I am pretty sure I am in the throes of perimenopause. I am 45, my periods are regular but have become extremely, awfully heavy. As in, two days of which I cannot leave the house because I must be changing product every 30 minutes. I go to bed freezing cold, but wake up every morning at 3am on the dot drenched in sweat. My hair has been thinning precipitously, and though weight loss was really really difficult, I did lose substantially over the last year. My mood has been... not great.
The big problem is that I am wholesale forgetting conversations. Over the last six months or so I have noticed that after any particular conversation I generally remember the "feel" of it, but not so much the actual words. This has become a problem lately when I do not recall talking about plans or important decisions. Even just this week I had an intense conversation and on waking in the morning, had no absolutely no idea what it was about, though I remembered the intensity.
I'm still functioning well at work, since there 99% of everything is written down. If I write something down I remember it.
I hear that the perimenopause "brain fog" is more about forgetting words in the moment or leaving your keys in the fridge or whatnot. I am seriously concerned about early onset dementia or something similarly scary.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar? I have an appointment with my PCP this week for an annual physical but don't have high hopes for being taken seriously.