WHEN PERIMENOPAUSE HIT ME (LITERALLY IN THE BELLY) … I DRANK THE COOLAID AND STARTED TO PANIC!
Perimenopause can feel like hitting black ice; one minute, you’re fine; the next minute, you’re on your butt, in pain (of some kind or other), and miserable, wondering what just happened? You try to get up but fall over again; it’s slippery and, quite frankly, scary AF. Then you realize you’ve got to learn how to skate or, at the very least, figure out how to melt the ice!
This was me—a total mess—until I discovered remedies that worked, like salt (yep, salt melts ice). That may help you, too! Lace your boots up, ladies, and be determined to thrive. This perimenopause trip requires some deft skating, some deep breathing, some weightlifting, and some surrendering, but there is hope, and I found it in the form of homeopathy.
Given I’m a homeopath, you’d think I would have figured it out sooner, but you know, being human and all, we sometimes need the pain of the lesson. Perimenopause somehow managed to sneak up on me. I had never had any real issues with my periods, and I’d always taken good care of myself. I ate well (with plenty of protein to maintain muscle mass, a key as we age), did breathwork, meditation, and regular Pilates since I was 30 (not to mention four kids, which equated to plenty of extra ‘weightlifting’). Yet perimenopause still kicked my butt and left me wondering why?
I eventually realized that stress was playing a massive role in my slip sliding highs and lows since, for me, the timing of my transition coincided with the world going mad and my business (our sole family income) being locked down! None of which helped, of course, because if you have constantly high cortisol levels (the stress hormone), it wreaks havoc on your total hormonal picture and your emotional resilience!
This meant I couldn’t put the blame solely on perimenopause, which I did at first—rookie error. Understanding the impact of cortisol gave me some hope; since I’d resolved the negatives of high cortisol before, I could do it again. Knowing that fact lifted me a little.
I’m still in the thick of perimenopause, but thanks to homeopathy, I’m much better at figurative ice skating & melting the ice as it forms – which is just as well – because my menopause just got pushed back another 12 months!
I’m 53 as I write this, and I just got my period again, which I wasn’t necessarily expecting. My last period was 82 days ago, and before that, when I skipped my first period ever, I got as far as 170 days before I bled again. Technically speaking, you are not considered to be in menopause until you’ve missed your period for 12 consecutive months. That’s 365 days without a period – so I almost got to the halfway mark the first time my periods stopped.
Now I’m back to day one and counting, oh my.
Missing periods is a new experience for me; ever since first menstruating at 14, my cycle has been like clockwork, only ever pausing for pregnancy and breastfeeding babies…. Other than those times, it was always 27-29 days. At 51 or so, I hit 33 days and thought, OMG, am I pregnant? (You can imagine that feeling, right?) When your rhythm is suddenly unpredictable, AND your libido starts ghosting you, well, suffice it to say my inner dialogue was, “WTF?” Is this it? Will life ever be the same again?
Yep, I drank the cool aid of panic and propaganda, believing all the negative narratives. Propaganda like this gem – “your vagina dries up, then it’s all over” – I was determined to prove somehow it all wrong!
What I’ve figured out so far on this journey is this… it’s a game of surrender. Perimenopause is a trip, ladies, a trip indeed! It’s like taking one of those mystery flights … where are we going? Well, it’s called menopause, but you don’t know what it will look like or feel like until you get there!
*cue night sweats*
It’s not all bad news; I’m about to let you in on the secrets I found that have worked to smooth out the ice, melt a lot of it back into the oblivion from which it came, and help me skate more gracefully through this transition!
It’s not that I was ever in a hurry for menopause or for my cycle to be over; quite the contrary. I loved my cycle and felt deeply connected to it; I loved being in the rhythm and knowing certain things, like when I was craving carbohydrate-rich foods in the days before my period, I could honor my body and eat them ….
But then it all started to change…. Now, I’d get cravings for carbs, but it could go on for days, my emotions all over the place, and if I kept eating that way, I’d end up like ‘the side of a house,’ as my mother would say. Disciplined eating also suddenly felt stiff, like a perpetual state of PMS. Except now it was just the Peri-Menopause-Slide because maybe I’d bleed, and perhaps I wouldn’t!
Crying one minute, angry the next. Who am I? What am I becoming? I kept seeing dragonflies as if the Universe was trying to warn me…. It’s just a transition…. You’ll grow your golden wings eventually!
*Sigh* (I also now do that. A lot)
I was having interrupted sleep (this was new to me) and somehow supposed to be excited to rebuild my business post lockdowns. At the same time, my husband was also a mess himself (his father was dying), AND I was feeling like I could ‘blow up my life’ at any minute.
