Question: 
Why Is Perimenopause so awful?
Short Answer: 
We work with a good number of women in their 40’s and most of them do complain about how difficult Perimenopause is for them. As female hormones begin to decline, but stress levels are high it can cause a wide variety of symptoms. The most common perimenopausal symptoms are weight gain, irritability, and insomnia.
PYHP 096 Full Transcript: 
Download PYHP 096 Transcript
Dr. Davidson: Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Progress Your Health Podcast. I am Dr. Valerie Davidson and I am here joined with my co-host, Dr. Maki.
Dr. Maki: Good morning. How are you today? 
Dr. Davidson: I am doing great. Thanks. 
Dr. Maki: We are experiencing a little bit of almost a torrential downpour this morning. Looking out the window, it is, unfortunately, raining a little bit too hard.
Dr. Davidson: But it is not that cold. So June, June in Washington, Western Washington. What do you expect?
Dr. Maki: Hopefully the sun will come out later this afternoon. So in this episode, I think that we are going to answer a question but it is not an actual specific question. We actually wrote a blog post a while ago. Why is perimenopause so horrible? So we are just kind of playing off that a little bit. That is a blog, this is going to be a podcast, obviously. Why is perimenopause so awful. The same idea, just a little bit of a different title. As of the last few years, I think, the perimenopausal demographic, women in their late thirties to early fifties is probably the majority of the people that we see on a regular basis.
Dr. Davidson: I think you know with perimenopause, it is a little bit of an under-represented, I guess, demographic because it is, you know, it is not menopause but it is not your typical PMS. It is somewhere right in between. So a lot of times women sort of getting blown off and perimenopause is exactly what it sounds like before menopause. It can happen, you know as late as you are in your late thirties and it can last even you know, thirty or early fifties depending on how a female’s ovaries are performing, and when they decide to retire or work part-time or work full time.
Dr. Maki: And their stress level.
Dr. Davidson: And their stress level exactly but I always kind of you know, I do not want to make it so negative. You know, why is perimenopause so awful or so horrible. It is not a negative thing but a lot of women will say that to me like, “This is really awful, what do I do? I cannot stand it. Nobody else can stand to be around me.” But it really has to do with those hormone imbalances. So working on those hormones is completely different in perimenopause than it is with menopause. 
Dr. Maki: Yeah, right. Conventionally, in the medical community, no one is really equipped or prepared to deal with it. Given a woman in her late forties birth control to deal with her menstr