“Women's Hormonal Changes Can Affect the Household”

No matter if you are a male or female, understanding women's hormonal changes, will help you to acknowledge this situation well and avoid a lot of challenges in the household.

As a female doctor, I believe this subject is not yet well-addressed.

Whether you are married or single, surely you have been dealing with women in your life and constantly you were surprised by their unexpected reaction, with your response of “What’s going on with you?”

Your mother, sister, girlfriend, wife, or daughter is going through completely natural behavioral or physical changes during their hormonal phases which may cause a lot of friction if not well recognized.

And yes: as a man you won't feel it as your body does not go through these ups and downs constantly.

We all are familiar with the term PMS (premenstrual syndrome) for females during their menstrual ages but what is not yet well recognized in the general population is that young girls' hormonal behavior changes start a few years before their actual menstrual time. It may be misdiagnosed as depression/anxiety or other psychological diagnoses and wrongly treated by unnecessary medications.

On the other hand, perimenopausal time may start earlier than expected and remain undiagnosed for many years, and many of its related symptoms will be undiagnosed or mistreated.

I would like to mention these symptoms step by step during different stages of a woman's life to educate all of us for better outcomes in our relationships.

Adolescence stage which may start from 9 and last up to 10 years:

Anger, anxiety, mood swings, depression, fatigue, decreased concentration, brain fog, breast swelling and tenderness, general aches, changes in appetite, abdominal bloating, frequent urination, palpitation, poor judgment, poor coordination, poor memory, poor vision, restlessness, ringing in ears, runny nose are all related to PMS which can start a few years before actual menstrual time.

Young girls will have false visions of their bodies and find themselves not attractive which may lead to eating disorders or depression.

All the above symptoms will vary during different phases of ovulation. They can laugh now and cry in 5 minutes but they are not crazy.

There are multiple nonmedical ways to address their challenges like routine exercise and emotional support. Nutrition will play a good role in minimizing their symptoms.

Nutritional supplements may include but are not limited to Magnesium, Vit A, Vit B6, Vit E, Calcium, Vit D, Zinc, L-tryptophan, and Evening primrose oil.

The Fertility stage mostly starts around 14 and could continue for about 30-35 years:

During pregnancy, a huge shift of hormones happens, from the thyroid and adrenal gland hormones to sexual and lactation hormones, which leads to a variety of symptoms like anxiety, constant nausea, vomiting, insomnia, acid reflux, lower back pain, edema, shortness of breath and more which are unfamiliar symptoms for a new mother.

And delivery will not be the end of the story, as right after giving birth, the fast decline of all these hormones may cause depression (postpartum depression).

The Perimenopausal stage can start as early as 35-40 in some cases and may last around 10 years:

Almost around age 40, women go to a phase called perimenopause and start to have multiple unrelated symptoms that are affecting their lives but are unknown to them under this definition.

Most women define menopause as stopping their menstrual bleeding and having night sweats and hot flashes! But these are not all.

Here is the list of symptoms that may happen during this stage:

IBS, migraine, fibromyalgia, anxiety, insomnia, vaginal dryness, mood swings, night sweats, irritability, hair growth on the face, depression, painful intercourse, loss of sexual interest, panic attacks, weird dreams, urinary tract infections, vaginal itching, lower back pain, bloating, flatulence, indigestion, osteopenia or osteoporosis, joint pain, hair loss, skin changes, palpitation, weight gain, water retention, cognition disturbances, brain fog, heart disease and many more.

Balancing the hormones during this phase will minimize or resolve all these symptoms which most of the time are treated individually by the different providers without considering this phase of the women's life.

I would like to emphasize that we need to treat the cause not the symptoms like any other diagnosis in our field. 

Many of the women will be treated with antidepressants due to their mood changes but still will have the majority of other symptoms untreated which will cause major problems in their lives like osteoporosis and related fractures as a simple example of many more.

Estrogen alone is responsible for 400 different functions in the body and to replace this hormone deficiency you may need 30 different drugs, and as you may know, estrogen is one of the few more hormones that will decline during menopause.

As a result, women ‘s hormonal fluctuations should be considered natural but challenging periods in their lives, and a lot of related symptoms can be relieved by correction of their imbalance.

In summary, education about these expected life changes in women not only helps them to better understand their challenges but also gives more insights to the men for their given emotional support which has a better outcome for the family.