u/Blue_Lynx_988

Hi folks,

My surgeon has offered me a hysterectomy. It would have to be open abdominal surgery because of my enlarged uterus. Trying to decide whether to keep my ovaries or not.

My symptoms / issues:
- Severe cyclical pain
- Fibroid (known)
- Adenomyosis (suspected)
- Hip pain before and during period
- Uterus is size of 12-14 weeks pregnant
- Back pain / stiffness after walking for longish periods
- Cyclical flu-like symptoms at ovulation and before / during period - big increases or drops in estrogen cause feeling like coming down with something: aches, fatigue, congestion, low mood, weird eyesight, for a few days at a time twice a month. Pretty debilitating

Bleeding is fine as I had an endometrium and fibroid resection last year

I'm on HRT and doing ok on it now, after a tricky start...

I understand that losing my ovaries could help with the cyclical-flu like symptoms, and also that there's a higher likelihood of them failing anyway with open surgery compared to laparoscopic.

But I'm very scared by the horror stories of people having a terrible surgical menopause.

Grateful for thoughts / advice

46, in peri. I've been dealing with loads of health issues for the last 4 years, including fibroids, heavy bleeding, anaemia, and really bad fatigue - the heavy-limbed, super groggy, brain-foggy type, where rest just doesn't help.

For around the same length of time, I've been taking a high dose magnesium glycinate supplement (400mg elemental) because that's what we're recommended to do in peri...

I put the fatigue down to anaemia (and work-related burnout), and since having surgery for my fibroids last summer, have been upping my iron levels. But the fatigue / heaviness / grogginess continued. I noticed it would always start to lift later in the day. I thought that meant maybe my adrenals were out of whack or something like that.

Anyway, last week for some reason, I started wondering about the magnesium supplement. I looked up on here and read quite a few people linking it to grogginess and fatigue. So I stopped taking it 5 days ago and I have felt progressively better since stopping. The past 2 days I have had so much energy, it's finally like I've actually well again!

Obviously this won't apply to everyone, but if you are taking magnesium and dealing with severe fatigue, it's worth checking you're not sensitive to it. I'm also really sensitive to progesterone HRT. I don't know if that's somehow connected...