How long does the menopause last? Symptoms of the menopause can start months or even years before periods stop completely. They usually continue for around 4 years after your last period, though some women's symptoms continue for much longer.
Managing menopause symptoms without HRT
Cutting back on alcohol, caffeine, and spicy foods, and quitting smoking, can minimize your hot flashes. Exercising regularly can reduce your risk of weight gain, as well as symptoms of hot flashes and disrupted sleep.
Skin health, sexual and bladder function will all be impacted by lack of estrogen. The skin will become drier and so will the lining of the vagina. The impaired blood supply in these tissues of the vagina, for example, impacts on cell repair, nutrition and sexual response.
The menopausal transition most often begins between ages 45 and 55. It usually lasts about seven years but can be as long as 14 years. The duration can depend on lifestyle factors such as smoking, age it begins, and race and ethnicity.
Postmenopause is the time after menopause, when a woman hasn't experienced a period for over a year. Postmenopause, you will no longer have periods but some women do continue to experience symptoms of menopause.
While menopause symptoms will disappear for most women four to five years after their last cycle, symptoms can occasionally surface many years later in a mild form. Hot flashes are one of the most common menopause symptoms that women experience years after the disappearance of most of them.
The menopause can last as long as 12 years, and is likely to affect women from certain groups for longer than others, a major new study has concluded. Women suffer from hot flushes and other symptoms, such as night sweats, for an average of around seven years, according to the US research.
“There's a window of about eight years in which women can feel those flashes and sweats,” Dr. Audlin says. Women who have reached menopause can expect menopause symptoms to become worse than they were during perimenopause, the 2- to 10-year stage leading up to the permanent end of menstruation.
Although hormone replacement may improve many menopausal symptoms, it is not safe for every woman. Hormone replacement therapy is usually not prescribed to women in the following categories: diagnosed with breast, or other hormone-sensitive cancers.
Most women are able to stop taking HRT after their menopausal symptoms finish, which is usually two to five years after they start (but in some cases this can be longer).
There is no specific age cut-off for starting HRT.
The most widely cited natural remedy is soy, which is very high in phytoestrogens, or plant estrogens. Other sources are red clover and flaxseed, both of which are available as supplements.
Jowls, slack skin, and wrinkles
Studies show that women's skin loses about 30% of its collagen during the first five years of menopause. After that, the decline is more gradual. Women lose about 2% of their collagen ever year for the next 20 years. As collagen diminishes, our skin loses it firmness and begins to sag.
Welcome to Postmenopausal Life
In fact, it's during perimenopause (months or years before menopause occurs) when the main side effects happen. You achieve menopause itself 12 months after your final period, and you are then in the phase call postmenopause.
“We discovered that menopause speeds up cellular aging by an average of 6 percent,” said Horvath, who is also a professor in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “That doesn't sound like much but it adds up over a woman's lifespan.” Take, for example, a woman who enters early menopause at age 42.
Menopause Symptoms Can Last Decades
A major new study by the Mayo Clinic found that a large portion of women experience hot flashes, night sweats and other symptoms not only in midlife but also into their 60s, 70s and 80s.
Plant-derived estrogens (phytoestrogens) — Plant-derived estrogens have been marketed as a "natural" or "safer" alternative to hormones for relieving menopausal symptoms. Phytoestrogens are found in many foods, including soybeans, chickpeas, lentils, flaxseed, lentils, grains, fruits, vegetables, and red clover.
It is not usually appropriate for women over 60 to be starting HRT but as the WHI study shows, women initiating it over 60 years do not seem to be at increased risk of cardiovascular events or mortality. Many women seek advice on the effects of HRT on sexual activity and desire.
A Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center study involving postmenopausal, overweight, and obese women who took 2,000 IUs of vitamin D daily for a year found that those whose vitamin D blood levels increased the most had the greatest reductions in blood estrogens, which are a known risk factor for breast cancer.