Six months into my 47th year, I hit perimenopause. Or I should say perimenopause hit me. It came as a shock (absurd, I know). But I didn’t have the usual symptoms my friends had bemoaned – no missed periods, no hot flashes – in fact, I was still bragging that my cycle was as regular as a Rolex. I assumed I was sailing through life symptom-free and that I was somehow magically skipping this step in a woman’s life.
Instead, it started with crushing fatigue that made a flight of stairs seem insurmountable, followed by waves of anxiety and depression (both new to me) that had me rushing to a therapist, a racing heartbeat with a side order of palpitations (I’m chronically anemic and ran to the doctor to test my iron), then my cycle, while still regular became so intense … well, I’ll spare you that. And finally, two months into all these changes as though to ring the death knell on female youth came the night sweats.
During these initial months – call it Peri 101 – it felt as though an evil alien mastermind was at the controls and I was its puppet. And strange as it may sound it took several frustrating trips to the doctor to figure out that I had entered this stage of life. Why had these symptoms seemed so foreign to me? My only guess was not having had children I wasn’t used to the extreme hormonal shifts that suddenly appeared.
Months later, I’m coping just fine, thank you. But the realization that I was no longer “young” yet not really “old” had struck deep. It’s been called “the change” for a reason. It’s an unavoidable transition. While I couldn’t fight nature, it was time to take control over the areas of my life that I could. And
while how one looks shouldn’t be the main priority – beauty is only skin-deep, yada yada yada – looking one’s best sure can brighten one’s outlook. Aside from the aforementioned changes, the other part of your body that gets knocked around by perimenopause is your skin. Pigment changes such as brown spots, redness, broken capillaries for starters, then fine lines and skin laxity ( sagging skin) round out the problems. Bottom line: I wasn’t happy when I looked in the mirror. My skin looked dull, even a little dirty – and I don’t mean that in a trendy Fifty Shades way either.
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