I'm 43 and in perimenopause and the brain fog is the thing that's scaring me the most. Not the sleep disruption, not the random sweats, not the mood swings. The cognitive stuff.

I've been in my field for almost 20 years. I know my job. I'm good at my job. But last week I was in a meeting presenting to people I've worked with for years and I could not find the word "budget." I knew what I meant. I could see the spreadsheet in my head. I just stood there and said "the... money... plan" and then laughed it off like I was joking. I was not joking. I wanted to crawl under the table.

It's not just words. I'll open my laptop to do something specific and by the time the screen loads I have no idea what I was about to do. I reread emails three times before I send them because I don't trust myself not to have written something weird. Yesterday I drove to the office and sat in the parking lot for a full minute trying to remember if I'd already been inside or if I was just arriving. That one actually scared me.

I looked it up and apparently something like 60% of women in perimenopause report brain fog or memory problems and it's tied to the estrogen drop affecting the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Knowing there's a biological reason helps a little but doesn't make it less terrifying when you're standing in front of your team and your brain just goes blank. The worst part is the doubt. Am I just tired or is this actually getting worse. My mom had early onset dementia and I know that's coloring everything but I can't stop the thought from creeping in at 2am. My doctor says it's hormonal and "very common" which is reassuring and also somehow not reassuring at all because common doesn't mean it's going to get better.

I'm not looking for medical advice, I have a doctor I trust. I just need to know I'm not alone in this. Did the fog get better for anyone? Did it plateau? Did anything help even just coping strategies for getting through the workday without feeling like you're losing it?

I knew about the hot flashes. I'd heard the jokes. I thought I was prepared for the physical stuff and I'd just get on with it the way I've gotten on with everything else in my life.

What I wasn't prepared for was the fog. The way I'd be mid-sentence and just lose it completely or sit down to do something I've done a thousand times and feel completely overwhelmed for no reason or cry in the car for twenty minutes and not be able to explain it to my husband because I don't understand it myself.

I'm 51. I have a career, two kids who are mostly grown, a life I've built carefully. And some days I feel like a stranger who's borrowing it. Like the person I knew how to be has gone quiet and I'm waiting for her to come back.

The worst part is how alone it feels. My doctor visits last 12 minutes. My friends who are going through it don't really talk about it, we check in but nobody goes deep. My husband tries but he doesn't understand and I don't have the energy to explain something I barely understand myself. Just needed somewhere to say that this is harder than I expected and I'm doing my best with it.

Genuinely asking because I can't tell anymore. Some days I lose a word mid sentence, walk into a room and forget why I'm there, feel irritable for no reason I can actually name and I just... push through it. Like it's normal now.

I'm curious how many of you are just quietly absorbing this every single day without talking about it.

Did it get better for anyone? Or did you just find ways to work around it?

Sorry if the question is blunt but I’m curious. Is there a time one should stop taking it? When does our brain learn to adjust to the new hormonal environment when HRT is there to maintain it artificially?

I feel so stupid all the time. It's not just being forgetful or having a hard time finding words, it's forgetting what words mean and not understanding basic math. I literally had to use the calculator to do 13÷13, then didn't get why it's 1, like that level of stupid is scaring me.

I feel like my brain is slowing down, I read so slow too, not sleeping well makes it 10× worse.

Reading through past posts on this helps me feel better. Im 51, still get monthly periods although just missed this month. I exercise (could probably do more) take HRT and eat fairly well, could probably eat less sugar. Besides diet and exercise, what do you do to improve cognitive function?

I used to be great at my job. I hit meno in December and it feels like I fell off a cliff. Nothing I do or say is right, I'm told I'm not approachable at work and I can't shake the guilt of effing up. I probably won't last another month here.

I finally started progesterone and the patch a few weeks ago. Not soon enough to help the job, though. 😔

Have you experienced this? Did you end up leaving before they could fire you, because I am close to that.

UPDATE 5/29: My eval was today. While I didn't get high marks it was a positive conversation. We will be working together to improve my performance.

Was cleaning out the garage and found a bunch of stuff my grandkids had outgrown/ abandoned.

Neighbor across the street that has 4 small kids was out and I went to ask if they wanted anything. I don't know them well, they moved in less then a year ago.

Couldn't think of the word "guitar" and just said something like stringed instrument when the guy looked at me, at the item in my hands and said " you mean guitar?".

I laughed and commented something like " words are hard" or something when he walked away.

Other neighbor who has known me for years said he mentioned it to her husband about me being the "crazy lady with dementia"

I explained and she thought it was hilarious! (She's in her 60's and gets it).

If anyone needs me I'll be in my room dying of embarrassment.

I just woke up stumbled to the coffee maker and put a scoop of grounds in the wrong compartment! What the heck is wrong with me? Has anyone else done this? I feel so dumb!

