Symptoms before menopause

Symptoms before menopause often appear in advance, even before the menstrual function itself is disrupted. This period is called "premenopause". The process of menopause development itself has several successive stages:

1. premenopause – the period from 45 years to the onset of menopause;
2. menopause – the period of the last menstruation, average age is about fifty years;
3. postmenopause – the period from the last menstruation until the end of a woman’s life.

All these periods have their own special characteristics, but the first symptoms appear precisely during premenopause. Often, the symptoms of menopause are expressed significantly and greatly affect the daily activity of a woman. To correct the condition and maintain normal functioning of the body, it is necessary to know the features of changes in the female body during this period.

Symptoms before menopause are often non-specific and can manifest themselves as vegetative and emotional changes. This occurs due to a violation of the regulation of the processes of transmission of nerve impulses due to a gradual decrease in the level of estrogens. After all, throughout her life, a woman has a specific hormonal background, which is due to the concentration of the main female sex hormones - estrogens and gestagens (progesterone). These hormones do not strictly specifically affect the female genitals, they also affect the mental state, regulating the processes of inhibition and excitation in the central nervous system. Therefore, with a deficiency, mood swings are often observed, which often change - in the form of irritability or lability of the psyche, depressive thoughts, restlessness, tension. There is also increased fatigue, sleep disorders such as insomnia or drowsiness, impaired performance and daily activity. There may also be vegetative symptoms with irritation of the parasympathetic nervous system in the form of nausea, vomiting, headache.

A decrease in estrogen levels compensatorily promotes the synthesis of catecholamines, which stimulate the central and peripheral nervous systems. Due to this process, the conductivity of nerve impulses along nerve fibers increases and nervous excitation with "hot flashes" occurs. This concept is quite broad and includes a feeling of heat, increased sweating, palpitations or heart palpitations. Thus, symptoms before menopause most often begin with emotional-vegetative manifestations, but in addition to this, there may be other symptoms from other organs and systems. This is a more serious condition, since the immediate appearance of such symptoms does not allow timely administration of replacement therapy with correction of this period.

Due to the increased level of adrenaline and noradrenaline, the cardiovascular system also suffers, which can also cause the appearance of specific symptoms before menopause. At the same time, the processes of regulation of vascular tone are disrupted, which contributes to periods of spasm of peripheral vessels, increased peripheral resistance and increased arterial pressure. Arterial pressure lability is additionally supported by disturbances in the conductivity of nerve impulses and regulation of excitation and inhibition processes in the central nervous system, which does not control vascular tone.

Another factor that contributes to the development of hypertension is the activation of extraovarian sources of estrogen synthesis - this is adipose tissue, as well as the adrenal cortex, which causes increased synthesis of androgens, leptin, mineralocorticoids. At the same time, their other undesirable effects appear in the form of obesity and water and sodium retention, which affects the development of hypertension. Thus, a symptom before menopause can be arterial hypertension, which arose for the first time or as a severe complication of previously existing hypertension in the form of a hypertensive crisis.

From the cardiovascular system, there may also be changes in the form of interruptions in the work of the heart, paroxysmal tachycardia, and the occurrence of arrhythmias.

Symptoms before menopause may manifest themselves in the form of damage to other organs - bone tissue, blood vessels, but these clinical manifestations occur at a later period, when hormonal deficiency has been observed for a long time. In this case, pain in the leg muscles, heart pain of an angina-like nature, dry skin and the appearance of wrinkles may bother.

It is necessary to say that the main disorders can be observed from the ovariomenstrual cycle. Menstruations become irregular: most often one month is normal, and two or three months are absent. These are typical signs of the onset of menopause. But there may be other options: heavy menstruation once, then absent for six months, or scanty discharge every month with a gradual decrease in their amount. These symptoms before menopause indicate the need for a doctor's consultation and the appointment of hormone replacement therapy.

Symptoms before menopause begin gradually, can often be non-specific and are expressed individually in each woman. In any case, it is necessary to remember about age-related changes in the reproductive system and promptly diagnose the initial manifestations of symptoms. This condition can be corrected by taking hormonal drugs, since correction of estrogen levels can reduce the severity of clinical manifestations.

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