The Menopause - Symptom - Sign - Early Menopause

What will happen to me at my menopause?

Throughout your reproductive years, your ovaries have two essential functions - they release both eggs and hormones (Q 2.3). Ovarian hormones are responsible for your female physical characteristics, such as breast development, general body shape and the menstrual cycle and they are fundamental in those indefinable qualities called femininity. When we speak of the menopause, we usually mean the time in a woman's life when the ovaries cease to function doctors call this ovarian failure. The medical term for this phase of a woman's life is 'the climacteric'. It may affect you for a matter of a few weeks or months but may continue to be a problem for several years.

The menopause is defined by doctors as the final natural menstrual period and compares to the menarche which is the first period. The menopause is only one event of the climacteric just as the menarche (puberty) is one event during puberty when there are a whole range of physical and emotional developments. The menopause is the time when you cease to have natural reproductive capability. It is also a time when the majority of women experience a variety of physical and emotional symptoms including, night sweats and mood swings. These symptoms will usually respond to hormone replacement therapy (HRT:Q 27.1).

In association with a normal menopause, periods become lighter and less frequent. Many women, however, experience heavier periods before the menopause. These should be investigated.

Why does nature put women through the menopause?

A baby, although destined to have the mental ability and dexterity that is greatly superior to any other species, is delivered into this world at a relatively early stage of development and is totally reliant on parental care. Nature does not allow a child to bring a baby into the world and similarly avoids a baby having a mother who is beyond middle age. During reproductive years, most of the oestrogen (female hormone -Q 2.9) produced in your body comes from the cells in your ovaries that surround eggs reaching maturity. The ovarian hormones have to be linked to the development of eggs so that the required cyclical changes of the endometrium (lining of the womb; Figure 2.3) are synchronised appropriately in preparation for a possible pregnancy.

From the menopause onwards, the ovaries have run out of eggs and, as a result, the amount of oestrogen in the blood falls. Nature has not decreed that women should suffer from oestrogen deficiency following the menopause: it is simply that nature's way of providing oestrogen is to link it to egg development. Inevitably the menopause heralds the arrival of a naturally induced sex-hormone deficiency state in otherwise healthy women.