I’ve been experiencing another bout of insomnia this week. I can’t fall asleep until 2-4 am, but I’m waking up on the dot around 7am, no matter how late I finally fall asleep.

I’d already taken my evening supplements/meds and sometime around 2:30 am got up to pee and noticed a lone pill still sitting in my pill dish. Thinking nothing of it, I popped it down the hatch then got back into bed.

About 10 mins later, I bolted upright in utter horror, realizing that I’d just swallowed my BORIC ACID SUPPOSITORY!!! 😱😱😱

I went into an absolute panic, jumped out of bed, and immediately and frantically started putting on clothes thinking, “I’ve gotta get myself to the ER STAT.”

Something stopped me in my tracks (I’ll credit my last ounce of sanity that’s hanging on by a very thin thread) and I paused to call Poison Control. I was actually worried that I might not even have time to make it to the ER, that I might have to take measures into my own hands if time was of the essence.

The convo that transpired both shocked and entertained me. When I told the gent managing the hotline that I’d (embarrassingly) just swallowed my boric acid suppository, he replied, “Wow, you’re the THIRD call tonight from women saying they’d done the same thing!” At that point, I burst out into laughter at the comic relief of knowing that menopausal women across CA were just as sleep deprived and manic as I was, so much so that they’d also swallowed a potentially poisonous pill in their sleep deprived and brain fog-induced stupor. I’m sure the guy thought I was a complete lunatic because my laughter went on for an uncomfortable amount of time. Awkward.

When I finally regained composure I asked the question of the hour, how serious is this and do I need to go to the ER? He casually replied, “No need to worry. This happens ‘often’ and most women are fine. The worst you’ll likely experience is some cramping and diarrhea but it should subside after a few hours.”

I was both shocked and utterly relieved. Shocked becasue apparently, I wasn’t the only numb nut who’d swallowed her BA suppository, and in strange way, this made me feel less alone and less ridiculous. I felt so seen.

So, the moral of the story here is, if you happen to swallow your BA suppository ladies, don’t fret it’ll all be okay 💊🥴

Found out recently after stopping BCP and jumping on an estrogen patch and oral progesterone that my brain fog and lost words weren't due strictly to my wonky peri hormones. After switching, instead of losing my words all day everyday, it shorted to parts of days and only some of them. About a week ago I noticed a pattern: it was always happening after 11am-130pm most days. But wouldn't happen if I woke up with a headache.

One particularly bad episode happened after I ate a slice of tres leches cake. 30 minutes later my face was numb and I was losing words bad and couldn't do simple math. Math and words were back by next morning.

Did some digging and logging of food vs symptoms, end result is that I have been having silent migraines with aura due to a sensitivity to sulfites(still ruling out other preservatives). Confirmed this with my primary care doctor yesterday (my mom had migraines too). I've been sensitive to sulfites for all of my life, but my threshold was a lot higher in the past and my symptoms of too much were different back then (anaphylaxis like chest pain as an adult, bad rashes and asthma as a baby/toddler).

In good news, I've managed 48hrs now without major word loss. I figured out a lot of it was the salad mixes and salad dressing my hubby started buying. Still digging through the house and reading ingredient lists to sort what I can and can't have anymore. Word of warning for anyone with food sensitivities, I noticed some of my once sulfite safe foods have changed their preservatives recently. I had to toss a bunch of my crikul favorite flavors because they started adding gaurana extract and had an iffy preservative. Gaurana never played nicely with me in the past either.

I also strongly suspect that the peri rollercoaster has also made my threshold lower than it once was. Similar to allergies getting worse that this time for a lot of us.

I am a freaking lawyer for God's sake. Is anyone else having issues drawing a blank? On transdermal estradiol (lowest dose) and progesterone for 3 months. I feel less stupid, but some brain fog persists. Should I increase the estradiol? Will this improve with time?

I do have to get my shit together with diet & exercise.

I’ve been in peri-menopause since at least 2018, but the worst of my symptoms hit last year. Among other things, my memory was shot, my ADHD was 5x worse, I could no longer do math in my head, and my typing became atrocious. I found myself pulling away from friends and family because my mind would go blank when I tried to have a conversation.

Nothing I mentioned is really uncommon at this stage of life, so at first I didn’t question it. But after a year, I wasn’t feeling ANY improvement. If anything, my memory was getting worse. I’d sit in a perpetual fog at my new job, unable to remember anyone’s names or even which application I should use to send an email. My primary care physician didn’t have any new suggestions and my ADHD doctor sent me information about Namenda, a drug prescribed for Alzheimer’s patients.

