Do You Have These Pre-Menopause Symptoms?
In the years before you really start missing your periods and routinely having hot sweats, your body goes through any number of pre-menopause symptoms. Just as some women are crippled during their period and other women aren’t bothered by it at all, pre-menopause symptoms differ in type and severity from woman to woman. You can start pre-menopause symptoms as early as your 30’s, especially if you’ve never had children or are being treated for a major illness like cancer. The length of your pre-menopause also differs from woman to woman. Some only have them for a couple of years - others as long as ten.
Call The Doctor Symptoms
Although these pre-menopause symptoms are normal and usually harmless, sometimes they may also be warning signs about other health problems. These are especially alarming if you’ve never had them before. Pre-menopause symptoms worthy of a doctor’s appointment include heart palpitations, tingling in your hands or your feet, suicidal thoughts, severe headaches and fainting.
Milder Symptoms
No, it’s not hot in here and yes, it is you. Hot flashes can happen anytime, even when you are sleeping. Your face turns red; you feel as if you’ve suddenly stepped into Atlanta in August and you sweat suddenly so much that it often saturates or stains your clothes. The first ones are alarming, but after a while you get used to their length and severity and you become like people who live next to a railroad - you stop noticing the trains going by after a while. If, however, you faint or the sweats give you insomnia or panic attacks, see your doctor.
Other symptoms include sudden cravings for junk food, especially chocolate, more mood swings than usual, spotty or irregular periods, forgetfulness, feeling very tired for no reason in the afternoon, sudden inexplicable weight gain, aching joints, problems sleeping (especially waking up a lot), skin complaints (especially itchy skin, whether all over or in patches) and depression. Some women also get extremely heavy periods when they never have before, have tender, swollen breasts all of the time, and loose their sex drive. Some women feel overwhelmed and scared. Some women don’t have a darn thing happen to them.
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One
The two major things you can do to ease the severity of pre-menopause symptoms is eat a healthy, balanced diet and exercise regularly. You can never get away from the dieting and the exercise anywhere, can you? You need more water and more calcium because your bones will be getting weaker as a side affect of less hormones. You also should cut down on caffeine, smoking, the sweetener aspartame and alcohol, which can aggravate all of these pre-menopause symptoms.
