Part of this blog (seems weird to write out…blog. I started a blog.) is wellness and lifestyle related. Personally, a journey is more than a literal journey to a physical destination. It is also the journey of life. Where are we headed? Who are we? What do we want out of our journey? I feel like most people are way better at this than I am. They figure it out. I am not sure I have figured it out; not at all. But in the last say….5 years I started to put this vague idea of wellness way at the top of the list. It isn’t that wellness wasn’t important to me my whole life, it was; rather, I was feeling (and looking…sigh) noticeably older. Ugh. The usual tricks weren’t working. I had to really think about what wellness meant to me now that I was peri-menopausal and middle age… I mean, I feel like I am talking about my mom and grandma when I use those words. How was this me??? It felt like I woke up one morning and boom. Hellloooo menopause. Boo.
For starters, even though menopause happens to every woman, literally half the population of the globe, there is little education about it. Girls go to “puberty classes” and maybe you read about pregnancy and then it stops. Everything you might learn after that is from asking questions or specifically seeking out this information in literature or from mothers, sisters, and friends. Of course, if those friends and relatives are not menopause experts, it consists a lot of different anecdotal accounts. These could resemble your own experiences not at all. Moreover, most women have to be super self advocates to even get their own healthcare providers to address this issue during the actual transition. I was lucky enough to have a provider ask me if I was having any symptoms and suggest HRT immediately but I know from other stories that most women are left in the dark to navigate what can be a harrowing experience. Peri-menopause and middle age are no joke for some women. The suffering can be immense. Brain fog. Rage and irritability. Thinning hair. Weight gain and/or redistribution. Fatigue. Night sweats and hot flashes. Low libido. Frozen shoulder (ask me how I know about this one!). I mean, the list is endless. Helloooo menopause. Boo.
I have no pictures in this blog post because what would these be? I don’t want to insult anyone by posting pictures of people who are crushing mid-life (go fuck yourselves!! I kid!) nor those who look like they have been put through the ringer. So we will just go without. Also note, I am not a doctor and therefore, cannot dispense medical advice.
According to studies, peri-menopause that occurs naturally starts usually mid-40s. I personally noticed a huge difference between 45 and 50 in terms of “aging.” Wrinkles, sleep issues, weight gain, energy loss, brain fog all came roaring in quickly. The old saying that I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself was accurate. I had glasses all over the house. Was increasing my caffeine to compensate for feeling run-down. I was increasingly irritated. To be fair, I had an insane work schedule and traveled every week on airplanes so I was attributing some of this to work. Could still be true. But then around age 50 my periods began to get sporadic and a light bulb went off. A-HA. And I dug into some research and read about ways to alleviate symptoms. I didn’t want to feel like shit during what was supposed to be the prime years of my life let alone the rest of my life!
Changes I made.
I implemented some changes for this period of peri-menopause and middle age. My symptoms were annoying but not life threatening. I was still functioning. I mean, I was at those meetings, on those airplanes, and getting shit done (because this is what women do, right?). But I could tell this was not sustainable. Whatever down time I had I was exhausted, but couldn’t catch up on sleep. My schedule only allowed for sporadic exercise. So what did I do? I started HRT. Yes! The night sweats were becoming more frequent, which was interrupting my sleep even more. The small boost from the patch helped immediately. Literally on the second day my night sweats stopped. My energy also increased. That is what better sleep will do to you! Here I am conquering peri-menopause! Wooot!
Well, this next big step toward middle age wellness was a nuclear option but I retired. HA. After almost 30 years in a career I loved, I decided it wasn’t worth the wear and tear and stress. I didn’t love it enough anymore. So, this is a nuclear option, I get it. Not everyone can retire, but this was the one change that was going to enable me to pay better attention to other things in my life like self-care. YAY! I now have the freedom to exercise every day and eat more regularly. I also generally have the luxury of being consistent with my sleep schedule.
So far, I feel better, which accounts for a lot. HRT isn’t a magic bullet. I have found it a bit tricky getting the dose right. I still have some aches and pains. I still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night for no reason. I still have meno-weight gain. I still lack the energy of a 25 year old, though it is better than the low energy I was experiencing before HRT. There are estrogen receptors in every part of the body, which is why the symptomology can be wide spread and difficult to attribute to menopause. Women tell practioners they are experiencing headaches and are told to take ibuprofen. They complain of fatigue and are told to sleep more. Women complain of bloating and weight gain and are often told to exercise more and eat less…as if we haven’t lived that our entire lives. Night sweats keeping you up? Often times practitioners will simply say, “this is the change and those will eventually go away.” Listen, I guarantee you that if menopause happened to men it would have been cured a long time ago. Instead, women are sometimes branded complainers or hysterical and sent home with encouragement to deal with it. Meanwhile, many, many women are debilitated by symptoms and suffer for years.
I guess I wanted to note that menopause is real and worth talking about. Women do not have to suffer. Moreover, and this is an important point, estrogen has protective benefits for your heart, brain, and bone health. The drastic decline in estrogen in your early 50s does not bode well for women 20 years later, which, in today’s world, is not very old. The lack of discussion around these protective benefits in healthcare settings is astounding. If women knew their bones could remain strong and their risk for cardiovascular disease would be reduced along with symptoms of menopause, do you think they would opt in? At a minimum, I want women to discuss this with their healthcare providers and their sisters and their friends. And, actively seek out healthcare providers skilled in menopause if your practitioner is not listening, dismissive, or otherwise uninterested in helping you live your best life! See NAMS (North American Menopause Society) for a list of providers dedicated to assisting women during this time. Let’s normalize menopause and get back to living.