Women using social media to learn more about perimenopause
Endless stress, restless sleep and unexplained weight gain are symptoms many women — and the men who love and live with them — know all too well.
But while they know the symptoms, not everyone is familiar with why they might be experiencing them.
So women and health care practitioners are turning to social media platforms to share more about perimenopause.
Understanding the transition phase
"Perimenopause is really just a couple of years before the final menstrual period," said Dr. Claudia Mason, an OBGYN with Cleveland Clinic Florida. "The fact that PMS and perimenopause can coincide is a real confounder for us, and sometimes we have to manage one or both to help people with the symptoms that they present with."
Like many women in their late 30s and 40s, Rachel Gonzalez was experiencing those symptoms daily.
"My mood swings were like crazy," she said. "I could be super happy and then I could be super depressed. So I just felt like all over the place, like my head couldn't focus. I didn't have energy. I was tired all the time."
Putting others first, delaying care
The 46-year-old mother of four thought she was going "crazy."
She was dealing with bloating, dry skin and hair loss.
But even that didn't prompt her to go to the doctor.
"We put everybody else's needs in front of ourselves and I just said, 'I just need to deal with it and keep going,'" Gonzalez said.
But eventually, she knew she needed help.
Turning to nutrition and lifestyle
So she turned to Angie Morales, a Miami-based Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner.
"Think of it as reverse puberty, OK? So our body is now transitioning, going through really weird phases, and everything that has happened up until that point is no longer working," Morales explained. "Whether you're fasting or you're more resilient to stress, everything just kind of comes to a halt."
Known as @The.RealFood.Mama on social media, Morales teaches her clients, mostly women in perimenopause, how to properly nourish their bodies for this stage of life.
"I have noticed that when you nourish a woman, it can halt the perimenopause symptoms for years. So women are typically lacking nutrition or lacking rest around that time," she said. "We're still caring for kids. We're caring for our aging parents. We're getting promoted at work and you know there's more responsibility at work. We don't stop."
Stress and sleep impact hormones
All that stress leads to a lack of sleep and increased cortisol levels.
Morales helped Gonzalez re-evaluate her diet, focusing on hydration with electrolytes, whole foods, less sugar, and more protein and veggies to help ease her symptoms naturally.
"Some of the other things that I've learned is really focusing on my mental health and working on my mindfulness and just being more present to my thoughts and my feelings," Gonzalez said.
So, while "the change" is inevitable, she now feels she's more equipped to handle it.
"It's a lifestyle change and it's something that is sustainable that I feel like I can carry through and do this for the rest of my life," Gonzalez added.
Combining holistic and medical care
Morales stresses that all of these holistic lifestyle changes can also be made in tandem with more conventional medical treatment. It's dependent on each individual woman.
Dr. Mason said she will do a "therapeutic trial" for patients who come to her looking for symptom relief.
"You can use hormone replacement," she said. "Usually, in the woman that's still having periods, just using a plain birth control pill (low dose) will help them make the ovaries quiet, and then hormone levels are plain, they are not going up and down every day."
She acknowledges that some women may not respond well to that, but she encourages them to keep trying to find what works for them.
"The important thing is to get someone who listens," she said. "Make sure you have a medical provider that listens to you and will pay attention and has an open mind, because sometimes it is hormones."