Get up and go has got up and gone.....

[Fedupnagging]

Am mid 40's and have been perimenopausal since about 40 - penny only dropped 12 months ago though.

Have been through various stages inclu no periods for months at a time and lots of flushes, to, at the moment, short light periods, usually 2 weeks late, no hot flushes but very hot all the time.

Despite sleeping ok at the moment, I am tired all the time and don't have very much energy. Have also just come to the end of 10 days of headaches. I believe this is all hormone related - GP did various tests about 10 months ago so no thyroid problems etc.

I exercise regularly and eat fairly healthily and am taking multi vitamins and evening primrose.

Just realised how long this post is - sorry! I just wonder if anyone else is like this and what you do to boost your energy levels?

[TheFarSide]

I'm 50 and perimenopausal. I'm also tired and lacking in energy, but blood tests are apparently not showing anything.

I think hormones cause a lot of symptoms including tiredness but there is no decent clear info on this anywhere.

I cope by pacing myself and generally trying not to overdo things. I try to go to bed at a reasonable time, and I've cut down on alcohol. I also take multivitamins and minerals which seems to help.

I just hope I get my energy back post-menopause, and that this is not a permanent old age thing!

[Eliza22]

I'm knackered, constantly. I sleep well and exercise but, it doesn't matter how much sleep I get.....I need more!

Ridiculous.

I fantasize about sitting on a sunny terrace, nodding, in the sun.

I'm 50

[Fedupnagging]

Thanks for your replies-apparently, the menopause can go on for up to 10 years!

Let's hope someone comes along with the answer!

[Bellaciao]

Are any of you taking HRT?

For me - that is the only answer.

Once you have reached the menopause ( ie your last natural period) the post-menopause last for the rest of your life!

So - oestrogen deficiency is also lifelong after this and everything that goes with it.

For some you never get back to normal ie your youthful self full of energy - because post-menopause the hormones remain at a constant low level.

That's it really - no need to suffer unless there is a good reason not to take HRT - and there are plenty of different products to suit you if you don't hit on the right one straight away.

We repalce insulin for diabetics, thyroxine for those with thyroid problems - oestrogen is no different.

[Ameliagrey]

Bellaciao - sorry if this seems a bit nosey, but have suddenly spotted you on this forum and on the other one you linked to.

Are you a medic by any chance- or responsible for setting up the forum you linked to?

[Bellaciao]

What do you mean - spotted? Are you patrolling it or something?
I thought this forum was open to anyone to join and post?

[Ameliagrey]

Goodness- have I touched a nerve= that seems an odd way to reply.

I simply said that I'd followed the link you had left here to the other forum and seen you posting there. It's obviously a new site, but I couldn't find any "Home" page to it, giving any background or who had set up the site- so wondered if it were you.

MN is an open forum- obviously.

[Finallygotaroundtoit]

Bellaciao, diabetes and throid probs are illnesses. Meno is a natural state, why would it need to be medicated?

[Ameliagrey]

Finally- one point worth bearing in mind- in many ways women's bodies have not caught up with evolution: until relatively recently- say the last 150-200 years- most women died before they reached 50. This is an eyelid-blink in terms of the evolution of homo sapiens which stretches for millions of years.
It is arguable therefore that women were not intended to live another 30-40 years past menopause. But in doing so, they live in an oestrogen-deprived state, with all its attendant problems- such as osteoporosis- affects 1:2 women over 50.

If you talk to a gynae who really knows their stuff- and it's shocking that most GPs don't know this- it's not oestrogen which seems to influence breast cancer, but the 2nd hormone- progestin added to HRT. Women who take just oestrogen have practically no higher risk of breast cancer and some studies show a lower risk. In the case of HRT there are ways of taking it which reduce the progestin intake to a minimum- which you won't get with your standard pill packs.

[throckenholt]

until relatively recently- say the last 150-200 years- most women died before they reached 50.

You are wrong there. Whilst many women did die before menopause, often as a result of complications of childbirth, large numbers made it past that stage and lived to their 60s, 70s or later. It really is a myth that people all died before they were 50.

[Ameliagrey]

Could you show me the evidence please?

I am/was pretty sure that life expectancy up to the 1900s was far lower than it is today.

