Whats Menopause:
Body composition and cardiovascular risk can also be affected. Women’s advantage over men in terms of cardiovascular disease gradually disappears with the significant decline read what he said in oestrogen levels after menopause. Menopause can also result in the weakening of the pelvic support structures, increasing the risk of pelvic organ prolapse.
This could increase your risk of developing cavities or gingivitis. Certain things in your daily life could be triggers for hot flashes. To help relieve your symptoms, try and identify these triggers and work around them. This could include keeping your bedroom cool at night, wearing layers of clothing or quitting smoking. However, most people experience symptoms of menopause for less than five years. Contact a healthcare provider if you’re unsure if your symptoms are related to menopause or another health condition.
Some may be part of aging rather than directly related to menopause. Explore findings from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) ‘ a multi-site, long-term study funded by NIH ‘ in this series of fact sheets covering bone health, memory and cognition, hot flashes, and more. Menopause symptoms typically last for seven to 10 years, though your timeframe may vary, and they can range from mild to severe.
As levels of estrogen decrease, you could have various symptoms. Many women experience mild symptoms that can be treated by lifestyle changes such as avoiding caffeine or carrying a portable fan. Some women don’t require any treatment at all, but for others, symptoms can be more severe. The severity of symptoms varies greatly around the world more info and by race and ethnicity. While the menopausal transition may commonly be referred to as “menopause,” true menopause doesn’t happen until one year after a woman’s final menstrual period. For that reason, a woman who does not want to get pregnant should continue to use birth control for at least a full 12 months after her last period.
Menopause is the time when your menstrual periods stop permanently and you can no longer get pregnant. Some people call the time leading up to a woman’s last period menopause. This time actually is the transition to menopause, or perimenopause. After menopause, your body makes much less of the hormones estrogen and progesterone.
Hormone therapy is not the only way to treat certain menopause symptoms. For instance, those who need a non-hormonal alternative to help with hot flashes can try a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant drug like Prozac, Celexa and others, notes Dr. McGovern. ‘Similarly, sleep disturbances can be treated with SSRIs in addition to hormone replacement therapies,’ he says. Typically, hormone therapy is a combination of estrogen and progesterone’depending on whether a woman still has her uterus’and can come in many forms including pills, patches, gels and creams, she adds. Fatigue can be a distressing and sometimes debilitating menopause symptom. This could be the result of lower quality sleep as a result of hot flashes and night sweats or due to hormonal fluctuations themselves.
Smoking, along with age of onset, race, and ethnicity, can all affect how long perimenopause symptoms last. This fact sheet refers to ‘women’ in alignment with the available data, which does not routinely identify gender identity. There is a paucity of readily-available data on trans and gender diverse experiences of menopause. Trans and gender diverse people have unique age-related health needs that clinicians should consider, image source including referral to specialist services when necessary. During perimenopause and following menopause, it is still possible to acquire sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, through unprotected sexual contact, including oral, anal, and vaginal sex. The thinning of the vaginal wall after menopause increases the chances of lesions and tears, thereby increasing the risk of HIV transmission during vaginal sex.
In the postmenopausal stage, your risk for heart disease can increase. Talk with your doctor about making lifestyle changes to protect yourself against heart disease and other age-related diseases. The change from perimenopause to menopause can take several years.
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Your cycles will become irregular, but they haven’t stopped. Even though you might notice symptoms like hot flashes, you can still get pregnant. Women may not know that symptoms they experience are related to menopause, or that there are counselling and treatment options that can help alleviate discomfort. Those experiencing menopausal symptoms may feel embarrassed or ashamed to draw attention to their experiences and ask for support.