What Are Pre Menopause Symptoms?

Having trouble sleeping? Do you feel like you just look at food and you gain a few extra pounds without touching a bite? It's not your imagination. It could be your hormones in fact and it affects both men and women. We call it pre-menopause symptoms. We don't have a word for when you start with these symptoms it just happens and no one wants to talk to you about it or explain the symptoms.

We know that women begin to feel more fatigued and they notice their hair and skin being dryer and even your libido goes south and not in a good way. Pre menopause symptoms can include night sweats, hot flashes, migraines, mood swings and even plain old irritability. Sounds a lot like peri menopause doesn't it. The big different is that with peri menopause you still have a fairly regular mensural flow. It may be a few days off or a bit heavier or lighter but it is pretty much the same.

With pre-menopause you will note that your periods are skipped for months and even up to 6 or 8 months. This means your body is getting ready to go into menopause, the cessation of your cycle.

Have you noticed more gray hair or wrinkles? What about other signs of aging? What if you had a chance to slow father-time or even reverse the pull of old age regardless of how old you are now? Just think if you are in your twenties or thirties you may be able to hold off the aging process for a longer period of time and if you are over forty-five dealing with pre menopause can help you reduce your chances of cancer, heart attack, bone lose, stroke, arthritis, and even Alzheimer's.

So how can you get on top of these symptoms and help your health at the same time?

The best laid plans are ones that start early.

Women can begin to enter peri menopause as early as 35 yrs old or the moment you have a hysterectomy. Some where in our mid-thirties a woman's body begins to drop in the production of hormones related to reproduction. You really may only notice more acne this would be due to higher amounts of testosterone. To be clear you aren't making more male hormone you are making less female hormones. Also if you are having children the changes dues to child bearing will imbalance your hormones. The best thing you can do is get a full hormone work up done.

What is the best way to get a hormone workup?

Blood serum results of hormones can be as much as 50% off of the correct readings for your hormones. That is because they are protein bound. This is to stay they are not in the form that is absorbed in your body and the blood shows the excess amounts not the amounts that are in your tissues being used.

Since most health insurance plans do not cover urine or salvia testing of hormones doctors are reluctant to prescribe this kind of hormone test. But you should go the extra mile and pay out of pocket to have the best testing it will pay off with added years to your life that you have full cognitive functions and more if you take your health and aging seriously.

How old should you be when you start looking at your hormones and healthy aging?

Once a woman or man reaches their mid-twenties they can begin to keep track of their hormone levels. This goes against most western science in that you don't bother with it until it's broke or not working right. This would be true if we didn't have high degrees of stress in our lives, birth control medicines, and process or preserved foods in our diet.

What should you do?

If you are experiencing stress, migraines, weight gain, irregular periods, PMS symptoms, insomnia, fatigue, or the more progressed symptoms of pre-menopause like hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, depression, or irritability it's time to start testing at least annually with a salvia or urine hormone test.

In the beginning you likely can correct your hormone imbalance with herbal medicine, nutritional supplementation, and acupuncture. Be sure to work with an Alternative Health Coach to make sure you are using the best quality and right doses. The wrong kind or dose can cause a new set of problems.

Once you hit peri menopause you should begin bio-identical hormones with your Alternative Health Coach who will likely work with a group of medical professionals that can prescribe the bio identical hormone therapy. The key is to start before you hit menopause. If you are serious about anti-aging or not having hot flashes or getting rid of the mood-swings you really are talking about stopping the pre menopause symptoms now!