Menopause Symptoms - Menopause Symptoms

A woman may experience menopause symptom for years before she is actually "in menopause", which is when a woman has not had a menstrual period for a full year. The signs of menopause vary from woman to woman. Some women only experience mild symptoms of menopause and are not particularly bothered by them. Other women seem to have all of the different menopause symptoms and search for relief.

Hot flashes, night sweats and insomnia are some of the first signs of menopause that women usually notice. Hot flashes may happen at any time of the day. They are described by most women as a warm sensation that begins in the chest or around the breasts and then spreads up the back of the neck. Beads of sweat sometimes pop out on the forehead and some women experience red blotches on their skin. Hot flashes are caused by changing estrogen and other hormonal levels.

Night sweats are hot flashes that occur at night and may interrupt sleeping, leading to insomnia. Women sometimes wake up covered in sweat, with pillows and other bedding wet. Getting up, cooling off and coming back to bed, only to find that now the bed is too cold, chilled from the dampness. Anything that will relieve these early symptoms of menopause is welcome and most women try a number of different herbal and natural products before they find something that works.

Some women resort to hormone replacement therapy, which was once thought to be safe, but is now believed to be associated with serious health problems in post-menopausal women, including heart disease, breast cancer, blood clots and stroke.