#139: Perimenopause and HRT My Personal Story

For years, I had no idea what was happening to me. I was falling apart, and had no idea why.

I thought this was just how life was when your marriage wasn’t great and you were juggling kids and a demanding job.

I knew I was going through menopause, but neither I, nor the doctors who were treating me, realized that my changing hormones were wreaking havoc on my life.

In this episode, I’m sharing my real story of how that unfolded: how I spent years in the dark, struggling with symptoms I didn’t understand, and how things finally began to turn around with HRT (though that did not always go so smoothly either!).

I’m sharing this in hopes that at least one person will recognize their own struggles in my story, and get help faster than I did.

Transcript

#139: Perimenopause and HRT My Personal Story

Welcome to 40 Plus Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto coming to you with a little bit of a cold today. I've actually been, I. Outta commission all week. I'm recording this on a Friday, and yeah, it came down with something on Monday and I've had kind of this fever all week, but I really wanted to record this episode for next week.

This time I am talking about hormone replacement therapy and my experience with it, and I also wanted to share some of my own experience with perimenopause and menopause because. I went through it completely in the dark, completely unaware of what was going on with me, and it really changed my life because I made some major decisions during that time when I was just not myself at all.

And I hear from women [00:01:00] all the time about how they're just not feeling like themselves. They are like, their brain is not working the way it did, dealing with anxiety, dealing with anger. I dealt with depression. so I really wanted to share my story. And this actually got, uh, triggered by the fact that. Earlier this week on Wednesday, actually, I went to have my, I guess it's every other year, checkup with my gynecologist who is the one that has prescribed my hormone replacement therapies. I'm actually going to do two episodes talking about hormone replacement therapy.

This first one where I am gonna share some of my perimenopause and menopause experience, and then my second one where I'm gonna talk more about, I've been fine tuning, fine tuning my hormone replacement therapy with the help of my doctor. I am not selling [00:02:00] anything. Okay. I do not have any affiliates, affiliate links to doctors.

So this is purely because I'm hoping that if this helps even one woman to understand that, heck, I'm in perimenopause, maybe I need to go talk to a doctor, or, you know, feel like they are going through the same thing or something similar because it's really different for all of us than, than it is worth doing this.

And I'm gonna be sharing a lot of. Well, my personal journey, so, uh, let's get into it. I had to take some notes, because I actually went back and I dug through kind of my whole medical history back. Over 10 years. So I'm recording this in 2025, October, and the history really goes back to October of 2013.

Can you imagine? Yeah. So in October of [00:03:00] 2013, I actually was 43 years old. And that is when I was kind of made aware that I actually am perimenopausal and that came about because I changed jobs. And here in Finland where I live, when you change to a new job, you get a health check done. Right. They, they, and it's not that they're going to eliminate you if you have health issues.

But what they do is they wanna be aware of any health issues that you may have so that they can support you to make sure that you can do your work that you've been hire to do. And so I go in for this totally normal health check, expecting everything to be fine, and they're like, I. Your hormone levels are really low, and I think you need to go see a gynecologist and get this checked because you're too young to be in menopause.

And that's what they told me. Literally, you're too young to be in menopause at age 43. So [00:04:00] I go and I get seen by a gynecologist and. And she says, yep, you are in perimenopause and, do you have any symptoms? And, and I was completely oblivious to what menopause really was, or perimenopause, it wasn't talked about yet. 10. 12 years ago, and my friends certainly weren't talking about it. I mean, I was surrounded by women who were a little bit older than me because my husband's a little bit older than me and most of the people we're hanging out with were his law school friends. So they were a little bit older than me.

Nobody had really talked about menopause, so I was like, well, I have some hotspots. That is something I, I recognized as a mepo menopausal symptom. 'cause of course everybody talks about that. So, so I said, yeah, I get them, but you know, I'm somebody who's usually really cold, so it's actually kind of a relief to be warm for a moment, and they pass and it's okay.

