What Every Woman In Her 30’s Should Know About Perimenopause
1 out of every 5 women will go into perimenopause at the age of 40 so let’s make sure you know what to look for so you don’t spend weeks, months, or years suffering with changes that can be safely managed! Here are the 5 things every woman in her 30’s should know.
How your mother experienced menopause matters
If you have the chance, ask your mom how old she was when she started going through menopause (she may not be able to identify when she went into perimenopause but ask anyway), and what menopause was like for her (Did her mood change significantly? Did she get hot flashes? Did migraines become a big problem for her? Or did she have almost no symptoms?). While it’s not a perfect guide for you, it will give you and your health care provider a lot of insight into what you should watch for and when.
Perimenopause is rarely signaled by hot flashes
Often the first things women notice in perimenopause are shifts in their sleep, reduced tolerance to stress (or increased anxiety), and changes to menstrual cycles (think worsening PMS, heavier flow, or changes in cycle length).
You can still get pregnant if you’re in perimenopause
Perimenopause comes on because your ovaries are starting to slow down, resulting in reduced egg production/ release. This means you are still producing eggs! During this time, as it becomes harder and harder for you to ovulate, your brain will send louder signals to try to keep this process on track. So you may ovulate pretty consistently, you may skip ovulatory cycles, or you might even ovulate more than once per month. Which means you can still get pregnant throughout this entire period of time.
Menopausal weight gain actually sets in during perimenopause
The erratic patterns of estrogen during perimenopause can change how your body responds to insulin and lead to the development of insulin resistance. This can cause progressive weight gain and changes to your body that seem to come out of nowhere, and do not respond to your usual methods of keeping your weight in balance. This makes perimenopause an amazing time to think about wellness support and metabolic disease prevention! Early intervention can help to prevent significant changes in weight, increase in blood sugar and insulin, as well as increases in cholesterol. By looking at the early onset of these possible changes you can focus more on preventing weight gain instead of trying to help you lose weight in 10 years (and reduce the long-term risks associated with those changes).
Your hormones are not gone in perimenopause
The first hormonal change in perimenopause is often the decline in progesterone. However estrogen really doesn’t start to decline until you’re in late perimenopause. When perimenopause first starts estrogen is often very erratic. It can go from a lower-than- normal level to 2-5 times the normal highs we expect to see in a regular monthly cycle, all within a few days (or even within 24 hours for some women). This means that a lack of estrogen is not the biggest problem in perimenopause, low progesterone production is. However those spikes in estrogen can wreak havoc on your body so before we ever consider replacing estrogen in your body, we need to start by helping to gently buffer you from the impact of fluctuating estrogen.
A Final Word
Remember, perimenopause is not a disease. These are all normal hormonal changes that women will go through, but how a woman will respond to those changes can vary dramatically. By thinking about early intervention so you can get ahead of some of these disruptive symptoms and keep yourself feeling as well as possible.
If you want to learn more about naturopathic medicine and how we approach perimenopause you can read more on that here. You can also reach out to us for support!
Ready to make a change?
If you're searching for more guidance and understanding of how you can support perimenopause with naturopathic medicine, you can book a complimentary consult with me here.
Yours in health,
Dr. Hayhlee Clarence, ND