[Ameliagrey]

Info throcken

h. Although for nearly a century after the 1730s life expectancy had risen steadily, from under 30 to just over 40 years, it remained stationary through the middle quarters of the 19th century, before rising to 47-8 years by 1900 and just over 60 by 1931. This plateau in life expectancy, which did not emerge in Mckeown's analysis, coincided with the most rapid and intense phase of urbanization. Szreter argues that the unprecedented and unplanned growth of overcrowded cities lacking proper water supply and waste disposal facilities was directly reflected in the increasing incidence of the sanitation diseases in the first two thirds of the nineteenth century. This theory is supported by regional variations in life expectancy. For example, in 1840 average life expectancy at birth was 45 years in rural Surrey, but only 26 years in Liverpool, which had trebled in size in 40 years.

[throckenholt]

I have been studying family history for years - have read lots and lots of parish registers. There are thousands of examples of women (and men) living into old age, as far back as the registers go (mid 1500s). We have also looked at evidence from local grave yards (even given that not everyone had gravestones the evidence still stands). Yes many women died young, but a significant minority (probably the majority - not sure) lived into older years. The average life expectancy figures are low because so many children died young, the largest group under the age of 5, but once you take them out of the figures the evidence is that if you made it past childhood you had a good chance of making it to old age.

This pattern does vary from place to place and over time - eg in poor city areas many more people died young of things like consumption, but the general pattern is that lots of people made it a long way past 50.

[Ameliagrey]

throcken- What you are saying is that along the same lines as people who say that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer because uncle Joe smoked 60 a day and lived to 102.

You have to look at the actual stats- the paragraph above was copied from a demographic study of millions of people.

The point you make about the average being low because of childhood mortality is not right. There are plenty of other stats if you want to look which show the life expectancy of men and women who managed to live beyond 5.


You can't compare studying family history and studying gravestones with real academic research which is what I've quoted above.

[throckenholt]

It is a misinterpretation of statistics to say average life expectancy was x so no-one made it past x. You are quoting average life expectancy. A large proportion of babies did not make it past a year, and lots didn't make it past 5. The evidence is however, that if you made it past childhood you had something like a 60% chance of making it to old age. a plot of age at death would show two peaks - one at 0-5 and another broader one that spreads out into old age, for those who survived childhood.

I could dig around of academic papers on this, but I don't have the time or inclination now.

You could wade through http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/people/davenport/davenport2.pdf this if you like but it doesn't really present a graph of age at death, but many of the graphs do imply significant deaths over the age of 50.

My point is only that average life expectancy should not be confused with likely age at death. At birth your likely age at death through most of human history for which we have evidence, was either under 5 or old age.

This is also backed up by archealogical research - older methods based on bone fusion often age people as about 40, but analysis of teeth for the same body put the age much older. I think there was a study of burials in Spitalfields that proved.

My anecdotal evidence just backs this up. Thinking people did not make it past 50 until the recent past is just plain wrong.

And apoligies to OP for hijacking her thread, and Ameliagrey your medical stuff is interesting and hopefully encouraging for OP.

[Ameliagrey]

Throken- the fact is that most women did not live as long as they do now in a post menopausal state. If you look at it from another perspective- man has been on the planet for around half a million years or more. Even if you stopped the clock at 1000AD my point would still stand- that women's bodies did not need to evolve beyond the age at which they could bear children. They would either be eaten by a sabre tooth tiger, or die from the plague, or in childbirth.

[throckenholt]

Ameliagrey

Even if you stopped the clock at 1000AD my point would still stand- that women's bodies did not need to evolve beyond the age at which they could bear children.

My point is you don't have the evidence for that - it is an assumption, commonly espoused in the past but probably now proven to be wrong. Granted maybe we are generally living longer now than in the past. But what evidence we do have is that at least a proportion lived to older age (post menopausal). Whether that was 60+ or 80+ is not relevant.

There have been suggestions that older people were important socially in the development of humans (looking after the younger generation while adults out gathering food).

As far as evolution - anything that happens to an individual post reproduction age will not have any bearing on how the species evolves - no changes will be passed on to the next generation.

I think other species have long post menopausal stages too - eg elephants which I think have very similar breeding ages and life spans.

[throckenholt]

actually thinking about it on an evolutionary level, if longevity is of benefit to an individual on a societal level (eg older members benefit social group as a whole) then natural selection would benefit those who have longevity in their genes.

