Perimenopause — The Natural Transition

From the moment you are born, your ovaries begin to age. This is a completely natural process for women that will eventually lead to menopause. Your body doesn’t just magically quit having periods or releasing estrogen overnight. Instead, it experiences a transitional process, known as perimenopause.
Many people – including even doctors! – confuse perimenopause with menopause, so don’t feel self-conscious if you don’t understand perimenopause. Only recently have doctors and researchers started to more closely examine and discuss perimenopause as a unique experience in its own right.

What is Perimenopause?

In a nutshell, perimenopause is the period during which your body transitions into menopause. Menopause is popularly defined as the point when you have not experienced a period for 12 consecutive months. While you can expect to reach menopause in your late 40s or early 50s, your body actually starts changing long before that final period comes and goes. As early as your mid-30s, your ovaries may begin to release less estrogen. As time goes by, you could start to experience common symptoms associated with menopause, such as:

Hot flashes
Night sweats
Erratic periods
Diminished sex drive
Vaginal dryness
Mood swings
Difficulty sleeping
Fatigue

All of these symptoms are also a regular part of perimenopause! Some very lucky women only experience perimenopause symptoms for a year, but the average is four years, and many women experience perimenopause for ten years or more. In the past, many women have felt ashamed to speak about their perimenopausal symptoms, and so I like to remind my patients that it is an entirely natural and necessary process. There is nothing to be afraid of or especially ashamed about entering perimenopause.

Yes, the symptoms can be highly unpleasant, but you have many options when it comes to surviving and even thriving during perimenopause.

How to Handle Perimenopause

I have never met a woman who enjoyed waking up in a bath of sweat, losing her sex drive, or feeling her face turn bright red in the middle of a business meeting due to a hot flash. The symptoms of perimenopause may be natural, but that doesn’t mean they are enjoyable or that you have to just accept them! If perimenopause symptoms are detracting from your quality of life, then you owe it to yourself to do something about it. Here are some ways to manage and even avoid perimenopausal symptoms:

Exercise – Early research has found a correlation between exercise and less severe perimenopausal symptoms…just in case you needed one more reason to hit the gym.
Stop Smoking – Tobacco might trigger perimenopausal symptoms
Less Alcohol – Another potential trigger for perimenopausal symptoms
Multivitamins – Ask your doctor if you should start taking a multivitamin
More Sleep – Sleep deprivation can make perimenopausal symptoms worse

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) – The only way to directly address the cause of perimenopause is to introduce progesterone back into your body. Find an OB-GYN near you who specializes in treating menopausal and perimenopausal women.

I am a strong advocate for HRT for the right candidates. I’ve seen HRT completely eliminate severe perimenopausal symptoms that were dramatically affecting my patients in a negative way. In other cases, HRT has been able to significantly lessen the occurrence and severity of symptoms in patients.
If you are interested in learning more about HRT, contact me or find a trained OB-GYN to learn if you a good candidate. I also advise all of my patients to develop a basic understanding of the menopause process so they understand what is happening inside their own bodies. To learn more, visit my page on menopause, night sweats, and hot flashes.