What your Mother Never Told You About Perimenopause

Thank you for reaching out about my 4 part series I am doing on Monday evenings. I believe I have a duty to share my experience and expertise with women so that we don't suffer in silence or suffer at all. So that you know you can improve your symptoms without taking medications. This time our lives should be empowering and beautiful and we should know how to support ourselves so that we feel amazing. Over the next few weeks I am going to begin to share with you how you can do just that

Before you watch my part 1 video let's look at what peri menopause is and the stages we actually go through.

Perimenopause is the time of transition when changes begin to be felt and happen physically, mentally and emotionally in a woman's body as she prepares for full menopause which is the complete stop of her menstrual bleeds (her period) for 12 consecutive months.

Perimenopause can take anywhere from a few years up to 10 years to complete in a woman's body, depending on her lifestyle, her environment, stress, nutrition, movement, sleep, digestion, ability to detox, gut and liver health, supplementation, adrenal and thyroid health and if she has an autoimmune condition.

As we age, our ovaries produce less and less estrogen and begin ovulating less, which in turn decreases our progesterone levels.

These are just two of the many hormones that can shift during the near decade of perimenopause.

● Testosterone ● DHEA

● Cortisol

● Insulin

● Leptin

● Ghrelin

● Melatonin ● Serotonin ● Dopamine

and others are among the collective of ever-changing hormones that work as a team of powerful messengers supporting us through some of our most precious years as a woman.

Our thyroid hormones can often be impacted leading into this time, during and after as well.

The Typical Stages of Menopause

• Perimenopause: Stage 1: Hormones begin to decline; periods become erratic/irregular.
• Perimenopause: Stage 2: Hormones continue to decline; symptoms like hot flashes may increase; insomnia, increased belly fat, periods become more and more infrequent; ovulation stops.
• Menopause Stage 3: Once periods have stopped for 12 consecutive months, a woman is in true Menopause.
• Post-menopause: Stage 4: Occurs the day after the one-year mark of no period.

After the one-year mark of no period, a woman is said to have completed menopause and is now considered postmenopausal.