Perimenopause: What It Means And What’s Happening To You

Perimenopause isn’t exactly the time of life that most women are raring to get into.

But the fact of the matter is, if you are lucky enough to continue living on this Earth, you will make your way through what some people call “reverse puberty.”

And it DOESN’T have to be hell on Earth 😁

Today I’m kicking off a series of posts on perimenopause – what it is exactly, which signs to look out for, what you can do to best support your body during this transition, and the cool things about this stage of womanhood 😎

First, let’s start off with what it is:

✨There’s no truly defined time of when perimenopause (PM) begins. But in reality, your hormones begin to shift around age 35. So there are more than a few experts that say this is essentially when PM begins.

👉🏼 So yes, some women can be in PM for 15-20 years!

✨The main thing that kicks off perimenopause is that progesterone starts to decline. This slow descent is haphazard and depends on a woman’s body, genetics, and how she takes care of herself, particularly her adrenal function.

👉🏼 Less progesterone can throw off the cycle as a whole, leading to anovulatory cycles (where you don’t ovulate), which leads to further progesterone depletion, as you need to ovulate to produce sufficient progesterone. A crazy cycle, indeed.

✨Within perimenopause, there are even more phases, which I like to term beginning, middle, and late PM.

What is the timeline of perimenopause?

➡️ In the beginning (35ish-44ish) things are still usually fairly regulated. You may start to see some estrogen dominance symptoms creep in since that progesterone is starting to drop off, but for some women cycles remain fairly regular. I often see with clients that this is where fibroids, ovarian cysts, and polyps tend to first present themselves.

➡️ Middle PM (45ish-48ish) is when things tend to get noticeably wonky. More fatigue, more PMS, longer or shorter bleeds. At this point, anovulatory cycles are more common place, and for some women, their estrogen is lowering (or more likely, being high one month and low the next).

➡️ Late PM (48ish-50ish) is when things truly become a guessing game. Months go by without periods, and then it randomly appears. Roller-coaster ride of emotions is usually a part of the game. Your dietary and lifestyle needs change radically during this time, and it’s important to let go of how you’ve taken care of your body in the past.

 🙌🏻 Check out my next post, which talks best practices of taking care of your body through early PM. 🙌🏻