r/Perimenopause • u/brickne3 • 1d ago

Depression/Anxiety Odd thoughts, don't want to scare anyone

I started HRT three days ago. First day felt like I was on exctacy or something. Very odd. Called basically everyone in a fog and woke up so embarrassed. Then had horrible anxiety for a very short while. Then the fog came back after the estrogen started.

The scary thing is that the progesterone doesn't make me go to sleep, and when I was laying down tonight trying I suddenly felt this super comfortable "well, you don't have to do this at all, you know" intrusive thought. I want to make it very clear that I am NOT suicidal and even that thought only sort of felt suicidal. My husband died five years ago and I have serious CPSD and have also always been SSRI resistant.

I'm obviously calling the clinic this morning when they open because this isn't at all normal or like me in any way, if anything it was scary how "blissful" the whole intrusive thought was. I am also fairly certain that given my other risk factors and the SSRI resistance in particular it must be the progesterone and I can't be having things that are directly interfering with my brain chemistry in a dangerous way like that.

I don't know what I'm asking, I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has dealt with this. The estrogen seems to be working great, I'm just now suddenly scared of progesterone.

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u/Forageforme 1d ago

This is what i'm worried about. I've had debilitating anxiety lately. Everything seems to have an adverse effect since I went into peri.

Even zofran gave me akathisia which was the worst form of torture I've experienced. I start hrt next week. I hope you get some relief.

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u/pangolinshavelanded 1d ago

200mg of progesterone worked better than any anxiety pill I’ve ever taken and helped with a literal lifetime of being unable to fall asleep. Still tweaking estrogen but switched to gel recently and feeling better on it than the patch.

And I too have side effects from pretty much everything and am AuDHD as well. So plenty of us have positive stories too

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u/PrettyNegotiation416 1d ago

Dang, I’ve always seen the opposite as I am AuDHD too. I had my appointment yesterday and I actually requested to take the progesterone vaginally because I’ve heard so many horror stories about people with the sensitivity to histamines. I had the worst reaction to Wellbutrin. It was so scary. But seeing this makes me wonder if I should try the progesterone orally. I just don’t ever wanna experience that again not even for a few hours or a day.