Symptoms of Menopause

Health and Wellness - Womens Health

By: tracyann 04-Apr-2011

Introduction:

Estrogen is a key to the way many parts of a woman's body operate. As levels of estrogen decline, many organs and tissues in a woman's body do not function in the way they were programmed to.

Menstrual Irregularity

At about age forty a woman's levels of FSH will begin to rise slowly in response to declining estrogen. It is thought that the higher concentrations of FSH tend to ripen or mature the egg follicles more rapidly. Instead of taking the usual fourteen days, they may accomplish this in ten to twelve days. That alone can shorten the cycle by a couple of days.

Next, aging of the egg follicles causes them to lose their ability to mature to a point of ovulation. Failure to ovulate shortens the cycle even more. How and to what extent of this menstrual irregularity occurs will vary from woman to woman.

Hot Flashes and Night Sweats

No one fully understands the anatomy of the hot flash, but medical science has uncovered many interesting facts about this hallmark symptom of menopause. Hot flashes can occur anytime, day or night, and are usually accompanied by profuse sweating, headache, and rapid heartbeat. You will feel a sudden warmth over the face, neck and chest. This wave of heat usually lasts several minutes and is followed by a distinct redness of the skin for another five minutes or so.

The term hot "flash" refers to both the aura and the sudden feeling of warmth-a subjective event.

Fatigue

One of the most common symptoms that menopausal women complain of is fatigue. Most victims of energy loss recite the same story: "I'm tired all the time. I just don't have enough energy to do the things I need to do."

Emotional Symptoms

One of menopause's earliest signs, often preceding hot flashes, is varying degrees of emotional changes. They can include depression, anxiety, irritability, crying for no reason, mood swings, memory loss, and mental confusion. These symptoms are often more of a concern to the mid-life woman than the physical ones. They are particularly distressing because she knows they are happening to her, but she feels helpless to do anything about them.

Joint Pain

Another symptom many women have in menopause is multiple joint pain. Like fatigue, this too can be an enigma, for test results are also normal. Many of these sufferers have already been to the offices of internists, orthopedists, and rheumatologists who have found nothing. They often conclude it is probably the beginning or arthritis and prescribe aspirin in high dosages or one of the anti-inflammatory drugs. Neither help much.

Final Thoughts

Why so many symptoms exist. It seems incredible that there can be such a variety of symptoms resulting from estrogen deficiency. The reason has to do with "estrogen receptors" in various organs throughout the body, including the ovaries, uterine lining, vagina, external genitalia, the brain, urinary tract, skin, and possibly bone and blood vessels.

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hummingbirdee 2/1/2013
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Nasty stuff, that menopause. Hate it.
goodselfme 4/5/2011
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Thank you for presenting these symptoms of menopause.
snowfence 4/4/2011
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Great list of symptoms of menopause. H5
litetender 4/4/2011
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Gee, of this sounds familiar!