Perimenopause Symptoms

Menopause is a period of four or five years, usually two years before the last menstrual period and two to three years after it. For most women, menopause occurs between the ages of 45 and 53, although some women experience it earlier and others go through it at a later age. A woman generally experiences menopause at about the same age as her mother did. Menopause begins with changes in the menstrual cycle shorter or longer periods, heavier or lighter bleeding, decreased or increased premenstrual symptoms until the menstrual periods cease altogether.

On the plus side, menopause can signal a doorway to a new life. Postmenopausal women are free of the discomforts of menstruation, free of the need for contraceptives, and in many cases, free of child-rearing responsibilities. For the first time, many women find they can concentrate on their own agendas and do the things they want to do.

Managing Perimenopause Symptoms

Dress For Hot Flashes: Eight in ten women experience periods of sudden, intense heat and accompanying sweating called flushes or hot flashes.  Hot flashes are the body's response to lower than usual estrogen levels. Wearing loose clothing that can easily be removed is recommended.

Douse it: If you're at home or in a place where it's convenient, you can spritz the neck and facial areas with a spray of cool water from a squeeze bottle or lot with a cool washcloth or moist towelette.

Avoid Caffeine and Alcohol: If hot flashes can be triggered by caffeine and alcohol consumption. If possible, it is advised to avoid them completely.  Substituting non-caffeinated teas or decaffeinated coffee for caffeinated beverages is a healthier alternative.  Bear in mind that caffeine withdrawal may cause headaches and fatigue for several days.  Excess caffeine also causes the kidneys to excrete more calcium, a factor in bone thinning in postmenopausal women.

Personal Cooling Devices: Many women find they can get relief from the sudden heat of hot flashes by using a small personal fan. Inexpensive wood and paper fans or battery powered personal fans are small enough to be carried in a purse and can be used anywhere.

Regular Exercise:  Regular, aerobic exercise such as brisk walking does much to increase the general health level, fight fatigue, and raise the spirits. Exercise also appears to slow changes related to strength loss, frequently linked to advanced age.  Regular, weight bearing exercises such as walking or jogging can also help stave off the bone thinning ravages of osteoporosis, a problem for many menopausal women. Bones get stronger with regular exercise no matter what the age.  Any weight bearing exercise is good, but it has to be a weight bearing exercise to effectively increase bone density.

Get Support: It's helpful to talk to other women about these changes. Joining a menopause support group sponsored by a local hospital, community college, or professional group can be a useful tool to manage perimenopause symptoms. Menopause can affect self esteem due to physiological life changes. Support groups can bolster confidence and ease the transition phase, creating a stronger persona more capable of handling life-altering changes.   

Calcium is a Must:  Everyone loses calcium as they get older.  As estrogen levels decline the rate of bone loss increases. Thus, there is a higher demand for calcium when a woman reaches menopause, this in response to lower estrogen levels.  Unless there are calcium reserves already stored in the body, it’s very likely there will be an increased need for calcium when reaching menopause.

Postmenopausal women taking HRT are particularly susceptible and need 1,000 milligrams of elemental calcium, daily.

Dairy products are good sources of calcium, although you'll be doing yourself an even bigger favor if you choose those that are low in fat, such as skim milk, nonfat yogurt, and low fat cheeses.

By way of example, an eight-ounce glass of whole milk and an eight-ounce glass of skim milk contain the same amount of elemental calcium (350 milligrams), but the whole milk contains about 70 calories more from fat.

Eating the right foods can add to calcium stores.  Consuming a diet of nutrient rich vegetables, fruits and complex carbohydrates is recommended. A diet not sufficiently rich in calcium, or if pre-existing calcium stores are seriously depleted (from a lifetime of poor eating habits), calcium supplements are recommended. Bear in mind that the number of milligrams of calcium listed on the label of a supplement may not reflect the amount of elemental calcium in the product. For example, it takes 1,200 milligrams of calcium carbonate to get 500 milligrams of elemental calcium.

Balanced, Low Fat Diet is Essential:  Menopausal women not only have an increased risk of osteoporosis, but also for heart disease. At menopause, women's levels of LDL, or so called bad cholesterol, go up. Within about ten years, they have the same risk for heart disease as men. Diet can go a long way toward preventing serious health problems like osteoporosis, cancer, and heart disease in menopausal women.

Diets high in animal products and salt cause the body to excrete more calcium, which contributes to osteoporosis. Menopausal women should eat less animal protein and less salt. If they switch to more foods from the vegetable kingdom and more complex carbohydrates, they'll be getting less fat high-fat diets are related to some cancers and heart disease, more calcium, and more of the anticancer elements like beta carotene.

Plan for Menopause: One of the basic nutritional problems facing pre-menopausal women is that most women consume the typical American diet based on 40 percent of calories from fat, 20 percent from sugar, and 5 percent from alcohol.  These are essentially empty calories.

That means that the majority of women are only getting essential nutrients from 35 percent of their caloric intake.

To make matters worse, most women do not engage in regular physical exercise.  When menopause comes, many women seek the (perceived) easy road by means of HRT medical interventions in an effort to “catch up”.  Some medical professionals believe only a small percentage of women would need hormone therapy if they'd anticipate menopause by eating right and exercising regularly for at least 20 years before the onset of menopause. Prevention is the best thing. A lifelong lifestyle of low fat eating, not smoking, and exercising regularly means better preparedness for the life changes congruent with advance age.

Perimenopause symptoms begin to occur when are still experiencing menstrual cycles, but the time between or length may fluctuate quite a bit. Perimenopause symptoms indicate just one more stage in a woman's life.

With this being said, it is unrealistic to assume that most (or even a few) women will cautiously prepare for advanced age while still in their 20’s and 30’s.  This would be tantamount to asking teenagers to begin saving for retirement.

Fortunately, advances in medical research have begun to discover all-natural plant based alternatives to safely and effectively manage many of the symptoms associated with menopause and advancing age.