Peri Menopause Symptoms |
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Amongst women there is confusion between menopause and peri-menopause. Menopause is the single day when a pre-menopausal woman has failed to have a period for more than twelve months. Let me explain: leading up to menopause a woman's ovaries stop producing the regular amounts of the hormones progesterone and estrogen. When levels of both these hormones drop, menstruation ceases and hence a woman's fertility ends. Officially a woman is said to have gone through menopause if she has failed to menstruate for an complete year. From a medical point of view menopause takes place on the day when a pre-menopausal woman has missed 12 consecutive periods. What many women do not realize is that there is a stage leading up to those twelve months in which her period becomes absent. This phase is known as "peri-menopause" (also known as pre-menopause) and it can begin many years before menopause actually takes place. It is the period in which women undergo most of the often debilitating symptoms of menopause. The production of the hormones estrogen and progesterone will become inconsistent and gradually diminish, causing disruption to the usual menstrual cycle. Many women report having irregular periods during peri-menopause, something that is a direct reflection of their changing hormone levels. Some women find their periods will be shorter or longer, and that bleeding may be either heavier or lighter. It is during the peri-menopausal stage that women will tend to experience the other symptoms which include hot flushes, mood swings, weight gain, depression, migraines, lethargy and possibly decreased libido.
So in fact, when a woman says "I am going through menopause", generally what she really means is that she is going through peri-menopause and this culminates in her final period which is the complete end of the reproductive years. Peri-menopause can start as early as age 35 sometimes even younger, but typically peri-menopause will start during a woman's 40's and menopause at approximatley 50-52 years of age. Like the symptoms of menopause, women have very different and individualized experiences of peri-menopause. It is important to remember that irrespective of the symptom a woman experiences, peri-menopause is a perfectly normal process that simply reflects the natural aging cycle.
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