I was a hot mess (literally, with night sweats) and stuck in thought loops – most centered around fear of the unknown! The physical symptoms for me have been varied and all of them on and off: Low libido, sleeplessness, night sweats, migraine headaches, gut upsets with bloating and weight gain, joint pain, loss of strength, fatigue, brain fog, PMS symptoms like sore engorged boobs (up at least 2 cup sizes in a day) and others that the brain fog won’t let me find right now!
For me (& every woman’s journey is unique), it was the emotional symptoms that were the most discombobulating (I love that word) and terrifying (literally): The feeling of ‘nothing’ and then ‘everything’, feeling numb and exceptionally low (suicidal ideation, they call it – feeling like your family would be better off without you), crying, anger, resentment, anxiety, and crippling panic attacks, fear you’ll lose yourself altogether, like sinking into the abyss.
I was feeling dangerously low, and I needed some answers! I also realized that the sooner I surrendered to the impending changes and adapted, the easier it would be. There was a great sense of grief as the fertility window started closing – and while I wasn’t looking to have more children (4 has been a blessing) – it still brought up a lot of deep sadness; I loved my fertile years and losing them felt like a bit of death. A part of me is dying.
I prayed, and I eventually started to surrender and understand:
- Now is a time of transition.
- Now is a time to clear out the emotional unresolved clutter (like grief and other wounds)
- Now is a time to take more intentional action, deep self-care, and self-love rituals.
- Now is a time to listen to my body
I mean, REALLY listen to her and trust her ….. again! Resisting the transition seemed futile at 51 (when peri became obvious and somewhat undeniable). I had a “come to Jesus” moment where I prayed for a solution; I was in the fetal position on the shower floor, begging for mercy and somehow begging for help!
At that moment, I surrendered and handed it all over to God. “Please, dear God, help me; I don’t know what to do?” The answer came like a whisper: “Melissa, it’s ok to ask for help.” I found women who were espousing the benefits of BHRT and others demonizing it. I was so confused. I was never into pharmaceuticals, and as a Naturopath / Homeopath, I had managed 95% of my life without any of it…. but I was feeling desperate and legitimately questioning everything…. is supplementing hormones – adding volume to a declining level – really that bad?
Here’s what I did know. I knew I was about to ‘blow up my life.” I decided to try it on the bathroom floor in my hour of need.
I went with Body-Identical rather than the compounded Bio-identical because the specialist I found used the body-identical instead of the compounded. They are both safer choices than days gone by when it was synthetic, but I opted for the standardized prescription, as I knew some of my girlfriends had used them with reasonable success.
I already knew my body didn’t like synthetic hormones with the Oral Contraceptive Pill (OCP); would this be different? I was about to find out.
I decided to give myself a whole year on them rather than continually question whether it was the right decision. So, I stopped reading all the arguments ‘for and against’ – doing that while taking them felt like self-torture!
BHRT did alleviate some symptoms (like when you feel better just because you know help is on the way), but I began to realize it wasn’t solving everything (or enough), certainly not the gut and panic issues, to validate my staying on it. It was also making it harder for me to get a read on where I was at in my transition. I wanted to know how this was all meant to play out in my body naturally, but could I find my way through this transition without suffering?
I couldn’t shake the feeling that SHE (my body) didn’t want the added hormones… I would get a physical sense, like my body saying, “I don’t want to take it,” which was the message I kept getting. About 14 months in, I was interstate visiting my sister; the anxiety was amplified; I just wanted to be alone to cry all the time by the seaside… So, what’s the point of taking these hormones when I still feel this way AND I can’t tell where I am in my journey?
I was also studying homeopathy again. I’d embarked on advancing my studies and learning new, updated hormonal protocols that weren’t around when I graduated 30 years ago. When that course opportunity crossed my path, it felt like a sign, and I figured I was meant to find some answers in there! That I did!
TRUSTING YOUR INTUITION
I’ve always noticed signs and synchronicities and have been hearing and feeling the word SALT for a good year or more. It just kept finding me. SALT. During COVID-19, Dr. Zach Bush talked about the power of salt in lifting inflammation. That had me remembering – I had created a ‘tits bath’ to heal my mastitis when my firstborn was little, and I had nipple cracks the size of the Grand Canyon – it worked a treat – a spin on the old traditional sitz bath* to heal wounds.
*A Sitz Bath is a warm, salty, shallow bath to sit in to heal the perineum after birth.
Salt has always been held in high regard, for eons of time, even more valuable than gold in the trading nations. We cannot survive without salt; it will kill any bug if the concentration is right. It’s in the ocean, it’s delicious, and you can taste the salt on your tongue when you kiss your sweaty lover or know you’ve worked hard for something worthwhile, like birthing your babies! Sweat delivers salt, tears deliver salt, it is the stuff of life, right? What’s not to love about salt? The word just kept coming to me…. And for good reason.
