In this day and age, unfortunately, the first step to the approach of perimenopausal symptoms such as mood swings, anger, and irritability is to prescribe something to soothe us and make us feel better. I would love to hear from my doctor, “what is out of balance that needs to be changed?’ Tell me more about what is going on in your life, how is your stress, are you sleeping at night, how many times do you exercise each week? You know, the questions that would take longer than the 7-15 minutes allotted. Because even if the doctor prescribes the HRT for relief without addressing the underlying issues, then even appropriate does of hormones may not help much and have side effects that could make things worse! Believe me, I have been there and done that and it is not a journey I want to repeat.
Emotional turmoil, stress, weight gain, mood swings, uncontrollable anger can be the trigger to another issue during the hormonal perimenopause. It’s called full-blown depression. Women who are going through this new season in life and having emotional issues in their lives that are not attended to such as midlife losses, children going to college, empty nest, marital changes, which left not fully grieved and released can turn to anger turned inward. Depression, in turn, is very well documented for risk factors in women for heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. Emotional turmoil affects the brain and all its functions. Unbalance virtually guarantees that a women’s hormones will stay unbalanced.
There is hope. I know from my own personal experience that there is hope and I can help you find that path.
