Symptoms come and go – what is happening?!

I’ve been having what seem to be perimenopause symptoms: hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain with zero change in exercise or diet. But it’s not consistent. Hot flashes come and go, I’ll go weeks without one, then I’ll have a few over a period of days and then it goes again. I have brainfog, but I can’t tell whether that’s just because of lack of sleep or because of hormones. My hair has thinned and I now get acne!

Next week I have an appointment with my doctor, and I want to be prepared for it – but I just don’t know what to say or ask for.

This has completely snuck up on me. I was completely flourishing,  started my own business and I thought I was going to start to really feel like I my energies had shifted and I was about to do some amazing things and then one morning everything changed.

What are the solutions? I guess knowing more about the symptoms, when they might start (I’m 39, I was blindsided because I thought this only happened late forties). Knowing more about what to say to the doctor would be great – how do doctors measure this stuff? It seems, reading different forums, that doctors themselves are not always educated in this stuff so having enough information without going overboard would be great.

WB, United Kingdom