize you are on the path to becoming a soft little dumpling grandma that smells like powder. Well, fuck that. I’ll embrace it and become a swamp witch or maybe a bog hag. I’ll live in a misty forest in a hut with chicken legs and have some animal familiars to keep me company.