u/crwg2016

I feel like my life has been significantly altered in the past couple years. I have new, sudden joint and muscle pain, painful sex, nausea and at times lack any appetite, I’m sleeping only 3 hours some nights and other nights get zero hours of sleep. The insomnia has been the absolute worst part of the whole experience.

I bring up all these symptoms when I talk about peri with him and then he follows up by asking me how my hot flashes have been. I do not understand, why is he so focused on the one symptom I don’t experience? It’s all very frustrating.

Updating to add that I am on HRT (patch, progesterone and vaginal estrogen) and this is not an insurance related issue. The problem is that I need him to take the insomnia seriously, I don’t know if that means increasing progesterone or adding a sleep aid. I don’t need to lie and say I have hot flashes, I need treatment for other peri symptoms

So I tried down, down and feather, down alternative, and a down chamber pillow which was perfect. I like that the chamber pillow compresses very little and offers really good support. The other pillows just felt like the support wasn’t there and compressed too easily.

Is this a common or uncommon style of down pillow? Where do I look for various options?

I’m back to sleeping 0-4 hours a night, have nausea, nerve pain, joint pain, emotionally a wreck and brain fog is so bad that I’m unable to maintain conversations, retain info from conversations and struggling with meal planning.

Why am I reacting so poorly to the Mylan brand? I was stable, doing well and sleeping 8-9 hours again on the 0.1mg dotti and Sandoz patches.

What is going on with these patches? Is anyone else experiencing a severe decline from them? I use tegaderm medical tape so they stay on well, but I’m questioning if I’m absorbing any estrogen.

Update: I transferred hrt care to my GP and am ditching telehealth (they will not honor brand requests). He was fine with writing Sandoz only in my pharmacy notes and my prescription surprisingly was filled within an hour. I was concerned that it would be hard to track down a box because of shortages, I’m lucky this isn’t the case currently at my Walgreens.  If anyone else is struggling, I think it’s best to ditch the ineffective patches and seek out better alternatives that work. These past 5-6 weeks have really set me back and I shouldn’t have tried pushing through.

I’m currently using alloy and they wont let me request a specific brand (I can only do dotti and Sandoz).

I cannot stress enough how bad Mylan has been for me. I’m sleeping 15-20% less on that patch manufacturer and the aches, pains and anxiety are back.

I‘m feeling sick and desperate. My Dr doesn’t know how to treat peri which is why I use telehealth, but they don’t care enough to honor brand requests. Any advice please?

I’m currently sleeping on a 5” memory foam medium firm pillow and it’s lifting my head too high and causing neck pain in the morning.

For some reason it’s really difficult to find a 4” pillow (most pillows are 5”-6”) and the adjustable shredded memory foam and latex pillows feel too lumpy for me.

I’m open to all fill types, just need an even surface and modest fill or height.

I’ve tried duloxetine, savella, tricyclics, gabapentin, lyrica, low dose naltrexone, off label memantine, nsaids, lidocaine patches. I’ve gone to physical therapy.

The pain has only responded to opioid medications and muscle relaxers like Tizanidine and Cyclobenzaprine.

I don’t know what other condition I could have, do some of us just not respond to any of the fibro meds?

I can sleep with multiple blanket layers and cotton batting or wool quilts without sweating but have purchased two down comforters (all season and summer weight) and I end up sweating all night despite using linen and percale covers.

I’m questioning if the issue is high feather content, does it sleep hotter than down?

Also wondering if the under $200 price range down comforters use a weave for the cotton shell that tends to run hot?

First had Dottie, then myland, then sandoz. I then get increased to a patch dose at 0.1mg. The 0.1mg Sandoz worked amazing and I was sleeping 7-9 hours every night. Now after a few days on my new Mylan 0.1mg I’m back to sleeping 4-5 hours a night.

I don’t know if this is just the nature of being in perimenopause or if there really is this much variance among manufacturers. I always apply to dry, clean skin and use tegaderm. The patches adhering and staying on is not an issue.

I’m 46, not sure if I’m in early or later perimenopause. My current patch dose is 0.1 mg twice a week and 200mg progesterone daily. I’m also using vaginal estrogen cream. I started hrt 4 months ago.

I’m not really bothered by low libido, but was wondering how common or uncommon this is. I also have chronic pain, which is most likely a contributing factor too.

I currently have a 100% cotton quilted protector and there’s no give or stretch on top, so it seems like it’s “firming” up the top surface of the bed.

i’d like to find something basic and stretchy, any recs?

I’m wondering if anyone else had made this decision?

I’ve had chronic pain for 16-17 years now and used to take hydrocodone as needed, it worked really well then. The past 9 months the pain became severe, I was put on 5mg 4x a day. It worked well the first few months, then after month 5-6 I feel like it’s only reducing pain about 15%. Thats ok for baseline pain days but when I’m in a flare, it feels useless.

I’m at a point now where my pain (aside from flares) is becoming more moderate again and I’m now just taking meds that don’t do a whole lot and I hate that I need to take them or else I’ll get withdrawals (Sweating, increased bowel movements and poor sleep).

I think the mental health impacts of getting my prescription monthly is not worth it anymore. Has anyone else transitioned from daily medication to going back to an as needed prescription? How do I go about tapering? I’m down from 20mg to 15mg a day. Do I just drop my dose by 5mg per week?

It’s ridiculous that we have such a short window to get an appointment monthly with our doctors and then also hope the pharmacy can fill it within two days.

If you can, try to take one less pill or half a pill per week. its awful and I hate going without pain treatment on those days, but there is a sense of anxiety relief once you know you have a few extra doses in case of shortages. Set these pills aside in an old prescription bottle. If you’re ever stuck in a situation where the pharmacy is out of stock or can’t get your refill on time, taking half a dose is enough to hold back the worst of the withdrawals.

I mentioned in another thread zofran. I’ve been prescribed it for years because of nausea from migraines. Please try and get a prescription for this. If you’re like me, mention how much the pain affects your appetite and is causing nausea. This shouldn’t be too hard to get. Also have Imodium on hand at all times.

Muscle relaxers can help with restless legs from withdrawal, they can also help with sleep.

I don’t know of any other tips that would help out. If you have any, please share. We really don’t have anyone looking out for us but our own pain community. It’s heartbreaking.