So she was like, great, and [00:05:00] she sent me out the door. Now. The crazy thing here was that actually I had a lot of things going on with me already at that point. So I was not sleeping very well. I was having these hot flashes. I didn't know what the heck a menopausal symptom was. So in a way, I think it was very negligent of her to like not walk me through the common symptoms and be like, are you having trouble sleeping?

Are you feeling fuzzy headed? Are you not feeling recovered? Have you been losing hair? All these kinds of things she could have asked me and I would've been like, Hmm, actually, you know, are you, are you feeling moodier than normal? You know, there are all kinds of things she could have asked me, and it might have clued me into, wait a second, what is this?

Like, what is menopause? But no, so I went on my way and. [00:06:00] You know, started working and everything was, you know, fine, fine. I thought it was fine. Well, at the same time, actually, you know, my marriage was kind of crumbling. It was kind of falling apart. Things were not really good between me and my husband. Uh, I wasn't feeling good and a lot of my bad feeling, I was reflecting as hostility towards him.

Uh, I don't know. I don't know what I expected. I mean, I'm being very transparent. I was not the nicest person to be married to at that point, for sure not. Um, I felt bad. He didn't recognize that I felt bad. The whole atmosphere at home was really heavy and terrible. I mean, we had three children who at that point were all pretty small and requiring a lot of attention. We both had full-time work. [00:07:00] Uh, you know, it wasn't like we were rolling in money, so money was always an issue. Of course, when you have three kids and then just time and not sleeping very well. And to me, you know, I, I just felt like he wasn't sup supportive enough, doing enough.

I guess a lot of, well, yeah, I, I wasn't the nicest person to be around, but I also was feeling really bad. Um, I was really having crazy mood swings. I remember being in the locker room at the gym, for example, and just having this overwhelming feeling of, oh my God, I gotta get outta here because I'm gonna start crying.

And that was not unusual for me. I would get this, this overwhelming sorrow, sad, bad feeling, and feel like I needed to cry quite often. And, and you know, I had struggled with depression before, like [00:08:00] in my twenties. So I started to recognize the symptoms that I'm like, I'm, I'm depressed. Um, and so I went in and I went to see a psychiatrist, psychologist, whatever it is, the doctor, the one that can prescribe the medicine.

And, and he did like, um, an interview. And tested me for depression and declared that, yes, I am depressed. So in the summer of 2015, so that's two years after I was diagnosed as perimenopausal I got put on, um, antidepressants and I also went into therapy.

So you would imagine that with the therapy and the antidepressants and everything, that I would start to feel better, but actually a year later when I went back in to, um. Be checked up on right by that same doctor again. He gave [00:09:00] me the same tests, interviewed me and everything, and declared that my situation was actually worse.

It had gotten worse over the course of that year, despite the therapy, despite the antidepressants. And by the way, my therapist was a middle-aged woman. So, you know, I, I just kind of feel like how. Is it possible that with all the knowledge that they had of me, that I'm middle aged, right? That I'm in menopause and you know, a woman depressed and all that, it did not, like, nobody at any point put two and two together and figure it out, that, hey, this might actually be due to menopause.

But, and, and neither did I, by the way, so. Anyway, so things were getting worse and I was, it was really getting worse. I was getting real, I was very depressed at that point and like to the point [00:10:00] where, you know, it was really a struggle to get through the days. And, you know, of course I have my family, I have my work, I have to do all these things, plus I've got the menopause symptoms.

Um. That I didn't recognize as menopause symptoms, you know, less sleep, which of course is also associated with depression and having less energy and all, all kinds of things, no sex drive, all, all the kinds of things that are associated with, um, depression as well. And at that point I was like, things are not getting better.

My home life is terrible. And so I made the very radical decision that I have got to make a serious change and. I am going to move out, right? So I made the decision, well, of course, after discussing with my now ex-husband, you know, that, that this is what I needed to do and I really felt like I needed to do this to.

Get my mental health back [00:11:00] in shape and, um, and it was a really hard decision to make because financially, huh? You know, being able to pay for two households, uh, you know, I would have to obviously pay for my household. He would pay for his household. Uh, the kids would have to have. Two of things, right? And our children were boy or they are a boy, girl, boy.

