Welcome to the forum. You will find people very supportive here. That being said, I can definitely relate to your symptoms. Don't know what's worse, the sleeplessness, mood swings or hot flashes. I know it's a fact of life, but it's been hard to accept. I started taking lecithin granules for the hot flashes. It's working, but I think it's making me constipated. I think if men had to go through perimenopause and menopause, there would have been a cure already!

Thanks, cheerful, I really appreciate your thoughts.
I think what has been most difficult to deal with is the fact how fast I was hit by all this, even though there have been symptoms around for years but I did not recognize them as such. Then came the awakening [when it felt like an alien had invaded by body and I really wasn't my good old self and I knew for sure that something bigger than me was at work here] and now I feel like I can't catch my breath. Everytime I turn around, something new is happening.
Thank God I do not have the hotflashes like some women do but I get the night sweats which I can live with at this point. The migraines are a different story. I usually get them every other month, just like my periods seem to be easier one month, with less symptoms, and real doozies the other month, with especially mean migraines.
My periods are the toughest part for me to deal with, the irregularity of them at times and now the spotting which is a new one for me. It is still going on this morning, with cramps and backaches. At this point, it is more like a very light period...something new for me.
Life, my body, really feels out of control at times, and too often. I just want my old self back.
Sorry for complaining like this but if I don't get this off my chest I'll turn into complete mush. Marli
P.S.: At this point, I am not taking any supplements other than the regular one a day vitamin and only because my eating habits are not always the best. I had considered adding soy milk to my regular diet but after reading some of the information out there I am not so sure now. Also, I would like to tough this out without any HRT, if possible.
I'm not very big on taking anything. Seems like what might help one thing may cause problems elsewhere. I am probably too black and white on this, though. I have a feeling I have a lot of reading and studying to do on all this.

I agree about feeling out of control sometimes. I'm trying to take things a day at a time.

I like a LITTLE help... just to keep from feeling that I am losing my mind... but not the full HRT's. I talked to the gyno nurse at my clinic, the OBGYN doc wasn't there. She also liked the idea of that menocream... being that there isn't anything available under the counter that you can adjust the dosage to fit how much you want to take. The under the counter HRT's are such a high dosage... they have cream, but it's at the anti-pregnancy dosage which is WAY high. I think if you can deal with it, then you are doing it the right way... it's just that it's more natural and well, if it wasn't supposed to happen this way, it would have been bred out of our bodies a millenia ago. But some people suffer so...and I can understand them taking the HRTs.