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The 50 Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance in Perimenopause and Menopause
You may be in your mid-life and are experiencing some of the following fifty hormone imbalance symptoms. If so, you may have hormone imbalances. Women in their late thirties and early to mid-forties begin entering what is known as peri-menopause, which turns into menopause by the late forties or early fifties. Perimenopause usually starts in a woman's 40s, but it can start in the 30s or even earlier, and it can last from four to fifteen years.
Today, many women are thinking about taking bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to offset their hormone imbalances and to simply feel better.
Menopause is clinically defined as the cessation of menstruation for 12 consecutive months. It marks the end of a woman's reproductive years, and this usually occurs naturally around the age of 52 when her ovaries stop producing estrogen, and there are no more eggs that are fertile.
Most hormone imbalance symptoms are caused primarily by the incorrect relationship between progesterone and estrogen levels in a woman's body. Two of the female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, exist in a delicate balance with variations that can have a dramatic effect on a woman's health, resulting in symptoms of hormone imbalance. The amounts of hormones that a woman's body produces monthly vary, depending on factors including ovulation,lack of ovulation, and other factors like stress, nutrition, or exercise.
Listed below are the fifty symptoms that are most often associated with perimenopause and menopause:
1 Anxiety attacks
2 Allergies
3 Brain fog
4 Breast pain or tenderness
5 Bloating
6 Body odor
7 Bone loss
8 A burning tongue
9 Chronic fatigue
10 Gum bleeding
11 Depression
12 Difficulty concentrating
13 Discomfort while having sex
14 Dizziness and disorientation
15 Dry eyes
16 Dry itchy skin
17 Emotional bouts
18 Facial hair increase
19 Face flushing
20 Fatigue
21 Fingernails brittle and dry
22 Feelings of apprehension doom and gloom
23 Forgetfulness
24 Hair loss
25 Headaches
26 Hot flashes
27 Incontinence
28 Irregular periods
29 Joint pain in the back of knees and heel pain
30 Lethargy and tiredness
31 Light headedness
32 Loss of balance
33 Loss of libido
34 Memory lapse
35 Menstrual irregularities
36 Mental confusion
37 Migraines
38 Moodiness
39 Muscle aches and pains
40 Night sweats, or nocturnal hyperhydrosis
41 Osteoporosis
42 Panic disorder
43 Rapid heart beat
44 Sleep Disorders
45 Sudden tears
46 Thinning hair
47 Tingling extremities
48 Urinary urges
49 Vaginal dryness
50 Weight gain
Perimenopause causes a woman's estrogen levels to drop, so they might begin to feel any one or more of these fifty signs of menopause. As the estrogen decreases she may have periods that come at irregular intervals, including skipping a month or several months. But the reality is that during these times, she is no longer ovulating, and cannot get pregnant. She has just enough estrogen to make a real thin lining in the uterus but not enough to peak. This is why in perimenopause causes the periods to get shorter, and a woman's breasts might also feel lumpier, and her mind gets foggy. A pounding, racing heart is the second most common complaint associated with peri-menopause. If a woman doesn't peak estrogen with regularity, then she is probably in perimenopause.
Basically the loss of this rhythm in peri-menopause actually triggers the destruction of the rest of her eggs, through the action of excessive FSH, using up the remainder of the eggs. Around this time, she begins to get hot flashes. This is how her body shuts down for good and she will enter menopause. Hot flashes are the body's reaction to a decreased supply of the hormone estrogen, which occurs naturally as women approach menopause. This entire process can take up to fifteen years. Menstrual irregularity is most common in the mid-forties as a woman approaches menopause.
The clinical diagnosis of menopause is finding in your blood work of an FSH score higher than five (5). You too can stop this destruction of old age, get rid of the symptoms of hormone imbalance and menopause and achieve feedback and shut off FSH with estrogen replacement. During the early stages of menopause, many women experience aching joints and muscles, and others get bad if not debilitating headaches, most often caused by estrogen levels dropping. Known as "menstrual migraines" these headaches can occur when estrogen levels drop during her period.
Most women who are going into menopause experience absent, short, or irregular periods caused by hormone imbalances. Your periods may even come more frequently, every 24 days instead of every 28, or they may come later than normal. You may have a light period that lasts only a few days, then the next month have a very heavy period. Your period may last a long time or a shorter amount of time. You could skip a month, or two, and then go back to normal for a couple of months, until your period ceases altogether.
During early menopause, some women have allergies, brain fog and have trouble concentrating. Most women experience some anxiety, night sweats or hot flashes. Your skin may become dry and fingernails brittle and most women experience a loss of the moisture in the lining of vaginal area which may be associated with itching and irritation. One of the most dreaded signs of getting older is dry wrinkled skin. When your estrogen levels drop, collagen production also drops, and it is the collagen that keeps our skin youthful looking.
Fatigue is second only to pain as the most common symptom. It is defined as an ongoing and persistent feeling of weakness, tiredness, and lowered energy. When your estrogen levels drop, your vaginal tissues start drying and become less elastic. Sex becomes uncomfortable and you may be more prone to infections. Sudden hair loss happens because our hair follicles need estrogen.
Sleeplessness is another common sign. If you're tossing, turning, and have insomnia, it may be because of menopause. Weight gain, especially around your middle, is yet another sign of changing hormones and your metabolism is slowing down. You may also notice bloating as well, due to periodic increases in fluid retention and abdominal distension.
A loss of sex drive or loss of libido is a problem for some women at this age. All women will experience acceleration in bone density reduction as their estrogen levels drop. All women in menopause will experience osteoporosis, the thinning and weakening of the bone and a general decrease in the bone mass and density making us more susceptible to fractures or breaks. This happens later in menopause after your estrogen levels have dropped. Estrogen is involved in the process of the bone's calcium absorption.
Hormone Replacement Therapy
You can only try to fool nature by covering the fact that you are missing eggs if you replace the hormones that they would generate in exactly the amounts and rhythm in which they would occur. This is the premise behind rhythmic, bioidentical hormone therapy. If we don't replace our hormones, we will face debilitation, or the falling off of hormones that women experience in perimenopause and finally menopause. Today's woman can stop the aging process and not experience the dreadful symptoms of hormone imbalance and menopause by taking natural, rhythmic bioidentical hormone restoration. But the hormones must be replaced exactly as they would be generated in youth - in exactly the amounts and the rhythm in which they would occur when she was younger. This is the premise behind rhythmic, bioidentical hormone therapy. It is not static dosing, but dosed in a rhythm with varying amounts of estrogen and progesterone during the month. Women using this rhythmic cycling also will get their periods again, just like when they were in their prime.
Most of the women taking rhythmic bioidentical hormone replacement therapy are raving about how good they now feel. No more sleep deprivation due to hormone-related insomnia and hot flashes. They no longer experience brain fog or depression. Their sex drives are back! Their skin looks soft supple and youthful, taking them back ten years or more in their looks. But best of all, almost all of the women taking the Wiley Protocol say that all of their symptoms of menopause are gone, and they now feel like themselves again.
