The end of your menstrual cycle can mean the end of a major, messy inconvenience in your life, but it can also mean suffering through uncomfortable symptoms for a decade or more.
Since many symptoms can mimic PMS or even other conditions, it can be hard to tell when you’ve entered this phase of your life. Yet it’s important information to have because it means you have options to consider. Specifically, you may be able to address and
#1) You’re struggling to sleep.
Menopause causes a decline in the hormone progesterone, which plays a role in producing sleep. It also causes declines in melatonin, another sleep-producing hormone.
Thus, you toss and turn all night, knowing you need your sleep to be successful in the morning but struggling to make it happen.
Plus, taking steps like ignoring blue light or following a sleep routine barely seems to help.
#2) Your moods pivot on a dime.
Low estrogen levels can lead to low serotonin levels, putting a menopausal individual at risk for anxiety and depression. Combine these mood challenges with poor sleep quality, and you have a recipe for irritability and tears.
Menopause can be especially difficult if you were already struggling with a mood disorder to begin with.
#3) Hot flashes and night sweats.
Do you routinely feel like someone has set you on fire in the middle of the desert? Hot flashes can last from 1 to 5 minutes, and every second is unpleasant. Plus, they can happen daily for the next decade unless you do something to address them—an unpleasant prospect, to say the least.
Then there are those mornings when you wake up so drenched in sweat that your clothes are soaked and your sheets are clammy.
Estrogen levels help to regulate your body temperature. They plunge at night. If your estrogen levels are already low, night sweats are almost inevitable.
#4) You’re running to the bathroom…a lot.
As estrogen levels drop, the walls of your vagina and the urethra may become thinner. The result? Trip after trip to the bathroom, and a need to go that’s far more urgent than you’ve ever experienced before.
Some unfortunates even begin to experience incontinence as a result.
HRT can help strengthen these walls.
#5) You can’t concentrate.
Estrogen plays a role in brain function, too. If you’re feeling brain fog, it may be because your neurotransmitter activity has dropped because there’s less estrogen to work with.
Plus, all that insomnia makes it difficult to concentrate as well.
#6) You look at a cookie and gain ten pounds.
Gaining weight becomes easier, and losing weight becomes harder. Your metabolism tends to slow to a crawl. You’ll have to be extra vigilant and take additional steps if you want to stay in shape.
Many factors influence menopausal weight gain. Poor sleep quality is a leading factor in weight issues because it can increase cortisol levels in your blood, making your body hold on to fat.
The process starts during perimenopause.
#7) Your periods and PMS symptoms are all over the place.
One month, you’re spotting. The next month, you don’t have a period at all. One month later, you’re dealing with the heaviest period of your life.
Your hormone levels are fluctuating right along with your period symptoms. If you can smooth out your hormone levels, your periods should regulate until they finally come to an end.
Address Menopause Symptoms
You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through menopause. If you’re tired of the discomfort, call AB Hormone Therapy.
Our safe, effective bio-identical hormone therapy will help restore your estrogen and progesterone to proper levels, alleviating your symptoms. Ready to get started? Contact us today.