During this trip to Tasmania, crying by the seaside, feeling so low and hopeless, the penny finally dropped. It was a full-circle moment. I needed salt. Indeed, salt would heal me! Homeopathic salt, that is! The homeopathic version of salt would heal many symptoms for me, including my emotional state.
LET’S TALK ABOUT HOMEOPATHY
Natrum muriaticum (Homeopathic SALT) is well-indicated for the following:
- wants to be alone to cry, by the seaside
- support for mucous membranes (dry vulva, anyone?)
- fluid balancer (think engorged boobs)
- a great hormonal remedy
- used for unresolved grief, silent grief (& many more symptoms)
- defensive, closed off, cautious
- desire for salt
- better (or worse) by the seaside
- dwells on past disagreeable occurrences
- and more…
All the signs were there.
I got home to Sydney with little time before we were scheduled for a holiday trip to Queensland. While packing everything, I quite unconsciously forgot to pack all the hormones…. My body had her way with my mind, and that was that—no more hormones for me. I did, however, take my homeopathic kit on the trip. It was time to go all in and see what homeopathy could do for me.
I started taking Nat mur (homeopathic salt) daily and felt a shift within hours. Within days, I started to feel significantly better in almost every way! I was also using aconite to solve panic attacks, and silica was helping me solve the sudden lack of confidence that was rolling in with all the changes.
There are several homeopathic remedies I’ve used now, along this peri journey, to lift myself out of ‘suffering’ and back to some semblance of balance. We do not need to remain in a state of suffering. While there may be some discomfort, we can reframe the experience (much like the time spent in a chrysalis before becoming a butterfly) to recognize that this time of struggle and adjustment is temporary and only here to grow our wings and claim our absolute freedom!
My mission is to share
Every woman needs a homeopathic kit to rescue herself and make the transition calm and positive! This is a time when we get to carve out time for ourselves! We must take the time to heal old wounds, engage in self-love rituals, and have ‘me’ time to step into our matriarchal ‘Golden Winged’ era with dignity and magnetic power!
HOMEOPATHY IS ALSO GREAT FOR YOUR MOJO!
SEPIA– is one of my favorite remedies for the moments when you feel low, opposed to your husband & family (even though you know you love them), and you may even feel quite repulsed at the thought of sex – even though, in theory, you’d like to be having some!
This extraordinary remedy can take you from exhausted and depleted and give you zero f*cks. It will return you to caring, renewed, and feeling in the mood! It’s one of my ‘don’t leave home without it’remedies! I kid you not; I’ve used this remedy, and within 10 minutes, I feel better and attracted to my husband again!
This remedy is a key feature in the first aid kit of remedies I’ve put together called FORTIFY – designed for when you’re feeling a little Whoa Mama, what’s happening to me? Homeopathy also allows us to deal with old layers from childhood and inherited family trauma. I’ve taken this route alongside the perimenopause protocol, and I believe this is the reason many of my symptoms have now cleared up for good.
By working with constitutional remedies, I’ve worked on clearing unresolved grief, blockages from a history of glandular fever, and separation from my parents during heart surgery as a baby (among other things I needed to resolve). Working more deeply this way requires an entire case history with a practitioner like myself.
Still, it’s well worth the investment and far more economical than other medical options, including integrative approaches. Homeopathy gets to the root cause without exhaustive tests and supplements.
Every client I work with is slightly different. However, many symptoms during perimenopause are common, so a protocol of first aid remedies to cover most generalized symptoms is a great place to start. If these remedies aren’t working or aren’t ‘holding’ and symptoms keep flaring, we often need to work more deeply to clear blockages. If, for example, someone has a history of things like glandular fever, eating disorders, a history of sexual abuse or domestic abuse, or even a history of STIs and oral contraception use – these layers can make the perimenopause journey feel worse.
We often see things like repetitive UTI infections or other immune issues in the clinic. For these cases, we generally need to clear the disrupted patterns that are ‘blocking the cure’ by using deeper-acting remedies that factor in the unique layers presenting, in combination with what we call miasmatic remedies like Carcinosin (homeopathic cancer) to help clear inherited disrupted patterns or Thuja to help clear STI’s like HPV and remedies like Folliculinum (homeopathic estrogen) to help clear blockages from synthetic hormone use, once and for all.
When we work this way, we often see women (myself included) not only sleeping better and suffering less but also setting new boundaries for themselves—saying no to what doesn’t serve them, like quitting unhappy jobs—saying yes to their own needs finally, and setting themselves up for a better future, loving their bodies and seeking pleasure and joy again.
Many of us in our 40s and 50s (and beyond) carry around years of baggage, and ‘the issues are in the tissues, ’ as they say. I believe that at this phase of our lives, our bodies attempt to clear out unresolved issues and lighten the load to prepare us for the next phase of life. If not now, when, right?
