Link: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2583945-why-women-with-adhd-feel-overwhelmingly-controlled-by-their-hormones/

https://archive.ph/a6e1u

Hormonal shifts don’t just affect monthly symptoms; they can have implications over a lifetime. This probably explains why so many women, myself included, are diagnosed during perimenopause. A survey of 3000 women in their mid-40s to their mid-90s with ADHD found the most common age at diagnosis was between 41 and 50, while more than half of all respondents reported a life-altering impact from symptoms during perimenopause. Hormones may explain the significant rise in ADHD diagnosis rates in middle-aged women, which have increased by 40 per cent over the past year in the UK alone. In a separate survey of 600 women with ADHD, led by Caroline Gurvich, a clinical neuropsychologist at Monash University in Melbourne, 98 per cent reported having a greater struggle with inattention during perimenopause.

Importantly, says Gurvich, this doesn’t seem to be standard menopausal brain fog masquerading as late-onset ADHD. “If someone has had smooth sailing their entire life, and they hit menopause, and talk about brain fog, it might look similar, but it doesn’t meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD.” By definition, ADHD has to have been present since childhood and, in Gurvich’s study, women diagnosed in perimenopause reported first experiencing symptoms before the age of 8. Many of them had spent their entire lives masking symptoms or using coping strategies to work around them, she says. Then, in perimenopause, the hormone changes made this impossible. “They’d been covering up and masking and then it got to the point where that just didn’t work any more,” says Gurvich.

I've been experiencing perimenopause more in the last year or two and this rings true. I knew from puberty and childbirth that I was going to have to white-knuckle more intense symptoms with peri, but whooooo it's more than I thought. And the draining part is knowing I'm right at the beginning with an incredibly long road ahead.

Just the thought of finding a doctor that is willing to listen and work with me on this makes me feel anxious, but it's about time.

I hope you do, too. It was a long, long journey for me but having someone who listens long enough to actually help is a damn godsend.

It's good that this is finally being explored, too. Hopefully there will be more resources and knowledge in the coming years.