Perimenopause Power: Navigating your hormones on the journey to menopause

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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.’ I started my periods when I was 10, and so while I'm only in my mid 30s now, I really wouldn't be surprised if I started perimenopause early too - based on what I've learned about perimenopause recently (and what I've unlearned because what I thought I knew isn't true) I may already be experiencing it. 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. 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. Typically, perimenopause starts and we don’t even know it. “Often, production of progesterone tapers down first so you get a shorter cycle and might have fertility issues, premature spotting and insomnia,” explains Hill. “And because oestrogen and progesterone are two hormones on a see-saw, when progesterone drops, oestrogen goes up.” When oestrogen rises, rage and irritability become common, as well as bloating, breast tenderness and brain fog. You can also suffer painful joints, vaginal dryness, problems with memory and verbal recall, forgetfulness and other changes in cognition and mood, most of which occur towards the end of perimenopause, when your period is about to stop for good. “Hormones affect everything, and because you have such low levels of oestrogen, it can affect a lot of things,” says Hill. It’s often misunderstood – even by healthcare professionals

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

Given the history of medicine in relation to women, and how underserved women still are by the medical community, it is no surprise that data and research on perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause is limited. I know that some of you will be in the early stages of perimenopause and trying to conceive. And thinking about it, one of my clients has just started using progesterone to improve her perimenopausal symptoms. And her GP actually cautioned her that her fertility could increase, so, to be careful and use contraception. Okay, let’s get onto the big one, number four, true or false. HRT is dangerous. So I’ve already given you a little bit of a clue, but let’s get into it. So I’m going to guess that a lot of you think that I’m going to slate HRT but I am not. There’s a whole chapter about HRT in the book, so you can get the full lowdown when you read it. But the short version of it is that I am onboard with HRT. I actually prefer calling it menopausal hormone therapy, MHT which is how a lot of the scientific literature now refers to it. And I explain why in the book. But I am very thrilled to have a studio space to escape to and focus on my work because that’s what this phase of my cycle is all about. I really love to just get down to work, focus on what’s important to me, and finish things up before my cycle ends. So today I’ve got some podcast recordings to do and ones where I’m guesting on other people’s.We ended up getting her into counselling as well as on to oral contraceptives. The contraceptives calmed the hormones down and then doing some counselling let her start to see some of the stressors that were hidden. Now, the reason for this is that hormone levels fluctuate while in perimenopause. And sometimes they’ll be the same as someone who is premenopausal, as in not going through perimenopause. So blood tests just aren’t a reliable way of determining if you’re in the club or not. Now, there are times when they might be appropriate and useful such as if you’re experiencing symptoms kind of earlier than you might expect these symptoms to start appearing. Then your GP might recommend them. So as not to call attention to ourselves as women, we pretend it’s not happening.’ Illustration: Hanna Barczyk/The Observer Number seven, there’s no benefit to the menopause transition. What do you think, true or false? This is an important one and especially after everything I’ve mentioned so far it can sound like this is all going to be pretty shit, there’s going to be no positives to this. And for sure this one is very much down to opinion. But for me this is false. Do bear in mind that I’m on this side of it, not the other side of it. 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.

Menopause - NHS

I have been socialised to be good and polite; rewarded for being compliant and kind; trained to desire praise for being a good girl. And I am utterly ill-equipped to express the rage that I feel. It scares me and I fear what happens next I am stepping out of the parameters of my being and inhabiting that anger. I am on fire....I am embracing my peculiarities, moving from self-improvement to self-love. I am standing in the mirror and appreciating everything I bring to the world. I am stepping into my power and owning it like I never have. I am finding my Perimenopause Power." In this book, the author goes through the different symptoms offering insights into different ways of dealing with them - from food, to vitamins, exercise etc - and I really appreciated the straightforwardness of the way it was written. It didn't go over your head or get too technical, it just gave it to you bluntly and was full of some really wonderful practical and useful advice,alongside diagrams and graphics to help illustrate the points. It's also full of positivity and different coping mechanisms to ease you along! Maisie Hill, the highly qualified women's health expert, best-selling author of Period Power and founder of The Flow Collective , takes us through the physiological changes of perimenopause and menopause, step by step, with calm positivity. In this invaluable guide she shares tips and advice to support women through the challenge of wildly fluctuating hormones. This was a really valuable and illuminating insight into the world of the perimenopause, and it just felt so good to read and get to understand what is going on with our bodies!!What I liked most was the supportive tone, the confirmation that women aren't going mad at this point in their lives, that it's okay to see the doctor, and it's okay to push for something better than 'you might need anti-depressants' as an answer. After taking our children to see the latest Star Wars, a friend and I sat at her dining table while the kids ran around. “It’s just too hard,” she said. “This has ruined my life! Two years without sleeping through the night! Two years with hot flashes! Two years with no energy.” Dr Pinkerton gave me an example: “A woman came into my office and said, ‘I hate my husband. I hate my marriage. I need to get out of this.’ The husband had called me earlier and said, ‘I’ve noticed that my wife is really having exaggerated responses to things around the time of her periods.’