MENOPAUSE

The Facts

What Causes Mood Swings anyway?

No one has quite figured out why our mood swings are so intense during this stage of a woman’s life.

When going through menopause, our bodies no longer produce any eggs for fertilization. Which means you can no longer have a period and you can no longer have babies. To some women this is the blessing they have been waiting for but to others it hits hard and is more final but no matter how you feel about it as a result, your body stops producing hormones that trigger ovulation and menstruation. Gradually, your periods and ovulation will become more erratic, sending your hormones into an up-and-down spiral! This in other words is called “mood swings”.

During and before menopause your levels of estrogen, progesterone, and androgens are constantly fluctuating and have a definite effect on your mental state. These hormones control serotonin levels in your brain, which happens to be the actual chemical that manipulates mood. If your serotonin happens to drop, so will your mood; if it rises, your mood will go along with it and if it goes up and down then that explains our crazy mood swings.

However, others believe that mood swings during menopause are because we have to deal with so many out of the ordinary, out of control physical changes due to the intense symptoms associated with early menopause. Such as, you have just put on your new silk blouse that you bought for a dinner date with your husband and as you are finishing getting ready you look down and your blouse is now wet from a sweaty "hot flash".

Or better yet I haven’t been able to sleep in three days due to my brutal insomnia and my husband and children don’t notice because they are caught up in there own world but cant figure out why Mom is so exhausted and cranky, hello I'm not sleeping!

I guess the best thing that we can probably do when we feel intense emotion whether it be anger, sadness, or just a nothingness felling is to recognize that you may be having a mood swing.

I know for me it was so hard to lose control of my emotions and body but just knowing that I wasn’t crazy and that there is a reason for my emotional outbursts helped me recognizing situations of stress and finding a way to put them on hold for a while and that gave me back control.

It also helped my family understand and it made us all feel much more in command of the situations and know that it was nothing more than what it was Menopause.

If you are beginning to get a little "older" you may be feeling the first symptoms of "Menopause". Don't freak out. Menopause is a normal biological event that marks the end of a woman's reproductive years. That is the down side, the up side; it is the point when menstruation stops permanently.

On average, menopause occurs at age 51, but like the beginning of menstruation in adolescence, timing varies from person to person. Today, an estimated 50 million women in the United States have reached menopause and most women will spend at least one-third of their lives in or beyond menopause.

Menopause is the last stage of a gradual biological process in which the ovaries reduce their production of female sex hormones. Estrogen production in the body diminishes slowly over a period of years, commonly resulting in hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, and memory loss. This gradual phase before the permanent cessation of menstrual periods is sometimes called perimenopause.

The process of menopause is considered complete when a woman has not menstruated for an entire year. Another type of menopause, known as surgical menopause, occurs if both ovaries are removed for medical reasons. This may be done at the time of a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus).

Living without the protective effects of estrogen increases a woman's risk for developing serious medical conditions, including osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. There are a variety of treatments available, however, to help ease the symptoms of and reduce health risks associated with menopause.

Each woman experiences her own variation of the typical symptoms of menopause. Some studies even suggest that the signs and symptoms of menopause may vary between cultural groups. For example, up to 80% of American women experience hot flashes during menopause while only 10% of Japanese women experience that symptom.

Some researchers speculate that these differences may be due to differences in diet, lifestyle, and/or cultural attitudes toward aging.

In general, however, the loss of estrogen that occurs during menopause causes the following symptoms:

• Irregular menstrual cycles-menstrual bleeding slows, becomes erratic, and then stops permanently (the process takes about 4 years)
• Hot flashes-flushing of face and chest (may be accompanied by heart palpitations, dizziness, headaches)
• Night sweats
• Cold hands and feet
• Vaginal changes-dryness, itching, bleeding after intercourse
• Urinary changes-frequent urination, burning during urination, urinating at night, incontinence
• Insomnia
• Mood changes-depression, irritability, tension (usually occurs with sleep disturbances)
• Loss of skin tone leading to wrinkles
• Weight gain and change in weight distribution with increased fat in the central, abdominal area

Over time, depleted estrogen levels can contribute to the development of more serious medical conditions, including the following:

• Osteoporosis
• Cardiovascular disease
• Alzheimer's disease
• Macular degeneration (a serious eye disorder and the leading cause of blindness in the Western world)
• Glaucoma · Colon cancer

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