{"id":3294,"date":"2025-08-24T15:25:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/?p=3294"},"modified":"2025-08-24T21:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T21:27:05","slug":"the-cost-of-the-perimenopause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/the-cost-of-the-perimenopause\/","title":{"rendered":"The change tax? (looking at the cost of the perimenopause)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Three_Ages_of_Woman_(Klimt)\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/c\/c8\/Klimt_-_Die_drei_Lebensalter_der_Frau.jpeg\" width=\"2706\" height=\"2616\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been reading the excellent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Price-Life-Search-Worth-Decides\/dp\/1035004968\">The Price of Life<\/a> and was so inspired I thought I would take a sober look at the cost of changing hormones. Because noone is writing about this in the Guardian but they should.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Before being &#8216;allowed&#8217; to start HRT*: \u00a34074\/year<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2 big bottles of magnesium tablets to try to help with sleep because that&#8217;s what a friend recommended: \u00a318<\/li>\n<li>4 bottles of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lambertshealthcare.co.uk\/herbs\/sage\/sage-2500mg\/\">sage tablets<\/a> because a friend&#8217;s mum was prescribed it by their oncologist when she was complaining of night sweats: \u00a375<\/li>\n<li>Speaking therapy to manage increase in anxiety levels: \u00a33400 (\u00a385\/weekly session)<\/li>\n<li>Yoga classes to try to help with increasing hip and joint pain: \u00a3576 (\u00a348\/month)<\/li>\n<li>Earplugs to help with difficulty going to sleep \u00a35.95<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>After being prescribed HRT: \u00a3226\/year<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>NHS Prescription certificate which covers both HRT and my <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC10788583\/\">perimenopausal rosacea<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medicines.org.uk\/emc\/product\/6819\/smpc#gref\">ointment<\/a>: \u00a3114.50<\/li>\n<li>Rosacea moisturiser (total waste of money): \u00a345<\/li>\n<li>2 bottles of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.laroche-posay.co.uk\/en_GB\/toleriane-rosaliac-ar-spf30-for-dry-redness-prone-skin\/LRP_931.html\">tinted day cream<\/a> to cover the rosacea (very good) \u00a360<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.boots.com\/vagisil-prohydrate-external-hydrating-gel-30g-10204261\">Hydrating gel<\/a> because everything gets *super* itchy \u00a37<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Other costs: unknown\/harder to assess<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Buying larger sized clothes to deal with the <a href=\"https:\/\/thebms.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/19-BMS-TfC-Menopause-Nutrition-and-Weight-Gain-JUNE2023-A.pdf\">totally normal<\/a> weight gain means buying clothes more often than in the last 10+years<\/li>\n<li>Choosing a non-alcoholic drink (because i value good sleep over a hangover) is not a cost-saving<\/li>\n<li>Cost of not taking a sick day at work when I suffered from a bad night of sleep<\/li>\n<li>Cost of increasing protein intake as recommended in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Perimenopause-Power-Navigating-hormones-menopause\/dp\/1472978862\">Perimenopause Power<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Opportunity cost of saying no to doing things very early in the morning in case I haven&#8217;t slept well<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As soon as I was on HRT, my anxiety receded, heart palpitations are gone, joint and hip pain disappeared and things got much cheaper as a result. The sleep is a work in progress. I am still investing in yoga and magnesium tablets but not because I&#8217;m looking to treat my symptoms anymore. As for the other costs, i may choose to look into those more closely in the future. But for now my bank account and I are breathing a sigh of relief.<\/p>\n<p>* this phase lasted 3 years as I was in my early 40s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been reading the excellent The Price of Life and was so inspired I thought I would take a sober look at the cost of changing hormones. Because noone is writing about this in the Guardian but they should. Before being &#8216;allowed&#8217; to start HRT*: \u00a34074\/year 2 big bottles of magnesium tablets to try to&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/the-cost-of-the-perimenopause\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The change tax? (looking at the cost of the perimenopause)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p41XhY-R8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3294"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3307,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions\/3307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}