And already the oldest one was a teenager, you know, and, and, um, and then his brother's five years younger. So the whole thing of like, I didn't want to be sticking three kids into one bedroom, so I needed to get a big enough house basically to, to be able to have four bedrooms, right? And then it had to be close enough to their school and close enough to their father, so we could do the week, week, you know, joint custody thing.

And, and there's, there's no such thing as alimony or anything [00:12:00] like that in Finland. And when you divorce, like we agreed that, you know, we would both pay, um. Half of all the kids' expenses. I mean obviously like the food when we live, when the kids are with me, I pay the groceries. My ex doesn't have anything to do with that, but like if we need to buy them a winter coat or winter shoes or pay for their hockey, which is not a cheap hobby or horseback running or whatever, you know, that we would pay jointly.

So it was really a humongous decision. And imagine in that state of being super depressed and, and you know, you, you need to find a home, like get a home, you know, furnish it, all the things. But I was really so desperate to start to feel better, to like get my life turned around that I made that decision and I [00:13:00] went ahead and, and did that.

And I mean, I feel like life pointed me in that direction in a really kind of cool way. I went to look for rentals. Um, of course I, I wasn't, I was nowhere near being in a situation where I could like just go out and buy a four bedroom house. Especially we live in a fairly, or, you know, in a fairly affluent area and, uh, the kids' school is here and everything.

So, so I went out and I started looking at rental homes and like, one of the first ones that I went to look at was. I mean, I could see the kids' school from the upstairs window. It's, it's so close. And it had actually five bedrooms, not just four, but five and a garage to put their stinky hockey gear in and their bikes and all this.

So it was like. Perfect. [00:14:00] And I thought, oh my God, I have got to apply for this place. And of course, everybody that came to see it was also applying for it because it was very reasonably priced, I mean very reasonably priced. So. I applied for it and the next day I got a call that I had gotten it and I was like, okay, this is, this is life telling me that this is the direction that I need to take.

And so I accepted the house and moved in. So that was like two years after I had Diag been diagnosed with perimenopause. I. Moved out of the house with my husband. So two years after the diagnosis, after one year of being on antidepressants and in therapy, which was not helping, I moved out. So I moved out and that was, so that was like the summer of 2016, so [00:15:00] almost 10 years ago.

And. I still didn't realize that any of this had to do with menopause. So there I am. I've moved out. I'm like trying to pull the house together. I'm, you know, buying used furniture online, getting donations from friends for kitchen equipment and all this, like, we were literally eating dinner on a box. Um, that was one of the moving boxes.

I, I mean, it was, it was crazy. But I slowly started to feel a little bit better, but it was slow. I remember those first months and that first year really being that, you know, when the kids were there I was like holding it together and you know, being busy driving three kids around all their million hobbies in school and all this stuff that they needed my help with.

And then on the weeks that they were with their father, I [00:16:00] was essentially, I just like wander around the house. Like a ghost, you know, and I would watch Netflix and whatever other channels I had at the time. I think I just had Netflix and, and just watch TV. And I would cry and I would do like laundry and folding laundry and folding clothes and whatever, and just try to pass the time I it.

I went through that in such a haze. And the other thing that happened when I moved out, I actually simultaneously changed jobs. So I went from a job that I'd been at for about three years. I, I made a significant, um, step upward, kind of up the corporate ladder. I was hired to build, to run the team that was there and to build it into a real marketing operations team [00:17:00] to support a B2B company that was selling a software solution to corporates.

It was a challenging job. It was really like a reach kind of job for me. And I remember I had such freaking brain fog. I would go into work and I had notebooks. I wrote everything down. I had this stack of notebooks. If I didn't write it down, I couldn't remember it. So you can imagine you're getting inducted into a new b usiness, a new company, a new role, and you're having to write everything down because you, your brain is not retaining things the way you're used to it. Working, meeting new people, all the things, lots of new pressure and, and busy and everything. So, yeah, so that first year at that new job was, uh, let's say, it was challenging, but I mean, I actually did a really good job.

