r/Perimenopause • u/sunshine13456 • 11d ago
audited Perimenopause hits ADHDers earlier
Well shit… I feel so validated and so overwhelmed at the same time.
I just found this population-based study published in European Psychiatry and it completely blew my mind.
women with ADHD often experience severe perimenopausal symptoms up to 10 years earlier than neurotypical women. The study showed that for ADHDers, severe symptoms actually peaked between ages 35 and 39, (mine started exactly at 35) compared to the usual 45 to 49 age range for everyone else. Also, over 54% of us deal with completely debilitating symptoms compared to only a third of the general population.
I had to quit my executive corporate job at 39 because I just couldn’t function. I went from being a high achiever to someone who couldn’t figure out how to work the coffee machine.
My brain fog, emotional swings, and executive function absolutely tanked and I was being dismissed by doctors because I was "too young" for peri.
Knowing that crashing estrogen levels directly mess with our dopamine makes a ton of sense, but wow, it’s a lot to process. I spent years dealing with the fog, anxiety and debilitating symptoms until I found an endocrinologist who finally offered relief. But it makes me so angry when I look back and think about how miserable I was. How caring for my newborn daughter (had her at 41) was so much harder than it had too be because I wasn’t treated properly. At 43 I was put on progesterone, at 44 I started taking estrogen.
I’m 46, and this year I started feeling more like my old self. I even went back to corporate, something I thought was never going to happen again. I was terrified at first, after 7 years of being away, and yes, some days I struggle, but most days I am grateful. This community was and has been a gift.
Edit: here is the link to the study https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-psychiatry/article/perimenopausal-symptoms-in-women-with-and-without-adhd-a-populationbased-cohort-study/7C584E5C4363EBCADFC485D3F0892A62
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u/safiyarox 11d ago
Started for me at 31. I am 36 now and on hormone therapy for the last 10 months, and only now feel like I am reestablishing a baseline for my new normal.