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Anyone Have Pots Before And After Menopause?


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I've seen healthy family members suffer pretty badly with peri-menopause and menopause symptoms (I'm still not clear on the difference). Exhaustion, insomnia, feeling very hot, trouble thinking and remembering. Geez- I already feel that way. I wonder as I approach 40, what's going to happen with the POTS once I start going through it. My symptoms dramatically worsen with hormonal fluctuations. Has anyone had POTS before peri-menopause and then through it? What happened? Did the POTS symptoms get better or worse?

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Worse....sorry, but I wasn't treated until after the fact, because I kept blaming everything on menopause!! It was horrendous. Just being honest here, but Iknew there was more than met the eye. I was dying before going back to doctors that thought I was crazy...Would a nurse in her right mind spend all her time in doctor's offices, if she wasn't sick!! I was desperate, and then didn't have good insurance, but I told my husband, I had to go back and get some help!! My new insurance kicked in the day I had my colonoscopy (finally full time work and good insurance in the nick of time, only God's doing), and I had just been to a new ENT Dr. Pappas Jr.,who diagnosed my Autonomic vertigo, and the rest is history. He referred me to Autonomic Disorders Center of Alabama in Birmingham. In another year I would have been too old to be accepted there!! I was 54 at the time, now 55...

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I was diagnosed with early meno pause at around age 32 (which, according to my doctor, explained why I had so much trouble getting pregnant of our second child (needed hormones to get pregnant)). I was really confused but was okay with it. Then several years later when I had another blood test (for something different, cant remember might have had to do with the dys, not sure) my doc checked on the menopause as well and it turned out that I wasn't in menopause anymore, which confused me even more. I asked my doc if it was normal to be in and then out of menopause and if that happened more often and he answered that no it wasn't normal and no he hadn't seen that happen before. It's one of the reasons I think my dys might have to do with hormones.

A few years ago, when having a bloodtest again it turned out that now I def was through menopause and when I asked if that could change again my doc told me that that wouldn't happen. All in all, for me menopause felt just like pots re the flushing, tachy (though less and seated instead of standing) and sleeping issues. I still flush (though less now that I'm on octreotide), tachy is managed via ssri and I still have sleeping issues. So not much new :)

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For me, my POTS symptoms have gradually improved since my early 30's.

MomToG- How long did you have bad POTS symptoms before you started seeing improvement?

Corina, hormones are a big factor for me too - I wish I could figure out what specifically the problem is. And Kim I can definitely see where it would be confusing to differentiate hormonal vs. POTS symptoms - there's a lot of overlap. I'm going to be optimistic and hope either to be recovered from this before peri-menopause or that maybe the dropping hormones will have a good effect on the POTS. I don't think I could take being any worse.

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Naomi, I've been trying to figure the hormone thing out but the endo I saw (who was sceptical in the first place as "you've seen a LOT of doctors!" ) wanted me to be off of all my meds for 3 to 6 months which in itself is understandable but for me not do-able at the time (was trying to somehow manage our household, raising our kids and wanted to be there for them, while being off of meds would make me even worse).

The octreotide I'm on is also used in people with grow hormone problems (not that I have that) but as that is hormone related the clue might be there, not sure and I doubt I will ever find out. Wishing you all the best and hope that (peri) menopause won't be hard on you!

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Naomi--for me POTS was triggered by my pregnancy. I did have POTS symptoms prior to pregnancy but they were never severe and I had only been told I had anxiety, which I accepted at the time, even though it didn't make much sense. I was very sick w POTS in 3rd trimester into 4 mos postpartum when I was finally diagnosed. I was on an SSRI and beta blocker for a few years. Every year after pregnancy my symptoms have overall improved, although I do have short episodes of relapses that can be disabling for a matter of days.

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