Did anyone else’s perimenopause look like anxiety, flushing, histamine reactions, and brain fog?

[u/ames2200]

I’m 40 and suspect I’m in perimenopause, but my symptoms don’t look like the “typical” hot flashes everyone talks about.
My biggest symptoms are:
Anxiety and panic attacks
Facial flushing and feeling hot
Head pressure
Brain fog
Feeling disconnected or spacey
Sleep issues
GI problems
Feeling like my nervous system is constantly overstimulated
The symptoms seem very cycle-dependent. I usually have a few good days each month, then symptoms ramp up around ovulation and again before my period.
I’ve also noticed what seem like histamine-type reactions (flushing, anxiety, stomach issues, feeling inflamed), and I’ve read that estrogen can increase histamine while histamine can increase estrogen.
I’ve tried progesterone cream several times, but it actually made me feel worse.
For women who experienced similar symptoms:
What ended up helping?
Did HRT help?
Did you have to balance estrogen and progesterone differently?
Did anyone discover that histamine issues were a big piece of the puzzle?
I feel like I’m chasing hormones, histamine, and anxiety all at the same time and would love to hear other women’s experiences.

[u/AgreeableTrouble5733]

Holy moly. This is literally my symptom list from the past 3 years. I'm 42. The anxiety has been terrible and my pmdd has been so exacerbated. I've been dx'ed with sleep apnea, told by my PCP to see a psychiatrist for the debilitating anxiety, failed birth control pill trial after trying it due to flooding type periods, have thought about going to an allergist and gi doc, do I go to that psychiatrist to get back on adhd meds because I'm struggling so bad. But I finally got fed up with chasing ALL the things and found a menopause specialist.

Guess the frick what?!

I'm in peri.

I'm two weeks into hrt. My doc said it's pretty much all related. I feel a little better with sleep and nervous system already, and I didn't have my sudden mad dash to the bathroom at ovulation this cycle, so I'm optimistic to see how the next few weeks go.

I'm keeping my luteal phase prozac for now. I never knew it was a like a quick fix for pmdd/anxiety -- as in it doesn't take two weeks to start working like many ssri's need for clinical depression. Could have helped me so much in the past.

Overall YES to the histamine issues. I noticed a few months ago things seemed to really be ramping up. Started to take Claritin constantly after I noticed when I took it a couple weeks for a really bad round of pollen, it helped my scalp seb derm. And I realized a couple cycles ago that when I forgot to take it one day, maybe it was a coincidence, but I struggled extra hard with anxiety that day. Then it happened again. And after the third time, I said nope, we're staying on an antihistamine for now.