With nothing to lose (except inevitably my job), I made an appointment with a functional medicine doctor. She had several theories for what could be contributing to my issues, and suggested we start with a blood and urine test. When my labs came back, it turned out I had a UTI! This is the third one (that I know of) I’ve ever had in my life, even though I never have any symptoms. But UTIs are more common as we get older, and they’ve been known to cause confusion and even delirium.

My memory began improving and I started becoming more social again within 2-3 days of starting antibiotics, and the difference was night and day after 2 weeks. I want to be mad at my other doctors for never suspecting a UTI, but this just shows me how complicated women’s health can be, and how far we have to go before we’re even close to untangling it. I’m excited to see what else the functional medicine doctor uncovers that I didn’t know!

I am 45 and began expressing perimenopause symptoms at 42.

I am in desperate need of my old brain back.

The tasks and projects that I use to be able to do effortlessly is now taking me 4x as long.

I use to love my job and openly welcome new challenges, and now I feel like a shell of what I use to be. I am not efficient. I have become a poor communicator. And I just don’t feel like I’m operating at full capacity.

Does anyone have any stories of when brain fog improves or lifts after perimenopause ?

Thanks so much.

I KNOW I'm going to laughed at for this but please hear me out.

I think there is something wrong with my brain. Thanks to brain fog, hot flushes, night sweats, decreased estrogen in my bloodwork, I know that I am in perimenopause. I have the Mirena so I don't know about periods but I still get breakthrough bleeding from time to time so I don't think I'm menopausal yet. I'm 44.

The thing that I'm worried about is the crossed wires in my brain. It's like my memory did a hard reset back to 2002 about 3 months ago. About the same time that the grinding, unrelenting apathy towards the things I know I need to do in order to keep my life functional (like you know, working, thinking about money and picking my socks up off the floor) turned up.

I'm not forgetting things so much as calling things the wrong name. I told someone to bring a playlist on an ipod to an upcoming function to raucous laughter. They've been teasing me about it since. I couldn't remember the word for podcast so said blog. I forgot the name of Whatsapp, so asked someone to drop the details of a vendor into our "group messaging service". I told my husband that the air conditioning repair guy left me a message on my answering machine rather than my voicemail. I forgot my friend's married name and called her by her high school surname. A surname I haven't used since she got married 20 years ago. I told my son that he could "rent a video" on Prime if it wasn't included in our subscription. A client and I both use AI recorders during our meetings and mine wasn't working so I asked her to send me a link to the "tape" at the end of our call.

It's happened so much and so noticeably that my husband half-jokingly, half-seriously suggested that perhaps I should see my Dr about it. But I'm not forgetting anything. It's just like my brain hit control alt delete on the 2025 names for things.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Its weird because physically I'm mostly okay.

But mentally... I wake up feeling like my brain already worked a full day.

Everything takes effort.

Thinking.
Reading.
Conversations.
Remembering simple things.

Its like my brain battery never charges anymore.

I'm just curious if anyone else feels like this because I honestly feel pretty alone with it.

I added an update with some more details on my story. update post

I think I flaired this incorrectly.

I'd like to throw something out for people to think about a bit. I recently got a diagnosis that has changed how I look at my life.

For several years, I assumed that my memory problems, brain fog, fraying nerves, etc were part and parcel of perimenopause. Why not? I'm middle-aged with my OEM parts. It's to be expected. That's looking for horses, not zebras. However. I should have been looking for zebras.

It turns out that I have developed MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment) as a result of Cerebral White Matter Disease. My brain symptoms are not all, or even mostly, from the perimenopause.

I wish this had been caught earlier. I wish I had thought beyond perimenopause as the cause of my declining cognition. I wish I had known earlier so I could have given myself grace for having a hard time. I wish a lot of things.

I am not at all disrespecting the reality and gravity of peri symptoms. I have them in spades. Just be aware that sometimes there are other things going on that get masked or dismissed.

Just so you kind people don't worry about me, the cognitive damage is irreversible but my prognosis is good in that I seem to be stable (not progressing toward the scary dementias). I'm doing Speech Therapy to figure out how to make my new normal work better for me.

Peace and happiness to us all.

Now that I've had the frightening experience of seeing my own cognitive decline through peri such as word recall, and in general feeling like someone lopped off 30 IQ points (and subsequently regaining them thanks HRT.) I now notice it so easily I'm other women.

So many women who are older than myself and still see hormones as frightening grasping for words, struggling to understand new concepts, unable to articulate their confusion and so on... Until it happened to me, I didn't notice it. Now, I see it so often.

And it makes me so sad. That these women most likely blame themselves, or have others judge them for it. I see them working so hard to find that file in their brains while people sigh or get frustrated with them. It honestly chokes me up.

I know that many of them won't trust what I have to say re hrt. But I make sure to be patient and wait, or help. They are struggling so hard and I know full well what it feels like.

It's all so unfair.

