Hi everyone, I’m a new member have been type 1 diabetic since developing gestational diabetes 15 years ago. All was going fairly swimmingly until perimenopause hit! Then developed dizziness headaches high blood pressure and numerous other symptoms including soaring blood sugars for 10 days a month! My endo said all women have Pms - get used to it! Quite un useful when I’m injecting triple my normal amounts of insulin and starving myself for 10 days a month! I’m just trying to make some progress with everything to discover the best way to go, but to be honest at the moment I’m being passed from specialist to specialist and feel like I’m going mad - have to keep stressing to my family, it’s the hormones - I’m actually a nice person - well not at the moment I’m not. Any/all support/humour - gratefully accepted!!
Ahhhh that is my problem, at least PMS was shorter, and a bit more predictable. I feel this 10 days a month is scattered and random throughout the month.
I feel for you - it’s really no fun! I was all prepared for hot flashes but nobody told me I’d be so ill I couldn’t get out of bed! And it’s like doctors have never heard of any of these symptoms grrr …
Susan, my perimenopause adventure...errr nightmare... started about 2 years ago. My symptoms started with waves of tingling from my head to my toes in the middle of the night followed by hot flashes and heart palpitaions...the first time it happened I was afraid I was having a stroke. My primary care doc did bloodwork the next morning and told me that my hormones were at menopausal levels.
The heart palpitations sent me to the ER twice, then the cardiologist, to be told they couldn't find anything wrong. My blood sugar was alllll over the place. I also went through a period of time where my blood glucose would be high so I would bolus a correction then 10 minutes later I would fall back to normal levels with alot of IOB. I had to learn to be slower to correct. So frustrating.
My endo and my cardiologist advised against hormones - their preference is for me to tough it out. My endo said his feeling was that things would "settle down" within the next year...although I suspected that he was just telling me that.
I know what you mean about feeling like you're going mad... and the doctors give you that look like you're a crazy lady hypochondriac!!
Then all of a sudden a couple of months ago things got better for me! :) No hot flashes for a couple of months now and blood sugar much more stable - I have actually been able to flatline in the 80's now for hours. I am so hopeful that this nightmare is over!!
Hang in there! I'm hoping for a smoother "transition" for all of us! I have had nurses tell me that perimenopause seems to hit Type 1's harder, but I've never been able to find research supporting that other than my own first hand very miserable experience.
As an afterthought, I don't know how many carbs per day you ate before this started but the only way I found to survive was to eat very low carb - it eliminated the only variable I had control over. Also walking as much as possible helped me through the worst days too, even though my instinct was to curl up in the fetal position and pull a blanket over my head!
Omg that’s so like me! Mine started with vertigo so severe I spent 2 weeks clinging to the bed. That was 4’years ago! I’ve had every test known to man - been in the er 3 times - things got better for a while but now symptoms are hitting hard including night sweats, headaches, blood pressure and sugars shooting up. Hormone specialist says hits diabetics hard and even harder once actually reach menopause! He’s advising progesterone for me as although may increase blood sugars he thinks it should help all the other symptoms! I walk non-stop or go to the gym endlessly as, like you, exercise helps. The only other things that help are red wine (takes the edge off the panic) and sleep! Some days I think I’ll never get through this! Thanks so much for showing me I’m not alone - I feel like a freak and just today actually walked out on a stupid doctor who I waited 3 hours to see because I can’t get an appointment with my own doctor for 6’weeks (he suggested a psychiatrist) - you can imagine what I wanted to say to that suggestion! At this rate they’re gonna ask me to leave and never come back!
I too have cut carbs to a minimum like an Atkins diet - don’t know if it helps but I’ve lost 10 pounds and take hardly any insulin except for those dreaded 10 days!
This helped with my dizziness. As we age crystals can move around in your ear causing dizziness, mine moved because of a head injury, went to an ENT and this maneuver helped big time.
Thanks for the advice Judith - it’s nice to know I’m not alone! Sorry that you’re having a tough time too. I am experimenting with regular stuff like vitamin b complex, vitamin d and magnesium but can’t say it’s making a lot of difference as yet. Hoping or the best though - it seems unfair that as well as the diabetes we have to deal with even more complications.
Going thru the same thing myself & I’m only 41. At least 10 days where I can’t get my bs under 250, it’s nuts and getting me very stressed. My doc gave me anxiety pills but they don’t fix the problem. I’m actually considering the birth control pill. Wouldn’t that level out my bs? Can’t imagine dealing with this for another 10 years till menopause finally arrives.
What birth control pills do you guys take?
Thanks for the info. I’m desperately looking for something to keep these hormones level. Sugars in the 300 to 400s for 10-14days a month is driving me crazy.
I did well on the pill when I was younger, but didn’t know herbals did this also. Pretty cool! I’ll read up on them.
