Hormonal changes during Perimenopause

So, what exactly is causing all these physical and emotional changes in your 40’s?

During perimenopause, the years leading up to Menopause, you may experience any number of changes in mood as well as physical changes, maybe some of the symptoms listed in my What is Perimenopause blog article will ring true for you.

And why is this happening? Well, it’s your hormones. And not just your sex hormones, known as progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone, there’s others involved, stress hormones in particular, but our sex hormones are the main instigators so that’s what were going to fucus on.

During perimenopause the first thing that happens is that progesterone levels lower, and when that happens you may experience some of the following.

Symptoms of low progesterone:

• Feeling of anxiety

• Your periods may become irregular

• Your cycle length may shorten

• You may get spotting in the luteal phase of your cycle, although you should always get this investigated if you're worried. Note, The Luteal phase of your cycle is the days or weeks after you have ovulated, before your period comes or pregnancy occurs.

• Depression

• Water retention

• Migraines

  Secondly oestrogen peters out, but not without some major ups and downs. And when that happens you may experience:

  High Oestrogen:

• Breast pain

• Heavy periods

• Fibroids (non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the womb (uterus) and vary in size. They can cause heavy periods, pain, infertility and other complications, and are linked to the hormone oestrogen.)

• Fluid retention

• Irritability

• Anxiety

  Low Oestrogen:

• Depression

• Anxiety

• Weight gain

• Hot flushes/night sweats

• Insomnia

• Hair loss

• Vaginal atrophy

• Vaginal dryness

• Inflammation

• Muscle aches and pains

Now you may be reading this thinking but I have symptoms of both high and low Oestrogen, and low progesterone, what's going on?

Well, our hormone levels change throughout the day and throughout the weeks of our cycle (which is what makes blood testing for perimenopause so inaccurate) so it would make sense that you have a range of symptoms and some that might cross over.

What I would recommend you do, is take 5 minutes now to write down the symptoms you’ve experienced, and do this every few days from now on (or daily if life allows) and over time you may seem a pattern forming that helps you to work out which stage of perimenopause you are in. Or maybe it just reassures you that you are perimenopausal, which I certainly found a relief to know.

Please let me know if you have any questions from the blog above or if anything isn’t quite clear heather@deavilleyoga.com I’d love to hear from you!

I’s also highly recommend this blog post from Lara Briden, which includes a great graph of what goes on with your hormones throughout your life.