Most women will have to experience menopause. It is known as the time when your menstrual cycle completely stops, and fertility stops. It is normally decided that a woman is beginning to start menopause if she hasn’t had a menstrual period in 12 months. It is usually known to happen in their 40s or 50s. The average age of a woman who begins the process is 51.
Menopause is completely normal and natural, but the unwanted symptoms of it are what makes going through it truly difficult. Luckily, there are treatment options out there, including hormone therapy. Women have been going through menopause since the beginning of time, but it is important to know the symptoms of it, and what to do to alleviate any pain or discomfort. This “change” a woman goes through doesn’t necessarily have to be a terrible one.
1. Whole Body Fatigue
Whole body fatigue is a common and rather important symptom of menopause. It can greatly disrupt a person’s day to day life, and make simple tasks feel nearly impossible to complete. Women may experience a never-ending, severe lack of overall energy. You may start to feel exceptionally tired and weak. Other signs of extreme fatigue could include feeling that it is increasingly difficult to wake up each morning, mental confusion, and an irritable mood.
Whole body fatigue during menopause is caused by erratic levels of hormones (estrogen, adrenal, thyroid, progesterone). These hormones regulate energy in your body, and if they become off-level, extreme fatigue may occur. There are many women out there who are menopausal and have trouble getting a full-night’s rest at night. This will obviously contribute to feeling tired and sluggish during the day. Whole body fatigue can worsen other menopausal symptoms, and it may feel like the world around you is spiraling out of control, and there is no way to stop it.
2. Night Sweats
In the United States alone, it has been estimated that around 75 percent of all women will experience night sweats at some point during menopause. Night sweats cause heavy sweating which can be from having hot flashes occurring at nighttime. You may begin to find yourself waking up at night, sweaty, dealing with a racing heart, and feeling clammy and cold. Women will usually wake up from a deep sleep, and are usually drenched in a cold sweat. Night sweats can be very uncomfortable, and cause major sleep disruptions. Night sweats are caused by severe hormonal changes within a woman’s body.
3. Hot Flashes
Hot flashes are described as feeling a sensation of extreme heat all over the body. They can happen suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, or one can feel them coming on and know when to prepare for them. Your heart may be beating at a faster rate than usual, your skin may feel hot to the touch, your face may turn red, and of course, you may start to sweat a lot. The sweating usually stays located to the upper part of the body, but it also can travel throughout the rest of the body. You may also feel distressed.
4. Sweating
It is believed excessive sweating during menopause is caused by a lowering of the hormone estrogen being released throughout the body. The fluctuation of estrogen can cause the hypothalamus (our body’s natural temperature regulator) in the brain to misjudge a woman’s body temperature. Blood vessels, which are in the surface of the skin can expand, or dilate, to let off extra heat and will make a woman start to sweat. This will help the body cool off. Excessive sweating has been known to stay with some women for as long as a decade after menopause has ended.
5. Insomnia
In menopause, insomnia is a symptom that is widely reported, and can cause a large amount of stress and discomfort in many women. The most common explanation for menopause-induced sleep problems is hormonal changes.
During menopause, the ovaries begin to decrease the production of hormones estrogen and progesterone, with the latter being a hormone which promotes sleep. The constant up-and-down of these hormones can be very irritating, and can directly contribute to a lack of sleep at night. Hot flashes are also a big contributing factor to a lack of sleep, which makes adrenaline surge and creates difficulty in staying asleep.
6. Hair Dryness
Believe it or not, but, menopause can even cause problems for hair. Estrogen is almost always the cause, since not only does it control psychological things such as mood swings and sexual arousal, it can also effect physical aspects of the body. Estrogen helps by keeping hair in its constant phase of growing. If estrogen levels are off-kilter, it can make hair become difficult to fully grow. Androgens, the male hormones found in women (in a smaller amount), can also increase during this time, which can create hair-loss and extra hair to grow on the face or on the body.
7. Anxiety
Many women tend to feel depressed or stressed out during menopause. This is due to hormone fluctuations and other bodily changes, such as infertility. Outside factors may also contribute to creating an increase in anxiety. Perhaps a child has moved away from home to go to work or college (AKA: “empty nest syndrome”) or something else unsettling has occurred in a woman’s personal life. Women also can feel either completely frigid, or, unattractive to their spouse/partner. These feelings, once again, can all be traced back to the constant shifting of hormone levels and its accompanying side effects.
8. Dry Skin
Another process that estrogen performs is the stimulation of collagen and oils, which help keep the skin smooth and moisturized. As estrogen levels are affected, moisture-retention goes way down, and itchy and dry patches of skin can develop. This can happen all over a woman’s body, not just in the normal drier areas of skin, such as the elbows. You may start to notice dry and itchy skin on the back, legs, chest, or even the genitals. These changes in a woman’s skin, usually begin to happen before the change, and stay permanently even after menopause is done and over.
9. Moodiness
Scientists have found a direct connection between estrogen and the production of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is a mood-regulating neurotransmitter, and is responsible for our feelings of depression, moodiness, and anxiety. Since imbalanced hormones can disrupt serotonin production, the chance of major mood swings and depression highly increases during menopause. Some women must go on Hormone Replacement Therapy, or must begin taking an antidepressant medication to regulate estrogen and serotonin levels back to a semi-normal state. It is very important to seek out medical advice if you’ve found that your mood has greatly been affected.
