Common Menopausal Symptoms

This means that the ovaries no longer get the signal to release the egg, which means that a woman will often notice a disruption in her normal monthly cycle. After puberty, the only disruptions that occur in the monthly cycle occur because of diseases or other problems with the ovaries or pregnancy. However, once menopause begins to occur, it is not uncommon to experience serious disruptions with regard to the monthly cycle. 

Another common symptom of menopause is a hot flash. More than seventy five percent of women who go through menopause experience hot flashes, in varying degrees of severity. This makes a woman feel flush. For example, she can be standing in a room that is only seventy degrees, but she will overwhelmingly feel as if someone has turned the temperature up to ninety degrees. In the very next moment, though, she may feel as if the room is only forty degrees, and she is suddenly shivering. These hot flashes can be accompanied by other symptoms like dizziness, heart palpitations, or faintness. Most hot flashes last up to ten minutes, but not all women experience them to that terrible degree. Some women simply acknowledge them and move on. Hot flashes are caused when they hypothalamus, a part of the brain, cannot correctly regulate the woman's body temperature because of the extreme hormone fluctuations. Poor diet and stress levels in the woman's body have been shown to have a negative effect on the entire process. Most women will experience this symptom for five to six years, though some women have them for the ten to twenty years prior and following menopause.  

Hot flashes typically lead to another common symptom of menopause, insomnia. Because hot flashes can occur both during the day and through the night, many women will find that they wake up drenched in their own sweat. Often they must get up to change their clothes and their sheets to escape the level of sweat that the body has produced. If a woman is a light sleeper anyway, and most are after they have children, it can be impossible for her to fall asleep again.