I'm so proud of myself, like, [00:18:00] thinking back on it, like, I can't believe I did it, but I did it. But, but at the same time, I was like losing my hair. Hair. I, I had lost. So much hair that there were like patches that were showing of just scalp. And I would have to really spend time every morning to kind of arrange my hair so that it was covering the bald pack patches.

And I remember spending hours on Google searching for, you know, these hair powders that you can put in your hair so that you cover the bald patches. I went in to be fitted for a wig and, and none of that seemed like the perfect solution for me. So in the end, I ended up consulting a hair loss , specialist.

And I got put on a medicine, which is called spiranalactate. Lactone, something like that. It's got a really long name. But anyway, that is, uh, a medicine that has a. [00:19:00] Side effect of helping hair regrowth. I think it's used for blood pressure or something like that normally, but kind of like Viagra had this nice side side effect.

This one has the nice side effect of your hair growing back. So I started using that. And I started eating hair supplements and using Women's Rogan. Yeah, so I, I, I did the very unscientific method thing of trying a whole bunch of things at the same time, and my hair started growing back. So that was in January of 2017 that I added all of these, these hair things to my life and my hair started to grow back slowly.

So I, I've been going to the same hairdresser for years and she said, oh yeah, we're seeing like little new hair growth here and there. So it was crisis averted. I didn't have to start [00:20:00] using a wig or toppers or anything like that, which, you know, I think that would've been my next step 'cause it was really getting bad.

I. So, yeah, so that was January and still did not realize that any of this had to do with menopause. I mean, imagine how long I've been doing this. And finally, sometime during the beginning of that year, 2017, I ran across a newspaper article, which was like 13 top symptoms of menopause. And I start reading through those and it's like.

Brain fog, depression, lack of sleep, hot flashes, no sex drive, you know? And I'm like, I'm sitting there going, oh my God. I check, I checked. I kid you not every last box there. Like, [00:21:00] why didn't that gynecologist give me that kind of a checklist way back when I was diagnosed, right? So when I first found out that was, remember 2013, now we're in 2017, four years later. In other words, when I then was like, oh my God, I think I need to go on hormone replacement therapy. So I started searching for a doctor that specializes in that. Because I will tell you something, not every gynecologist does, and, and even then when I was looking through their bios, you know you, because if you go into the private healthcare system here in Finland, you have the doctor's bios and like what kind of things they're specializing in and oh my God, everybody's specializing in.

Infertility and, uh, acne and, and birth control and whatever, those kinds of things, but try to find one that specializes in [00:22:00] menopause, even though most of our lives we spend in menopause. It was really, really hard. But I did manage to find one and I went in and I told her about this list and I said, I have every single symptom on there. And she gave me, hormone replacement therapy, and I got my patch.

So in August of 2017, I started on HRT, and at the same time, I weaned myself off, or you know, with the help of my doctors weaned off of the antidepressants. Now, it's not like I felt better like overnight, but I will tell you that I think this is some kind of an indicator that, you know, when I, when I split up with my husband, you know, nobody had cheated on anybody.

I had been thinking about it for a long time, so it didn't come as a shock to me. So I'd already processed so much of that ahead of time. But I still, when I left, I felt very strongly that. [00:23:00] I don't need a man in my life. What would I do with a man? I hadn't wanted sex or intimacy in forever. I couldn't imagine that waking up ever again.

I mean, I was already in my forties but in the half year after I started on the HRT, my whole outlook on life turned around. I mean, first of all, like the brain fog started to disappear. I was able to sleep, no night sweats. I mean, my hair was already starting to grow back, so I couldn't see any visible change in that.

I started feeling better, more energetic, and, and in December of that same year, I was like, Hmm, wow. I think that maybe, maybe dating could be for me after all. And I think that is such an [00:24:00] indicator of like, my whole mindset had turned around. I really feel like HRT. Saved me. I was in such a bad place. And other forms of treatment were not helping me, not antidepressants, , not therapy, not even getting out of a relationship that wasn't working for me. I mean, that helped a little bit, but, really the problem was something much more. Well, it was hormonal. 

