In A Flash

The years leading up to menopause can be fraught with uncomfortable symptoms. Here’s how to manage them and get on with enjoying your life.

- Jacqueline Kovacs

SOMETIMES DRINKING COFFEE TRIGGERS THEM. SOMETIMES, I wake up in the middle of the night, heat radiating off my chest, hair damp with sweat. Either way, hot flashes are not a welcome part of my life. But it seems like they’re here to stay — or at least until menopause does us part.

Unfortunately, they’re just one annoying symptom of perimenopause, the five to seven years leading up to menopause, the end of menstruation. Many women also suffer with mood swings and depression, sleep disruption, heavy menstrual bleeding and memory problems. And because perimenopause may last up to a decade (see “The Hormone Highway”), these symptoms can take a serious toll on your quality of life.

But the good news is that the worst of perimenopause can be managed — sometimes with lifestyle tweaks and herbal supplements, sometimes with medical intervention. Here’s how.

STOLEN SLEEP

“Sleep,” says Toronto’s Dr. Jennifer Pearlman, medical director and owner of Pearl MD Rejuvenation, “is the Holy Grail of health.” But falling levels of the hormone progesterone — characteristic of early perimenopause — can make falling and staying asleep a struggle for some women.

LIFESTYLE FIX