SO, THERE YOU HAVE IT, these are my SALTY LITTLE SECRETS – it’s how I’ve learned to journey through perimenopause with more GRACE AND EASE! Many of my symptoms have gone for good – and given I counted at least 25 of the apparent 34 symptoms linked with perimenopause – I am well pleased, to say the least!
It’s information I want every woman to know because while I’m still dealing with occasional lows and headaches as the hormones continue to ebb and flow… I am very much relieved. Especially now I’m back at the start – 365 days and counting (if that was my last period) – who knows? I’m now sleeping well, with no more night sweats and no more painful breasts (weighing 2.5kg each!), and I rarely experience gut issues now. I’ve also lost 5 of the 10kg I put on, no more bloating for the most part, and my libido doesn’t ghost me nearly so often at all!
When and if my symptoms creep back in—as my hormones continue to evolve—I know I have a remedy to solve them, and that tool helps immensely! This transition is a time to pause, to learn to listen to our body and work WITH HER, to solve the puzzles, release the things that are no longer serving us, and take the actions that recalibrate our vibrations, ready for the third act of life!
May our forties, fifties, sixties (and beyond) be exceptional!
Perhaps homeopathy will be your answer, too?
Love
Melissa x
Grab my Exclusive offer for Andbloom here with 50% off my Ebook –The Perimenopause Libido Rescue Handbook– how to elevate a low mood, low libido and more, these are the remedies that change the game!
Bio: Melissa Barry has been a homeopath for 30 years and a master Pilates teacher. She is passionate about helping other women feel empowered to thrive through perimenopause and menopause. Once upon a time, she massaged rock stars, worked with elite athletes, owned two Pilates studio locations, and birthed four babies amongst it all. She is currently happily married (30 years and counting); her third act is about helping women feel strong, sexy, and joyful through their midlife.
Melissa has created a homeopathic first aid kit for perimenopause and a mentorship program for women to access more profound healing with classical Homeopathy, Pilates & mindset reframing to strengthen, recalibrate, and finally clear the baggage that holds us back. Finding Balance is the ultimate Joy; let’s do that. Melissa lives in Sydney, Australia, with her family, teaching in her Studio, writing, podcasting, and working online with clients around the globe. Creative Director of www.hudsonbarry.com.au and podcast host at The Wondermum Podcast – you’ll find Melissa on Instagram @melissa.pilates.mumma; come and say hello!
A note on Homeopathy:
Homeopathy is a system of medicine that works with our energy. The remedies are vibrational, and a well-chosen remedy works by stimulating a person’s vital force to recalibrate vibrational patterns and bring them back to a state of balance. In effect, it enables self-healing. In the same way that our vital force knows how to grow a baby in utero, it also knows how to restore us and heal us physically, mentally, and emotionally. It is like re-tuning your frequency back to a state of harmony, and it can resolve many symptoms, like coughs, colds, UTIs, hormonal symptoms, and so much more. Homeopathy works to clear the root cause of the issue; no other medicine does this quickly, safely, and without causing harm. It is both gentle and powerful.
This is quantum medicine, and it truly does work. It is safe and has been around for over 200 years without causing death or injury!
A remedy that is well chosen and matches the symptoms works to correct the disrupted vibrational pattern that is causing the pain and symptoms. Once the pattern is restored, it alleviates all need for symptoms. Symptoms are the body’s way of telling us something needs our attention to be healed. Homeopathy allows us to do just that.
FAQs
Common homeopathic remedies for perimenopause include Natrum Muriaticum for fluid balance and unresolved grief, Sepia for exhaustion and aversion to family, Aconite for panic attacks, and Silica for confidence issues. Each remedy targets specific symptoms to help manage the transition smoothly.
Natrum Muriaticum, or homeopathic salt, is used for various symptoms, including emotional states like silent grief, physical conditions such as fluid imbalance, and mucous membrane support. It is particularly beneficial for individuals who prefer solitude, dwell on past negative experiences, and have a strong desire for salt.
Sepia is effective for feelings of exhaustion, aversion to family members, and lack of interest in sex. It helps restore energy, improve mood, and rekindle interest in personal relationships, making it a valuable remedy during perimenopause.
Homeopathy can help clear unresolved emotional and physical traumas, including those from childhood and inherited family issues. Using constitutional remedies, homeopathy addresses the root causes of symptoms, facilitating overall healing and reducing the impact of past traumas on current perimenopausal symptoms.
A homeopathic kit provides a range of remedies to address various perimenopausal symptoms, such as hormonal fluctuations, emotional distress, and physical discomforts. A kit allows immediate and personalized treatment, promoting better sleep, reduced symptoms, and enhanced overall well-being during the transition.