 So life just. Changed with the hormone replacement therapy. But the thing that I have really learned, is how powerful our hormones are in really affecting so many things, because I used to only think of female hormones as being related to whether we could have kids or not, right?

Reproductive reproduction and our periods and all [00:25:00] that kind of thing. But something happened when I had started on the hormone replacement therapy. So I, I used that, um, the Everal Conti for two years and was really, really happy with it. I mean, I was out dating and having a nice time and, you know, getting physical again and enjoying being, being physical again, which was amazing.

I mean, I, I feel like that's such a, a source of. Like, I don't know, I wanna call it female power or, uh, energy and just being able to be physical. I, I guess for me, and I don't know if it is for everybody, but I, I find so much pleasure in using my body for exercise, getting pleasure from my body. Moving my body, like being a physical being and not just being mental.

I love also [00:26:00] mental challenges, don't get me wrong. Um, but, but it was great to get that aspect of being physical again, back. But what happened two years into my being on this hormone replacement therapy is that there came a shortage of that particular patch. So you couldn't get it. I couldn't get it in this whole country, or I would've shifted in from some other city, but no, couldn't get it in Finland.

And from what I understood. Also couldn't get it in Europe. And it might've been even in the world. I don't know, maybe some of you in the states, uh, know what that was like. So that was around, uh, 2020. It's 2019. 2020. And so I tried different. Options. I tried a different patch, which was just a estrogen patch and then progesterone orally, and then I tried only oral doses and everything, and I have to say [00:27:00] that they affected me differently.

Okay. Whereas the Evoral Conti made me feel like myself again. The others I noticed moodiness. Um, one of them was kind of funny. I don't remember which one it was, but I remember thinking, wow, this really heightens the physical pleasures. But I was like crying at commercials like I used to do when I was pregnant, you know, like watch a baby food commercial and what, you know, that kind of thing. So, so that was not. Maybe ideal. So neither one of those really suited me the same way, and so I was really glad when I finally was able to get back on my normal, prescription. And, and I think the other thing that made me realize, how powerful our hormones can be is watching my dog. [00:28:00] So we got a dog nine years ago, and she has very good bloodlines and she has an amazing temperament.

And so for a long time I was thinking, well, maybe the breeder will want a breeder. Maybe we would want one of her puppies and all that. So I didn't have her spayed. But man, whenever she came into season, she was miserable. This dog was like creeping around the corners of the house, sitting on whatever the most uncomfortable thing was.

So you would find her sitting on some hard shoes on the floor or one of her favorite was we had a goal cage for the boys in, this playroom that we had, and it was like a metal pipe along the floor, and she would be lying on that cold metal pipe. She was like nuts and looking so depressed and so unhappy, you know, whenever she was in [00:29:00] heat and it, it was awful actually to watch her.

Um. I mean, that's the power of hormones, that it made her super miserable and when we finally spayed her, it's like, no, she's just a happy dog all the time. So I guess it's kind of the same with humans, if you think about it. I don't know if, if you're not in post menopause yet. One of the things I love about post menopause is a, well, you don't have to have your monthly visitor, you know, and all that hassle, cramps, and whatever.

But also your mood is just so much more consistent. You're not suddenly like more emotional at certain times of month. I mean, I used to notice that. I'd be like, okay, now I'm like. First of all, like cleaning the house like a maniac at certain times a month, and I'd be more teary. Other times a month I'd be more horny other times a month.[00:30:00] 

So that kind of crazy fluctuation goes away. But that is what. Hormones do for us. So I feel like when you get your hormones under control, you know, things just work a lot better. And what's happening in perimenopause is that they are totally out of control and actually. You know, clearly my hormones, even in post menopause, um, were not at a good level because I was suffering with the depression and the sleeplessness and all these things.

So, yeah, I was actually 44 when I was diagnosed with perimenopause and I, at that point, I was having the most crazy heavy periods ever. It was like I had to use the. Biggest tampons and the biggest pads and go change them every hour. There was no [00:31:00] way I could go to an exercise class because I would have to leave halfway through so I wouldn't be like, you know, going through my protection.

