A List of 35 Things

 

Intermittently over the last year I've gotten dizzy...sometimes just lightheaded, other times a full spinning sensation with nausea. Just last month I had to call my husband to drive us home from the library, due to my sudden vertigo sensation.

In college vertigo came on due to high stress, so I pretty quickly decided I was under stress again.

But this month when it happened at AWANA I decided to investigate a little.

I want to share a list with you that just might save you beautiful, thirty-something ladies some money and stress in your next decade.

A lot of strange things can happen before you enter menopause. If you're 33 years old, don't read that word menopause and click out of this article. Give me a minute?

Women have incorrectly been diagnosed with Meniere's Disease and other disorders, after spending a lot of money on tests, when all along their issues were related to the hormonal imbalances occurring in the years before menopause.

Turns out, my vertigo comes only mid-cycle, along with heart palpitations....both of which are normal but less-discussed aspects of perimenopause and menopause. You don't have to skip cycles to be in perimenopause; at first the changes might go unnoticed. For example, your cycle might gradually come a few days sooner, be heavier and mimic endometriosis. Eventually it might come every 2 - 3 weeks before disappearing for a few months altogether. Then it might come four months apart consistently for a couple years.

Each woman is different, but hormones are powerful chemicals affecting many bodily functions, so multiple symptoms are likely.

The sad thing is, few doctors know much about perimenopause, or that neurological and heart symptoms during this time can be quite normal.

So, please, quickly look over this list and keep the possibilities in the back of your mind, before stressing about your possible brain aneurysm the first time the room starts spinning and the headaches keep coming.

And share it with your 40-something friends, if they start having medical tests done? Changes can occur in the late thirties and early forties, but age 45 is when the first subtle changes usually arrive. The symptoms can go on for several years before a woman is past the entire process and said to be menopausal.

About 15% of men go through similar experiences between ages 45 and 50. If you had high blood pressure during pregnancy, that is said to be a predictor of a more symptomatic menopause transition. Wonderful.

source here


1. Hot flashes, flushes, night sweats and/or cold flashes, clammy feeling
2. Irregular heart beat
3. Irritability
4. Mood swings, sudden tears
5. Trouble sleeping through the night (with or without night sweats)
6. Irregular periods; shorter, lighter periods; heavier periods, flooding; phantom periods, shorter cycles, longer cycles
7. Loss of libido
8. Dry vagina
9. Crashing fatigue
10. Anxiety, feeling ill at ease
11. Feelings of dread, apprehension, doom
12. Difficulty concentrating, disorientation, mental confusion
13. Disturbing memory lapses
14. Incontinence, especially upon sneezing, laughing; urge incontinence
15. Itchy, crawly skin
16. Aching, sore joints, muscles and tendons
17. Increased tension in muscles
18. Breast tenderness
19. Headache change: increase or decrease
20. Gastrointestinal distress, indigestion, flatulence, gas pain, nausea
21. Sudden bouts of bloat
22. Depression
23. Exacerbation of existing conditions
24. Increase in allergies
25. Weight gain
26. Hair loss or thinning, head, pubic, or whole body; increase in facial hair
27. Dizziness, vertigo, light-headedness, episodes of loss of balance
28. Changes in body odor
29. Electric shock sensation under the skin and in the head
30. Tingling in the extremities
31. Gum problems, increased bleeding
32. Burning tongue, burning roof of mouth, bad taste in mouth, change in breath odor
33. Osteoporosis (after several years)
34. Changes in fingernails: softer, crack or break easier
35. Tinnitus: ringing in ears, bells, 'whooshing,' buzzing etc.