‘I thought my perimenopausal symptoms were early-onset dementia’
Danielle Hobson, 36, started experiencing anxiety for "weird and random" things two years ago. The mother-of-two also started getting night sweats, week long episodes of insomnia, heart palpitations and extreme aches and pains sporadically.
Danielle began forgetting the names of her friends, what she'd had for breakfast and what she was saying mid-sentence - and was worried she had early onset dementia, but after a work colleague mentioned perimenopause Danielle started researching for herself.
After a year of doctors appointments she was officially diagnosed and prescribed HRT - hormone replacement therapy - and says she feels like herself again.
Danielle began forgetting the names of her friends, what she'd had for breakfast and what she was saying mid-sentence - and was worried she had early onset dementia, but after a work colleague mentioned perimenopause Danielle started researching for herself.
After a year of doctors appointments she was officially diagnosed and prescribed HRT - hormone replacement therapy - and says she feels like herself again.
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00:00Hey, I'm Danielle and I'm 37 and perimenopausal. So today's video is about the worst symptoms
00:12that I feel I've experienced in the last year of showing signs of perimenopause, even though
00:24just to clarify, I am self-diagnosed at the moment. I am awaiting an appointment with
00:31my gynaecologist. It's taken me all year to persuade my GP to refer me to the specialist
00:36to speak about this. I thought I was dying, like, you know, God's honest truth, I thought
00:40I was dying. I thought, what the hell is the matter with me? I'm 36. This was before April
00:44when I turned 37, but I was 36. My heart was racing 140. I just literally freaked out.
00:53I have since had an ECG test and then a 24-hour ECG monitoring to which they showed up, and
01:04it happened while I had them on to obviously prove to the doctor that it was happening.
01:09Another one of my worst ones was like this urge, this overwhelming urge of anger, but
01:15towards myself. So not towards anybody else, not towards anything else, just towards me.
01:21Like I really wanted to pull my hair or punch myself in the face. And then insomnia. Oh
01:27God, girls, I can't even tell you. It was, I've had it on and off, but the worst one
01:37was, I think it was March time, around March time, and I didn't sleep for a full week.
01:45A full week of zero sleep. Like I was going to bed and I was tired. I was like falling
01:51asleep on the sofa downstairs. So my husband would be like, come on, bedtime, up to bed.
01:55And I just literally like, it was pain. Other things I was noticing was night sweats. I mean,
02:00they were quite a common, most identifiable symptom of anything hormonal, especially menopause
02:11or perimenopause. And I was like, I would wake up in the middle of the night and be
02:15apt, like I'd just got out of the shower. And then I started with the aches and pains.
02:20Every bit of my body ached from top to toe. Like joint pain, bone pain, aching, like I'd done a
02:30full round of pump, you know, a pump class or a full exercise class, or like I was just in constant
02:36agony. And it was, it didn't feel like my muscles actually. It felt like my bones. That's what it
02:40felt like. Like, yeah, it felt like my bones, not my muscles. And I still ache now, but I think
02:45I've got to the point where I'm that used to it. And then I had forgetfulness. This was, this was
02:51a scary one for me. I literally thought I was, I was going out of my mind. I had Alzheimer's. I
02:55literally thought I had early onset Alzheimer's. It was things like school friends. I couldn't
02:59remember the names. I'd see them and I'd be like, oh my God, I can't remember the name.
03:02Words in the middle of sentences, like the couldn't think of the word. I had a
03:09two crumpets one day, for example, for my breakfast. And somebody on a call that I was
03:14having on my business call had said, oh, what are you eating? And I said, I'm just finishing.
03:20And I couldn't think of the word. I couldn't think of the name. Just completely gone out of my brain.
03:25That happens so often. Itchy skin, itchy, dry skin, changes of my skin from top to toe.
03:34Mood swings obviously goes without saying when your hormones are all over. But a lot of mine
03:39was like sadness. I had a lot of sadness. Weeing loads. So like, just go into the toilet all the
03:46time. Like you don't have to look at a glass of water and I'm like peeing three times. That's
03:51still the same now. And I've always used to have like, my husband used to say, you've got like
03:54camel's bladder. It's just like, I used to be able to not wee all day or not wee all night.
03:59And then I found myself like getting up for the toilet three or four times with the night. And
04:03that's just not me. And I weren't drinking anymore. It was just how it was. Headaches,
04:08cluster headaches, pressure headaches, migraines, like any headache, like just an increase of
04:14me suffering with pain in my head and headaches. My eyes, so like stingy, dry eyes, still struggle
04:21with that. Weight gain, put Tucson on in the last year, even though I've been trying to lose weight.
04:27I've been on HRT for three months now. So the Everol Sequel, I think it's how you pronounce
04:33it, the 50 milligram combi patch. After being perimenopausal for 18 months, fighting with the
04:42GPs to see a specialist gynecologist, finally had my appointment in February to be officially
04:50diagnosed or validated by the gynecologist saying that I was experiencing perimenopausal symptoms
04:59and he was going to treat me for perimenopause, which was just elating after suffering for 18
05:08months, pretty much, even though I had been doing the whole holistic approach and it helped.
05:15And God knows where I would have been if I didn't have all of those
05:18practices and supplements and treatments and all of those things.
05:23And I still have all of those things as well.