Pre Menopause Symptoms

Pre Menopause Symptoms

The symptoms that signal the beginning of pre menopause are well known and easy to identify.  They are

1. Changes in your menstrual cycle and menstrual flow
2. The onset of hot flashes and night sweats

We’ll say more about each of these groups of symptoms below.  But first, let’s look at when you can expect to begin to have these symptoms.  Perimenopause means “around menopause” and is defined by doctors as the time period of 5 or more years when you are having pre menopause symptoms, but are continuing to have monthly periods.  “Pre menopause” is anytime before menopause.
Women generally experience the onset of pre menopause symptoms after age 40.  The average age is age 43.  But menopause related complaints such as those above can begin as early as age 35.
Now let’s look at pre menopause symptoms.

Changes in your menstrual cycle and menstrual flow.

If your menstrual cycle has been a consistent number of days in length, you may begin to become erratic.  The time between menstrual periods can  become longer or shorter.  The length of time can be erratic, varying each month.
Your menstrual periods may also change.  Your monthly flow may be greater or less, or last longer or not as long.  You may also have spotting between periods.

Hot flashes and night sweats.

Hot flashes usually start during menstrual periods.  They are experienced as a wave of heat that usually starts in the chest, moves into the front of neck and face, and finally into the scalp.  Sometimes they start as a surge of energy and heat beginning in the toes and feet, moving up the body, ending in the face and scalp.
The wave of heat (the hot flash) is followed by sweating.  Sweating can be mild or profuse.  When hot flashes occur at night, one often is sleeping during the hot flash and awakes after the sweating feeling chilled and drenched in perspiration.  This is where the term night sweats comes from.  They are really just hot flashes at night time.

Behind the symptoms of pre menopause.

Pre menopause symptoms result from alterations in the level of sex hormones in our body.  As the ovaries begin to shut down, their production and secretion of progesterone and estrogen drops.  When this occurs the brain secretes its own stimulatory hormones, trying to get the level of estrogen and progesterone back up again.  The resulting body wide disruption of hormone levels starts the symptoms of pre menopause, most commonly changes in the monthly cycle and the beginning of hot flashes.

Remedies for pre menopause symptoms.

Some of the best relief for pre menopause symptoms comes from herbs that replenish the dropping sex hormones with similar acting plant hormones.  Plant derived estrogens, called phytoestrogens have been shown to be especially helpful.  Traditional herbal remedies use herbs such as red clover, chaste berry, soy lignans and black cohosh.  An herbal menopause remedy that is not well known in the United States has been used for more than a decade in Europe and is extremely effective is Siberian rhubarb root extract.
Eating foods that are rich in plant estrogens is another way to begin to get relief from pre menopause symptoms.  Two foods taht are high in plant estrogens are soy and flax seed.  In Japan, where the diet is high in soy products, women experience only a fraction of the menopause complaints that American women do.

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