Hi Friends!
I just turned 50 this year and am starting official menopause. Wow, what a journey it is. I am pretty sure that some of you who started with me so many years must be there too. While I am not having a terrible time, I still have all the usual symptoms like fucking hot flashes, dryness, irritability (damnit) and the worst, insomnia now. I guess all the symptoms have been creeping up on me for some time now. I have them mostly managed but trust me I had to learn a whole new world to get good at menopause and I think I am have some mastery over this very unusual time of transition in my life.
I guess most women start going through peri-menopause around 35. That's when your cycles start to change, they can get longer or shorter, more PMS (damnit) and either less or more bleeding and truthfully, that is the time to start managing it. I have been treating a bunch of women with their menopausal symptoms and it seems the more we can get things handled before that last period, the better they fare when the sun finally sets on that part of our lives.
What I found, is that most women just fucking suffer through all of this, thinking, well it's the “change” and there is nothing to do about it. Don’t worry if this is you. I was kind of even doing it too for a while and then I thought “this is kind of BS, I need to get this handled not only for me but for all my girls (that’s yall) who will at some point be going through this as well.
So I am writing to ask you to please not suffer needlessly. Happy to chat by email or see you in the office. I am having fun being witness to this transition for so many women that I got to work with while they were working on having babies. Shoot, I have even seen a few daughters in the clinic who need support as they start their journeys into their reproductive life cycle.
So to recap:
If you (or any of your friends) are having ANY of these symptoms and don’t want to. Please call me. I can help. :)
Hotflashes/nightsweats
Irritability
Dryness
Fatigue
Brain fog
Cycle irregularity
Heavy bleeding-this one is important because it can literally drain you and make all of this exponentially worse
Scanty bleeding-I realize it seems like a blessing but it is an indicator you may have worse hot flashes (remember blood deficiency?)
Bad PMS
SUPER IMPORTANT POP QUIZ QUESTION: At what age is the highest prevelence of unplanned pregnancy?
45
Yes, there it is 45. I know you might be thinking, well I struggled to get pregnant, I probably don’t have to worry now. Trust me if you are not looking to have more children, even if you have low AMH and high FSH, you can still get pregnant, so be careful!!
Love you!
Kirsten