I don’t use bc pill but have read that either mirena IUS or yaz may help with Pms symptoms which is what these are. Pms exacerbates any underlying conditions. I used the progesterone cream last month and my blood sugars were better but not perfect and I had been tested and shown to have low progesterone. If you search protocols for treating pmdd on the Internet it will show you various options. Ideally we would have endocrinologists who could deal with this but it doesn’t seem to be the case! Let me know how you get on!!
i can identify with your frustration; i am (thankfully) POST menopausal, and it has been wonderful. it wasnt always that way. my peri menopasal period, which lasted maybe 8 years,was a living hell. my sugars would soar through the roof, then plumit into the 40s. my mood was shot, i sweat so much at night that i had to have 2-3 fresh pairs of PJs bedside.i would sweat so much, it actually felt like i was swimming in my clothing in a pool.(my poor husband) i went from my GYN to my PCP to my Endo. everyone encouraged me to go on hormone replacement meds. THAT was a real NIGHTMARE. (i do not recommend that)
however, there is an end in sight. and now that i have passed it, i am 100% stable and my last A1C was 6.5.I no longer sweat. my moods are stable.and my sugars are much more manageable. i did start early, which is probably why no one caught it when it all started. i am coming up on 49 and i went thru it starting around my 40th birthday.
good luck. dont hesitate to trust your instincts. doctors sometimes think they know all the answers.
just one example: i have had terrible intestonal problems related to D. every MD i went to had a different solution: one pill after another without success. BUT, one day my GYN
suggested i take PROBIOTICS, and BOOM, all is repaired. its almost a year now, but for all the years i went from one MD to another, a simple little vitamin changed my entire
agonizing constipation. it's wonderful when something so simple works better than something so completely unnecessary that clso costs a fortune. (i think i spent about $15 for a bottle of 100.
good luck. hang in there. there is relief in store.
Thank you so much Daisy Mae. At this point I am pretty desperate so it’s good to know that at some point it ends. Everybody seems to think it is ramping up cause I am nearing menopause so I really hope that is the case cause I don’t think I can take another 4 years of this. So nice of you to post this encouraging message which I really appreciate as am really down today!!
My next endo appoiñtment is 5/15. I'm going to see about the pill. Only because I hate taking meds and herbal sounds like a lot of work. I don't dedicate a lot of time to myself so looking for a quick and easy fix. Last night my sugars were. Up and down all night; and I had only taken the lantus at 7am. These hormones are just getting worse.
I'll let you know what helps.
Good luck mad die - I really hopes it works for you. I know it does help a lot of people. I am going to see hormone specialist again to adjust progesterone schedule as this did seem to help me last month but kept wearing off! Saw ‘supposed experts’ at internal medicine and they just didn’t seem interested in anything hormonal. His only thought (a twenty something year old man’ was that it will all get better after the menopause! Very helpful indeed
Hello … Is anyone out there. This thread has gone a little stale… time to fire up a conversation. So here I am 8 years into being T1 LADA. I have had ups and downs over the years since my diagnosis. In general my highest HgA1c was 7.5, overall I was doing okay on MDI. The last year was an emotional roller coaster with a teenage daughter, we are still not in the clear with that and soon my preteen son will be rocking my world too. Needless to say Stress has been huge in my life lately so my BG hasn’t been as good as I once managed. Now the last several years I have had night sweats. Then BANG peri menopause hits in the past 4 months, with long heavy periods, extreme fatigue so tired and weak that I cannot get out of bed for two days, of course on top of that some alien took over my brain and I turn into crazy mom ! Thankfully the fatigue and loss of faculties only last 2 or 3 days. Then I am back to myself. Ok I am ready for all this to pass I know what stage I am at and hopeful it doesn’t last for years. Then yesterday I got my regular blood work done, my cholesterol has hit 5.7, ( 6 months ago I was 5.0 ) triglycerides 6.4 ( 6months ago 2.6)
. My HDL is 0.7. HgA1c 7.1, Creatinine normal, TSH normal.
What gives, aside from stress and peri menopause my diet is the same has it has been for 8 years. Is this normal to have high cholesterol because of peri menopause? If any of you ladies who posted back in 2013 could give me some insight I would appreciate it. I see the regular MD next week somehow I feel I need to defend myself that I have no control over my hormones causing all this high cholesterol. Obviously changing my diet, getting more exercise besides being the mom taxi all the time would be helpful. Personally, I would just like to ride this out and see where it all falls once I officially am in menopause. It will most likely be easier to make adjustments at that point. Has anyone experience this and if so, did the cholesterol come down to better levels after you hit menopause?
I look forward to some responses
Laura T1 Lada, MDI, hypothyroid and now slightly a loose canon.
There’s a whole literature on the topic that’s really interesting, but basically, a number of studies show that LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels typical go up in perimenopause, possibly due to changes in estrogen, but I’m not sure if the mechanism(s) has been definitively determined. If you google it, you’ll find a good amount of hits covering the bigger studies.