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Pre-Menopause Health Struggles
So much about the time before menopause is unknown
I’ve had a multitude of health issues in the last few years which I am now relating to hormonal imbalances that comes with approaching 50. I feel like no one warned me that my late 40s would be a rollercoaster of health issues. And will menopause end my problems or will it usher in new ones?
Three years ago, when I was 46, I took my first ever trip to the emergency room. In 2020, we were in the middle of the pandemic and my husband was not allowed in the hospital with me. I had woken up nauseous and had been in the bathroom all morning. The funny thing was I had eaten at home the day before, regular home-cooked food that the rest of the family had also eaten and no one else was sick. By the time I made it to the emergency room, I was dry heaving as there wasn’t anything in my system to get rid of. The stomach cramps kept coming and the emergency doctor hooked me up to an IV and gave me pain medication.
After blood labs and a CT scan, the doctor found a small ovarian cyst which I didn’t even feel. Nothing else showed up in any of the tests and the doctor said that ovaries are close to the gastro-intestinal system and might have caused the nausea. Menopause was not mentioned and I didn’t tie any of it to hormonal imbalances at the time. I chalked it up to stress and hoped to avoid any future…