In terms of evolution there is no need to be able to breed until mid 40s, if you can replace yourself by the time you are 15. So the important factor has to be having at least 2 offspring who can survive to breeding age, in which case being in a society that protects youngsters is important. And older individuals play a part in that.

Arguably those animal species that are longest lived are also those who live in social groups, and natural selection must favour that setup.

[Ameliagrey]

be that as it may...

the simple fact is that as women live longer- and sorry to be picky on this but there is a huge difference between a 60 yr old and an 80 yr old in terms of health- many diseases which affect women- osteoporosis, CVD etc- become an issue post meno.

Women are protected against these before meno.

Also- some of the illnesses that affect women in older age -post meno- would have killed them even 50 years ago- never mind 500 or more. We are being kept alive often by drugs, but the quality of life can often be poor.

I prefer to go with the biological rather than the sociological which seems to show that once women are post child-bearing age their usefulness is questionable and their bodies deteriorate. Given the high rate of child mortality in previous generations, being able to reproduce past the age of 15 was necessary.

[Bellaciao]

Very interesting dicussion

The evolutionary significance of menopause is interesting and I haven't looked into it in detail - just a quick glance at the summary on Wikipedia - which quotes academic sources.

The point about life-expectancy also is not to confuse the female biological/physiological potential average life-expectancy in the ideal environment, with observed average life expectancy - which of course statistically has increased over the years, due to improvements in medicine etc as discussed - and is presumably now becoming closer to the former, which itself may well increase due to further medical advancements.

What is difficult to understand - and what the different theories attempt to explain and which throckenholt discusses, is how such a state evolved (a long post menopausal period ie post reproductive age) as opposed to the age of menopause gradually increasing ( as our observed life expectancy increases) and this being selected for. (ie those who can reproduce for longer will have more children who will then survive to perpetuate these genes) - there must be other factors coming into play as has been suggested.

Finallygotaorundtoit - Anyway back to menopause being a natural state: - that may well be - but so what? so is lacking the gene to produce insulin (or whatever), and a whole host of other mutations that cause hormone deficiency and all sorts of other things like cystic fibrosis, ms - also natural. Viruses and bacteria are natural -we have evolved to become ill through them, as with some parasites. Do we just accept all of these? Medicine and science use "unnatural" methods to reduce suffering eg vaccination. re Oestrogen deficiency as I said has a whole host of unpleasant symptoms and effects on our bodies that do not go away and get progessively worse with age.

Fine if you want to suffer with them - I don't and I was suggesting that no-one else needs to either. I do not consider any form of hormone replacement (insulin, oestrogen, thyroxine) to count as "being medicated" as long as you are using as close as you can to the natural (bio-identical) compound found in our bodies.

Ameliagray - not a raw nerve - just a bit of a weird way of putting things. Yes it is a bit "nosey" as you put it! I'm just here - happily posting!

[Bellaciao]

ameliagray - PS This is the welcome post which tells you about the forum. It is just that - a forum - but has members from S Africa, Oz and NZ as well as UK.
menopausesupport.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=welcome&action=display&thread=4

[ameliagrey]

I'm resurrecting this discussion with a link to a presentation by an eminent consultant who is on the board of the Euopean menopause board- and who knows more than me! In this speech you will see that he says that 200 years ago, only 30% of women lived beyond the menopause- compared with 90% now- worth reading.

nickpanay.com/Papers%20pdf/Menopause%20&%20HRT%20Dewhurst%20Review.pdf

[TheFarSide]

Unfortunately there is not much public information available on menopause beyond the usual list of 4/5 basic symptoms. I have a group of friends my age and it's good to share our personal experiences with each other.

I don't really care about life expectancy beyond menopause stats.

[ameliagrey]

What do you mean by not much public information?

There is loads around but you have to look for it. There are some good books, and also info on the web- you have to search- and some specialist forums.

The point about life expectancy was not one in isolation- it was about spending a thrid of your l ife post menopause and in a hormone deficient state. The link I posted discusses this in detail.

[TheFarSide]

I mean the general public information, like that on the NHS website or even the Menopause Matters website, is fairly superficial - or dealt with superficially. Personally I find it helpful to talk things over with women going through the same process, which is how this thread started, before veering off into an irrelevant argument intellectual discussion about life expectancy statistics.