Asperger's and Menopause

Post Reply New Topic

Any of you ASPie ladies here also dealing with Menopause? It seems to have made my anger, moodiness and anxiety worse, not to mention just being all-around more uncomfortable, both physically and mentally.

I'm in perimenopause. Very irregular periods, some very heavy and some very light. Sometimes I skip a month or two. Hot flashes, night sweats, HORRIBLE mood changes, migrains again.

I will be 45 soon. STILL have regular periods, and they're very heavy (and go all five days). When does perimenopause start?

It depends. Usually family history gives you a clue but it may not. Every gal is different. Some have it in the late 30s others in the 50s.

With me it started in my mid-thirties, rather early. Admittedly I had lost a lot of weight then, due to excessive stress at work, wonder whether that is linked. I left that job in a hurry, got to a better place, but my periods never became regular again and the hot flushes remain. On the positive side, I've gotten rid of my migraines apparently.

I'm kind of looking forward to it, actually. I've made some really dumb choices under the influence of my ovaries.

No you're not. You just think you are because you hate your periods and bad decisions. Trust me...menopause is hell on earth. Actually what I'm referring to is perimenopause, which is the time (anywhere from 3-10 years) leading up to when your periods stop, which is the actual menopause. The media, doctors etc will say to expect "mood swings, some vaginal dryness, some hot flashes and irregular periods." IF ONLY! They don't tell you about headaches, and panic attacks, and body aches and trembling and thinning hair and night sweats. Periods go haywire -- short one month, heavy the next, have a period and then have another one 12 days later, or have one and then not have one for 2 or 3 months, and then it comes back with a vengeance.

The average age of MENOPAUSE -- when your period completely stops -- is 51-ish. But it can be anywhere from mid-40s to late 50s. The thing is you only know about it after the fact. You're not considered fully in menopause until you haven't had a period for a year. So you may have already had your last period but won't know it for sure until a year from now. I had my first hot flash in 2004, and I'm STILL having my periods. I did have my hormones checked however, and my estrogen is VERY low, which means I'm wrapping things up.

The reason I've posted this topic is because I see a few similarities between AS and peri. Anxiety in particular. I thought my panic attacks were being caused by changing hormone levels, but now that I've read that ASPies can have bouts of panic and anxiety, it made me wonder if I've been blaming the wrong condition.

Thanks, I'm not in touch with the side of the family I take after (medically, genetically). I'm very lucky to have almost nothing in common with the other side medically, because they all have terrible women cancers and most have had premenopausal hysterectomies. I don't have any natural menopauses on that side of the family to even compare to!

I have wicked spatial awareness and can pack 4 times as much furniture into a van than anyone. However, as soon as I reached menopause my spatial awareness vanished as fast as my periods. It is known that males on average have higher spatial ability than females. Women tend to park in carparks front first. I always reverse in. This is in fact, of all cognitive abilities, the one that shows the largest sex difference. In the light of the extreme male brain theory of autism, this leaves us with a paradox; if autism is an extreme form of masculinity, why do many autistic persons then have low spatial ability? One would expect the opposite. The solution to this paradox may lie in the relation between testosterone and spatial ability.

The relation found between the estrogen/testosterone balance and spatial ability is such that there is an optimal testosterone level for spatial ability within each sex. The optimal testosterone levels lie below the male average and above the female average for testosterone, so that in fact the highest (within sex) spatial ability is found in females with (for females) well above average testosterone, and in males with (for males) below average testosterone[4].

Combined with the prenatal testosterone theory of autism (higher testosterone gives greater risk of autism), this predicts that females with autism will have (relatively) high spatial ability, while males with autism will have (relatively) low spatial ability.

I also have a rapidly vanishing temporal awareness.

Information from following link

https://paulcooijmans.com/asperger/spat ... utism.html

Ugh. I had no idea menopause could have such far-reaching effects.