I cannot believe that something so hateful and profoundly signficant, in an awful way, was just never f*cking mentoned to cisgender women. Like why bother bringing up that when your estrogen depletes you may lose your hair, your muscles, your memory, your homonal balance, your WILL TO LIVE! Like you would think something that significant would get a little bit of press no? But because it's about not about men there's been little to no research about it whatsoever. Doctors, male and female don't know sh*t about perimenopause, because Medical School can't be arsed to teach anything about it.
Menopause itself, (which is only one day btw) is reduced to the butt of jokes at the expense of poor Kitty Forman as though it's some kind of cosmic joke, when in fact it's actually more like this and this and this and this.
In case you haven't yet heard of this demonic enterprise, Perimenopause is what happens before menopause, which is literally only one day. Menopause is the day your period stops and perimenopause happens the 8-10 (give or take) years that lead up to it, your estrogen production slows down and causes all kinds of horrors.
Often when you go to the doctor, because they are woefully undertrained and, in Ontario, woefully overworked, and if you have a male doctor, woefully disinterested you can get a very canned responses to your symptoms that basically handwave everything you are experiencing due to the fact that you are still having your period. This kind of response is useless and wrong. If your doctor tells you to come back when your period ends (as my friend experienced), find another doctor, especially for Black and Indigenous women who have been woefully mistreated, tortured, used and gaslit by the Western Medical Profession, it is so important to advocate for yourself and to listen to your own intuition. If you feel something is wrong don't let anyone tell you different, plow through as many doctors as you need to in order to get to the truth. In fact in a case as specfic as Perimenopause or Menopause, when doctors aren't listening Naturopaths are a wonderful solution because often in my life I've found doctors tend to treat symptoms where Naturopaths (especially female ones) tend to dig until they find the root cause of the problem which is what we really want to address.
Not for nothing but diet is also a factor, with diet of course comes money, financial depression is real when the cost of eggs is $10 just because Galen Weston and his despicable family (or whoever the Westons are in your town or country) want to be even more diabolically rich, but that aside (somehow) studies have shown that perimenopausal symptoms are in fact worse in North America compared to say….Greece or Italy for example who follow the mediterranean diet and don't shove hormones and pesticides in and all over their food like it's their personal goal to kill everyone.
Two books I can recommend that are permanent staples on my bookshelf are Meals That Heal by Carolyn Williams PhD Rd and MenuPause by Anna Cabeca DO, OBGYN. If you choose to read these books please order them from the library or your local small bookstore, I beg you not to give that demon Jeff Bezos nor Indigo money in my name. Find a small independent bookstore where possible and order from them as I did, or order it from your local library and take notes in your Perimenopause Journal. Both these books talk about the benfits of the Mediterranean diet and the importance of eating anti-inflammatory foods high in protein and omega 3 fatty acids like salmon and other fish, nuts, lentils, flax seed chips, arugula. You'll find that going hard on cardio in the gym isn't so helpful anymore, quite the opposite (that one was very upsetting for me) and that lifting heavy weights and doing low impact things like yoga or pilates are much better for reducing belly fat, which is triggered by cortisol which your body is making more of when you go cardio crazy in your perimenopausal stage.
A little side note to this, remember when Madonna (whose current zio incarnation we no longer acknowledge) was constantly snapped running every day then she released the Ray of Light album and had stopped running and gyming and had gotten into yoga, remember the change in her physique from dancer/running back strong to swimmer body and toned. Guess how old she was when that transition happened? Yup.
Anyways, the first step to dealing with the nightmare of perimenopause is the opposite of Fight Club. Talk about perimenopause, in fact don't shut up about it because if you're in your late 30s-40s-early 50s and you feel like you are going absolutely bonkers chances are good you are not going bonkers you are just going through the horrible hormonal horrors of perimenopause. There's no shame in ageing and there's no sense in shame. Anyways Happy (as they can be) Holidays and take it easy as you can, this is the liminal point between the New Year (which is a silly time to start a New Year anyway if you ask this witch) eat well (if you can) do yoga, grieve what needs grieving and meditate but most importantly spend time with people you actually enjoy to keep stress levels low. It's very hard out here, sso do your best.
Joy