perimenopause, interesting article about chaotic and excess oestrogen and

[FrameyMcFrame]

http://www.bcmj.org/article/clearing-confusion-about-perimenopause

[PollyPerky]

Can you sum up the article Framey as it's very long and 'medical'?

What is it trying to prove and where is the conclusion?

I've not had time to read it all, but at first glance, my view is that a) it's 11 years old , b) it's from the US / Canada where research into menopause and treatment differs from the UK and c) it says that 20% of women [in the study or the population?] have peri symptoms - this is a gross underestimation as the figures in the UK are 75-80%.

[FrameyMcFrame]

The general idea is that menopause and perimenopause have a different set of symptoms and causes.

In Perimenopause estrogen levels fluctuate chaotically which causes a different set of symptoms to just the low levels in menopause itself.

The article discusses the difficulties of treating perimenopause.

[PollyPerky]

Yes, that's true.

That's why in peri, HRT can give you a constant 'drip' of oestrogen to try to balance out the highs and lows (and why blood tests are useless during peri) and why post-meno although oestrogen is lower, for life, it is less erratic.

[FrameyMcFrame]

Often women are prescribed birth control pills in perimenopause rather than hrt.
This is for women who are still having regular periods so still producing high or erratic levels of hormones.

Because birth control pills have much higher levels of hormones than HRT they override your own hormone production completely signalling your ovaries to take a break... So then you get just what's in the pills rather than adding excess estrogen and progesterone when you might have way too much anyway in some parts of your cycle.

Adding more hormones by using HRT may actually make the symptoms worse in perimenopause.