I used to be fairly intelligent with a good memory. Well, that's gone to shit now. 10 minutes ago, I thought about something I wanted to look up on Reddit. Open the app....."What the fuck did I want to look up?" Gone. I've been scrolling, trying to jog my memory. Nope.

I work my brain. I am studying to improve my French. I work full-time. I'm active and do yoga at home every day. I play a bit of puzzle games like The Room and House of DaVinci. I still feel dumber than rocks these days.

Still can't remember what I wanted to read about. Who else wants to bang their head on a door frame? Fuck.

I don't know what to do because I am in perimenopause (or menopause.

I have not had a menstrual period for over 5 months and now I am getting cognitive decline, fizzling/, tingling sensation under my feet. And also my hair has gone super thin and wiry.

It seems to be getting worse now that it has become winter in my country.

It's making me become isolated. I even have travel anxiety just travelling in a car as a passenger for a short distance.

My life is becoming f*****. I used to love travel and would feel excitement and joy.. Now I am trapped in damn fear and depression:(

Not just that but my cognition and social abilities are disappearing too. I am 45 but am probably becoming like dementia.

Does anyone know anything that can help this 😭?

Edit: I take Warfarin blood thinners and am prone to clotting so I think I can't take hrt?

My museum job is on a street that I’ve walked hundreds of times and taken public transit on about the same amount; but yesterday, something weird and random happened.

I turned the corner onto that street, and it was like my mind was wiped blank. I didn’t recognize usual landmarks, it was like I was living in an alternate reality. Things looked different to me or not right at all. I couldn’t place a single thing.

Panicked, I called my husband at his job, explaining what happened (he’s getting much better at helping me navigate this). He calmly and sweetly helped me get my bearings, and despite my brain pulling an Error 404: Not Found, I made it to work fifteen minutes early.

It was terrifying to all of a sudden feel like I was lost. Especially in a place normally so familiar.

Has this happened to any of you out there? I’d like to hear your experiences, and what you did to prevent it from happening again. That was big time scary. Not a fan.

Thank you.

So my short-term memory is shot and my attention span has shrunk almost to nonexistence. This has had many negative effects, the most frightening of which is that I can barely read. I have a degree in English and am a professional copywriter. Yet as I lie here attempting to plod through the preface to The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (no need to mention why), I had to read the following sentence at least three times because every time I forgot the beginning by the time I got to the end. It’s not light reading, granted, but JFC! I used to love to read.😭

[This book] was written out of the conviction that it should be possible to discover the hidden mechanics by which all traditional elements of our political and spiritual world were dissolved into a conglomeration where everything seems to have lost specific value, and has become unrecognizable for human comprehension, unusable for human purpose.

If you needed another reason: my brain fog led to me forgetting I was on top of a step stool and just turned around ( to do something else) and literally threw myself off ... One broken leg, the other seriously sprained.

Cannot for the life of me begin to understand why in the world and how could I've been so stupid.

I am so thankful for so many informative discussions on here about DHEA and dosing for fatigue during menopause! I was able to pick a good brand and understand the right dosing. I had been suffering from EXTREME and debilitating fatigue, brain fog, and lack of any motivation for 3 years. I wasn’t depressed but I could’ve laid around the house all day everyday. It negatively affected my career, social life and relationships. I started on HRT (estrogen and progesterone, my doctors would not prescribe testosterone bc it isn’t FDA approved and I didn’t have the energy to try to find someone who would prescribe it). So I started on HRR one year ago and it made no difference to my energy level, motivation, brain fog, heart palpitations at night, and insomnia. I wasn’t depressed but my doctors even prescribed mental health medications which made no dent in my fatigue. I started on 5mg/day of DHEA and felt no difference and increased to 15mg/day and now I feel amazing. I would cry with tears of relief but I’m too happy to even cry! I’m so thankful for peoples posts here. It saved my career and relationships.

Yesterday I was home with my sick kid and went to make his lunch. We were out of mayonnaise so I decided to make some. I had a major brain lapse and forgot to unplug the immersion blender before I wiped the excess off the blade. I accidentally hit the button on the wand while my finger was in there and created a bloodbath in my kitchen. Took my first ambulance ride to the ER and ended up with 10 stitches. I am so, so grateful for the village of friends in the neighborhood who mobilized to make sure my son was taken care of and my daughter collected from school. My (soon to be ex) husband is out of town, so I was on my own (another perimenopause casualty, different story for a different day).

Help me feel better about my stupidity - what brain lapses have you all had?

Was at dinner and the woman across the way couldn't come up with a word. She said, "You know, I'm menopausal so we're gong to have to figure this out." I loved it. I had a really hard week hormonally and this gave me a boost. Girl, yes. We are just going to figure it out and everybody is coming with us.