So that was another symptom that I had, which, you know, it's a crazy thing. I mean, obviously you notice that you're, you're bleeding like a maniac. But somehow did not connect the dots that, Hey, this has to do with the fact that I'm in perimenopause and maybe I should read up on this stuff. So. So, yeah, so that one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast today was because I was so in the dark.

I mean, I just can't believe, I feel like perimenopause, menopause symptoms were banging on my door, and yet I did not acknowledge them. At all. And I hope that if anything comes out of this sharing my story, that somebody out there will be like, holy cow, I think I might be in peruse. [00:32:00] Maybe I need to read a little bit about this and figure out how I'm going to work through this.

And it may be that, you know, HRT is not the thing for you. Of course, nowadays they're finding more and more benefits of HRT as far as helping to maintain your bone density and your muscle mass and, and these kinds of things. So in that sense, I mean, when I got put on it. All those years ago, um, you know, they said to me, oh, you could be on this until you're about 50, and then you should be weaning yourself off.

Well, that's not the recommendation anymore. So they're like learning more and more all the time.

Another thing I just wanna point out is that it may need adjusting over time. So now the reason that I'm even doing this episode today is that I, as I mentioned, I went to go see my doctor on Wednesday and. [00:33:00] The thing is that I've been sleeping poorly lately. I've had a really hard time getting good quality sleep.

Or if I get two nights of good sleep, then I get three nights of waking up at six o'clock in the morning or a little bit before six, and I really need my eight hours of sleep. Otherwise, I'm just drinking coffee all day to keep myself going. And so now we increased my estrogen dose to see if that will help.

 I've only used it for three days and I've been sick, so, so let's see how it goes over the next few months. But hopefully I will be getting better quality sleep and start feeling even better. 

And then a couple of things that I wanted to address, because I see these online all the time, a little bit of myths around hormone replacement therapy. You know, I, I just said that there's evidence that it helps to maintain your muscles and help you build muscles, you know, to be on [00:34:00] estrogen, progesterone, especially estrogen.

And some people may think that, okay, well if I go on it, then I don't need to worry about strength training to maintain my muscle. And that's definitely not true. That's been demonstrated not to be true. And I can tell you from personal experience that I was already on HRT, when I lost my muscle tone, when I was working out five days a week with weights in group fitness classes and doing the booty classes and these kinds of things. So it wasn't enough, even when I had the HRT and just having the HRT isn't suddenly gonna put muscles on your body, because that's another thing that I see.

You know, if somebody is in good shape, you'll see comments like, oh, but you're on HRT. And it's like. What do you think that just 'cause you go on HR T, you know, muscles just go bing. [00:35:00] I mean, if that were the case, everybody would be out there getting on HRT, but that is not the case.

It does not work like that. It can support the building of muscle. But it still takes doing the progressive strength training, challenging your muscles over time, weeks, months, years. Well, I'm gonna say weeks, months, because honestly, the more women that I have put through my program, my 10 week program, the more I get the feedback that already in that 10 weeks they are feeling stronger and starting to see a difference in their bodies. So it doesn't take years to make a big difference,

Okay, so I'm gonna wrap this up for today, but I will do a second episode on HRT focusing on testosterone, because that is something that I have been. Using [00:36:00] more recently, and I wanna share my experiences around that. That has been a completely different story than with estrogen and progesterone. And I'll also give you the update on how it's going with my sleep.

So don't miss that episode. Subscribe and. Hey, I would love, love to hear your comments on your journey with HRT and whether you've tried it. And if you're here in Finland, I'm happy to recommend the doctor that I go to. So just drop me a message and I'll give you her name and I don't get paid for that, but I really do like her a lot.

Okay. All right. Thank you for listening and if you enjoyed the show, remember to hit that subscribe button. And if you have a friend who is maybe struggling with perimenopause, menopause, maybe thinking about HRT, then please share [00:37:00] this episode with them and the show in general. I really appreciate it. And with that, I leave you till next week and wish you happy training.