Understanding Perimenopause

Perimenopause refers to the time before menopause begins. Menopause is so often talked about that people often don’t understand that there are things women go through in the years before menopause begins.

Perimenopause is the technical or medical term for someone who is pre-menopausal. This can be a 10 to 15 year period before menopause begins. We are all familiar with menopause; however, most of us are not aware of perimenopause and the fact that we can experience symptoms of perimenopause in our early 40’s.

For women in previous years, medicine hasn’t been a big help to them when they were going through hormonal changes. Women’s bodies go through these things naturally and it’s easy for society to look upon the affected women as making too much of something or overreacting. It all reminds me of sending the woman to the end of the village during her monthly cycle because she was considered to be “dirty” and “cursed”. Have we really come very far since then? It seems to me that the idea of a blood coming out a woman’s vagina tends to make men extremely uncomfortable. Because it’s not something they go through themselves, men find it insanely difficult to understand.

With our monthly cycles sometimes comes bloating, some pretty severe cramping, water retention and more. I remember my sister once complaining that if you’re bloated for a week before your period, during your period and a week after, you essentially only get one week a month of being “normal”.

There are jokes about PMS and estrogen in many television sitcoms and movies, but it really isn’t something to laugh at. It’s an important part of our life, just as important as when our bodies originally hit puberty. In fact, menopause for women is the exact opposite of puberty. It’s our bodies reversing puberty so that we can no longer reproduce.

In this day and age the independent working woman is working into her 60’s. In fact, she has to in order to collect full social security benefits. This means that our chances of going into menopause or experience perimenopausal symptoms while we still have to show up at work every day is very likely. Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier for anybody.

We are expected to go through life without complaint and because perimenopausal symptoms can last for 10 to 15 years, it’s not like we can just stay home from work for a day or two and return to work as bright and cheery as a school girl.

This means that women who experience perimenopause have some seriously uncomfortable situations to deal with. That’s why it’s so important to speak to your doctor if you are experiencing hot flashes, depression, chronic fatigue, irregular periods, weight gain or other things along those lines. We have to make sure we completely understand what’s going on with us and that we are treating it with whatever options are available and work for us, fitting into your day-to-day lifestyle.

If you are a younger woman experiencing perimenopause, it may be extremely difficult for your significant other to understand. Bring him or her with you when you visit the doctor to talk about these things. Your significant other needs to have a solid understanding of what’s going on in your body too.

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Understanding Perimenopause

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