Everyone knows that peri-menopause symptoms are hot flushes and night sweats. These are the most known tell-tale sign that you are in mid-life transition.
But what about all the other things that seems to be happening to you....
Are they due to peri-menopause too?
Most likely!
Let's explore further, regarding our sex hormones, and find out what sort of symptoms we might attribute to peri-menopause.
Firstly, our progesterone drops.
With progesterone known as our 'happy hormone', one common sign of dropping progesterone is moodiness, sadness, frustration, anxiety and anger.
Other early signs of peri-menopause that are linked to low progesterone include:
Poor sleep
Headaches
Irregular periods
Now lets combine that with oestrogen.
As we draw closer to our 2nd puberty, oestrogen levels go slightly crazy.
While our progesterone drops slowly, our oestrogen rises and drops continuously - sometimes reaching levels higher than ever throughout a women's lifetime. These high highs, bring with them big, dumping lows. It's no wonder our body is getting confused signals and our mood is affected.
Oestrogen has an affinity with our central nervous system. So symptoms of imbalanced oestrogen can include nerve changes - such as feelings like tingling, crawling and pins and needles.
Tinnitus or 'ringing in the ears', can be an annoying symptom linked to drops in oestrogen. It is known that we have oestrogen receptors in the ears, but science has still yet to explain exactly how low oestrogen affects the ears.
Oestrogen also affects how much saliva we make. With a loss of oestrogen comes less saliva which may result in burning tongue (or mouth) syndrome. Like the name suggests, symptoms here include burning, scalding or tingling of the tongue, mouth or lips.
Dizziness. Yes, oestrogen has its hand in blood sugar regulation too. Drops in oestrogen can prelude drops in blood sugar levels, resulting in dizziness. As mentioned above, the ears are affected by oestrogen levels (as are the eyes!). This contributes to dizziness, being all of a sudden 'clumsy', poorer eye sight (hello reading glasses!) and increased (or new) headaches and migraines.
Another link to oestrogen receptors in unexpected places, is dry eyes.
Dry eyes can feel like sand in the eyes, burning, stinging, or even excess watery eyes. Less oestrogen equals less fluid released to moisten our eyes (and in the case of excess watery eyes, its because of this loss, that the body makes more tears for lubrication instead!).
Allergies are another interesting one that people don't associate with peri-menopause.
Sneezing more these days? Finding you can't handle drinking alcohol anymore? Certain foods not tolerable anymore?
It seems oestrogen can activate histamine (the chemical produced when the body determines there is an allergen present), and likewise, histamine can stimulate more oestrogen.
During peri-menopause, when the we see high levels of oestrogen, the body also releases mast cells that release histamine, and this increases inflammation, causing a variety of symptoms including: allergies, food sensitivities, eczema, headaches, anxiety and even digestive bloating.
Peri-menopause can be a wild ride - but it doesn't have to!
If you are noticing strange symptoms - maybe it means you have started peri-menopause and it may be time to focus more on your health.
Bookings available through the website www.thenaturopathiccareclinic.com