Everyone should read this book. If you are a woman (or not a cisgendered man), or if you love any women and want to understand what they have to endure, you should read this book.

Perimenopause Power: Navigating your hormones on the journey Perimenopause Power: Navigating your hormones on the journey

As for the last question: according to a 2017 survey by Dr Louise Newson – the Menopause Doctor – only 52 per cent of GPs had any training in menopause management, a fact that saddens Hill: ‘Some people have a very positive experience of perimenopause and menopause, but some lose their self-confidence and identity. There can be really rapid changes – and if you have no idea why, that’s going to cause damage. The early 50s is when women are at greatest risk of suicide. Is it coincidental that that’s when oestrogen drops off a cliff, and you get cognitive and mood changes? For some women, it’s not a big deal. For others, it can be crushing. In a survey by the American Association of Retired Persons, 84% of participating women said that menopausal symptoms interfered with their lives. So as not to call attention to ourselves as women, we pretend it’s not happening.’ Illustration: Hanna Barczyk/The Observer Low doses of an SSRI or SNRI antidepressant can combat hot flashes, as can gabapentin (Neurontin). For heavy or irregular periods, Dr Minkin says you can take a birth control pill or get a progesterone IUD called Mirena. When it comes to herbs and supplements like evening primrose oil or bee pollen, there’s no proven benefit, though some women say that those things make them feel better.The menopause is the time when the ovaries stop releasing an egg each month - it is said to have occurred when you are 12 months after your last period. Many women think of the menopause as the time of life leading up to, and after, their last period, though this is actually the perimenopause. Good idea, I think. We can just take it easy until perimenopause ends. “How long is that, anyway?” I asked.

Perimenopause is a window of opportunity for Maisie Hill: ‘Perimenopause is a window of opportunity for

A healthcare professional can usually diagnose the menopause by the typical symptoms. Hormone blood tests are not usually needed to confirm that you are going through the perimenopause. However, they may be helpful in some cases - for example, in younger women - where perimenopausal symptoms might not be expected. Every woman over the age of 35 should read this. Knowledge is power, and this book certainly gave me a lot of knowledge that I didn’t yet have, and really needed. I now feel much more aware of what may happen in the years to come. The average age of menopause is 51, and menopause itself only lasts for one day, because it simply marks the one-year anniversary of your last period. Sifting through all the advice is hard, especially because it can seem to change with every new headline. In her history of hormones, Aroused, Randi Hutter Epstein writes: “Those of us old enough to be in menopause can’t help but wonder if the experts are going to change their minds again.” Maisie Hill is a menstrual health expert with over 15 years of experience as a practitioner, coach, and birth doula. Maisie knows the power of working with the menstrual cycle and believes that our hormones are there to serve us and help us get what we want out of life.Problems with vaginal dryness and intercourse are another common complaint in perimenopausal women. A drop in hormone levels (predominantly testosterone) is responsible for a reduced or absent sex drive - also called libido. Changes in skin and hair You know,” said JoAnn Pinkerton, executive director of the North American Menopause Society (Nams), “we tell people who are grieving not to make major changes for a year. I don’t think anybody’s ever said: ‘Don’t make a major decision when you’re perimenopausal.’” You are infantilising women!” I heard my mother yell one day when I was a teenager. Alarmed, I went into the kitchen to find her slamming the phone receiver down. Twenty-five years later, struggling with a career that felt over, facing various physical problems and trying to get my child into a good school, I found myself paying a lot of attention to my son’s pet turtle.

Perimenopause: What is it and what can you do? - BBC

Other blood tests or scans may be undertaken in some women, especially if they do not have symptoms which are typical of the menopause and other causes of their symptoms need to be considered. Perimenopause Power is here to change finally, this is a book for women experiencing perimenopause and menopause who want to understand what's going on with their bodies and how to deal with troublesome symptoms, but also gain valuable insights into making menopause a positive and powerful experience--yes, it's possible! It is important that you keep up to date with the national cervical screening programme (smear tests) and breast cancer screening (mammogram) programme, if appropriate. How do I manage perimenopausal symptoms? Although women are less likely to conceive as they age, it is still possible to become pregnant around the time of the menopause. So, if you are sexually active but don't want to be pregnant, you will need to consider contraception, such as coils, barrier methods or birth control pills. Hill herself says that many of us dismiss the idea of the menopause as something that will “happen in our fifties”, but knowledge is power, and understanding your body and its hormones can pay dividends when the perimenopause (the lead up to the menopause), starts. “The average age of menopause in the UK is 51, and it’s sometimes called a second puberty,” Hill says. Second puberty? All the more reason to understand it ahead of time. Menopause is actually just a single day

Instead, NICE guidelines say perimenopause should be diagnosed ‘based on vasomotor symptoms [hot flashes, sweating and heart palpitations] and irregular periods’. ‘Which is why it’s so important to go to your GP with an awareness of what’s going on with your cycle. If someone was to have HRT, that will point to what specific formulations would work well. Ideally it’s an ongoing conversation – as hormone levels change and you maybe go from having plenty of oestrogen to not much oestrogen, then your prescription will shift.’ There was a hitch in this: WHI had been looking at what the hormones did in women aged 50 to 79. The aim was to figure out if this type of hormone treatment could help protect these women from heart disease and other illnesses. It was not about short-term hormone therapy for treatment of symptoms in women in their 40s and 50s. But many midlife women heard only “cancer” and went off HRT immediately.