Sounds like what just happened to me, too. Like you, I had irregular cycles for my entire life ... varied between 19 to 38 days sometimes!!! I had eight children, yet my unpredictable cycles never became regular until the last few years. When I was 42, my ob/gyn put me on low estrogen bc pills as a method of birth control ... stayed on them for 5 years or so ... but the cycles stayed regular even after stopping the pill. Now that I'm 50, I'm not really suprised that I'm finally going into perimenopause ... but having cycles that now vary from 22 to 25 days is doing more than just affecting my cycles. This switch has been accompanied by other symptoms, too. The worst is the anxiety and insomnia ... which also triggered my IBS condition, so now I suffer from nausea and stomach discomfort at an unbearable level some days. My hot flashes and sweats are mild compared to what I've heard from other women, though. Are you having any other symptoms that seem to be linked to the change in your cycle?

My doctor told me that cycles coming closer together is what usually happens to most women, until one month you might skip one altogether. I think she explained that it means we're still producing estrogen but have had a drop in progesterone, as you mentioned. She put me on the low estrogen bc pill again, because that's what she's doing for herself at this stage ... Mircette is the one she's giving me. She said I could do a progesterone cream instead, but really liked the benefits of the pill. I did some checking, to see how Mircette stacked up against the other pills out there, and it seems to be the lowest in estrogen. She says it'll provide me with the progesterone that I need to even me out, and the estrogen will be good as protection from future osteoporosis. I haven't taken it yet, but I guess I'll try them.