Call us on 0844 557 9658
The menopause is a perfectly natural event – even though many experts make it sound more like an illness which somehow needs to be “cured”. As you go through the stages of the menopause you are likely to experience a variety of symptoms – some more common than others.
The most common symptoms seem to be:
During the Perimenopause the pattern of your periods will change, becoming more irregular and erratic. They may also become heavier than previously.
Because the biological processes controlling the hormones which trigger periods developed in a time when few people lived beyond middle age, our fertility starts to reduce after our twenties. Some variation to the menstrual cycle thereafter is not uncommon, although not always noticeable.
However, some women can carry on right up to the point of their Menopause with little change to their cycle, but for others their periods may be erratic for a few years.
The conclusion is that its difficult to judge exactly when a change to the menstrual cycle means you’ve entered into the Perimenopause.
The majority of women experience these at some time during the menopause. When we were thinking about setting up this website, we asked an independent research company to run a survey of 200 menopausal women, and 70% of those who reported symptoms had experienced these daytime hot flushes as well as night sweats.
There’s no telling when they’ll happen or how frequently. Some women experience mild symptoms, but others have reported quite distressingly severe hot flushes. They start in the core of the body and rapidly spread out to leave you hot, flushed and sweaty. In extreme cases you can end up with uncomfortably wet clothes.
At night you can awake, heart thumping, finding yourself with soggy pyjamas and unpleasantly damp and cold bedding – and an unhappy partner!
This can affect your life greatly, leading to a feeling of not being in control, with the general listlessness and lack of energy that goes with lack of sleep. It doesn’t help that we may be going through the menopause at the time of great turmoil in our domestic lives – children may be leaving home, decisions have to be made about our future lives and our partners may also be going through a form of male menopause, questioning their own futures etc.
We may be going back to work after a career break, having to share a workplace with much younger people – it can all lead to lack of confidence and unhappiness.
This is what got me started on this project – I tried to find clothes, bedding and products that would help me cope and it wasn’t easy. But with much research and help, we’ve come up with a range of products all aimed at specifically relieving the symptoms of the menopause experienced by so many women.
In our survey over 70% of respondents said they’d experienced “mood swings”. Typically these involve short-temper, irritability, anxiety and depression. You know you are having them, but can’t seem to do anything to stop them.
Those of us with children who’ve been through their teenage years, will be well aware of the behavioural and emotional swings which they experience, and how difficult these can be for them and everyone around them. However, it seems unfair that we’ve reached middle age and now have to cope with something similar ourselves.
Two thirds of the survey respondents felt that they’d seen an increase in aches and pains. Apparently this is linked to low levels of oestrogen. Again, it seems unfair that just when we might have more time to spend on exercise, our bodies start complaining!