Menopause is not easy, it is a long process and can be confusing, but it does not need to be with a menopause symptom tracker. Menopause can happen when you are in your 40’s or even when you are in your 50’s. The average age for one to get menopause is 51 years old in America. There are many varying symptoms of menopause, and this article would discuss some of them. Menopause is a transitional time when your periods start to slow down and eventually end. During this period, your body will go through and experience a plethora of symptoms that might cause discomfort.
Using the menopause symptom tracker will prove to be helpful if you start tracking in the perimenopause stages. Perimenopause is the time leading up to menopause. This process will be simplified and explained in this article to help you manage menopause and the anxiety you may be experiencing regarding menopause.
Read this article to get to know more about battling menopause and anxiety, breast pain after menopause, and how using a menopause symptom tracker can help you.
Table of Contents
Menopause Overview
How exactly does menopause occur in our bodies? First, your body will go through the perimenopause stage, which can begin well before your menopause stage. Some even experience perimenopause eight to ten years before menopause. It can start as early as your 30s. The last one to two years of perimenopause is when your estrogen levels begin to decrease heavily.
Then you go through menopause which is the point where your body can no longer have menstrual periods. This is when your ovaries stop releasing eggs and when the estrogen production reaches extremely low levels. You are officially diagnosed with menopause when you go 12 consecutive months without a menstrual period.
After menopause, you go through a cycle that lasts a year and is called post-menopause. During this cycle, you may experience some menopause symptoms that this article addresses. However, these symptoms will be easier to cope with. In some cases, women experience menopause symptoms for years following the menopause transition. If you are someone like this, a menopause symptom tracker may prove to be effective for you.
Perimenopause Symptoms
Menopause symptoms may be similar to the ones experienced during menstruation or leading up to menstruation. Let us start off by addressing some symptoms that are related to perimenopause. Just to reiterate, perimenopause is the stage leading up to menopause when your body slowly stops menstruation cycles.
Some perimenopause symptoms include
- Breast soreness or breast pain
- Hot flashes
- Irregular menstruation cycles
- Night sweats
- Mood changes
- Dry vaginal problems or higher bladder issues like urinary or vaginal infections
- Changes in sexual interest and functioning
- Inconsistent cholesterol levels
These symptoms might provoke some anxiety as these symptoms may appear suddenly. It might be beneficial for you to visit a doctor if you are in the Perimenopause stage to figure out if it is perimenopause or something else.
Prior to consulting with your doctor, using a menopause symptom tracker will be considered beneficial. CareClinic is a helpful app you can download and use to track your menopause symptoms. CareClinic allows you to record and track symptoms you are experiencing so that a doctor can get an accurate view of the symptoms you have been experiencing. Some individuals receive medicines to help with symptoms. These can also be easily tracked to determine if it is working for you or not.
For more information about Perimenopause, read our article that goes more in-depth.
Menopause Medicines
The menopause period in your life occurs when your body starts producing less hormones namely estrogen, and progesterone. These lower hormone levels result in various symptoms like night sweats, hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and the others explored earlier.
If you are going through menopause, you might want to ask your healthcare provider about hormone replacement to determine if it would be a right fit for you. This is called hormone replacement therapy, and you should discuss it with your healthcare provider as it has many side effects. In addition, hormone replacement therapy is not suitable for those with certain cancers or those who have had a blood clot, heart attack, or stroke. Other conditions do apply, so please discuss them with your healthcare provider. (R)
If you and your healthcare provider decide to try hormone replacement therapy, you can easily keep tracking the treatment using the CareClinic app. If you are hesitant about this, you can track your symptoms and determine if it is working for you. Even if you are very confident in hormone replacement therapy, it is beneficial for you to track your menopause symptoms prior to and after the treatment.
If you are using medications to help cope with menopause, CareClinic has a feature where you can add your medications. This feature also allows you to set reminders so that you can make sure that you are taking your medication consistently. Using a medicine tracker to consume your medication effectively proves to be highly effective in your overall treatment.
Natural Supplements
Many individuals choose to take natural supplements to reduce their menopause symptoms. Some supplements being phytoestrogens, black cohosh, and more. There is not much science behind these supplements, so you should visit your physician prior to consumption. (R)
Phytoestrogen is supposed to serve as a hormone replacement, which is why some take it for menopause. Black cohosh is said to reduce hot flashes, but there is no significant research to show that this is a valid statement. If you decide to take these, it will be beneficial for you to track them to ensure if it does have an impact.
Menopause and Anxiety
Getting your period for the first time might not have been easy, and it probably will not be that easy transitioning into menopause
either. But this time, you have so many resources like CareClinic at your fingertips to help you get through this turbulent period. These changes in your body may also impact the chemicals in your brain and turn your mood. Sometimes it might even cause you to feel anxious or depressed. However, frequent anxiety attacks are not typical. It is essential for you to track your anxious feelings to see how often you are experiencing them. As discussed earlier, hot flashes and night sweats are symptoms of menopause. Anxiety might be due to the lack of sleep from the symptoms mentioned above.
CareClinic will give you reports based on your tracking, which will help you see how you are progressing through menopause and the anxiety that you might also be facing. But if your tracking identifies that you are experiencing increased anxiety or depression, it is recommended that you visit your doctor. Tracking the frequency and journaling your symptoms through CareClinic can help you and your healthcare professional. Using this menopause symptom tracker will be beneficial to determine the optimal treatment for your problems.
If you are seeking hormone replacement therapy to help with your menopause and anxiety, you should be tracking your progress to see if it is supporting your mental health. While research shows that hormone replacement therapy is proving to be effective in helping emotional problems, it might not be enough. However, using a menopause tracker and seeing the effectiveness of your treatments will help you get on the right track faster.
Diaries
CareClinic has a unique function in the Diary Entry feature where you can journal your feelings. Journaling will be beneficial for you during this confusing transitional period. If you are someone who doesn’t enjoy journaling because they don’t know what to write about, this app is the place for you. CareClinic has a unique diary feature where you can choose a prompt based on your needs. Prompts feature will then give you a series of questions you can answer to help you track and journal your moods.
For example, if you are facing the anxiety with your menopause, you can use the template featured on the right. Tracking anxiety episodes will help you address the feelings you are experiencing and may be helpful if you are contemplating seeking professional therapy. It will also be an excellent way for you to look back on good days when facing a bad day.
Other Factors
Lack of sleep and other menopause symptoms may impact your anxiety and other emotional problems. Your lifestyle can also heavily impact your emotions during this transitional period. A healthy lifestyle can ease some of the discomforts you are feeling during this challenging period. A healthy lifestyle may include consistent exercising. In addition, you should also consider eating healthy and less processed foods. The best part is that you can use CareClinic for all these aspects; it can be your menopause symptom tracker and your health and wellness tracker.
CareClinic has an easily accessible drop-down menu that allows you to select any workout. This way, you can track the exercises you are completing and the number of sets you completed. If you are just starting activities now to help you get through menopause, you can use the notes feature to help you journal your experience. For example, you can note the hot flashes you experienced before, during, or after your walk and its’ relationship with your walking distance. It will be great for you to input that in the notes so you know how it impacts you.
Menopause and Nutrition
As mentioned earlier, your lifestyle can heavily impact your menopause symptoms. Menopause impacts and alters your metabolism and reduces your bone density. Maintaining a healthy diet that promotes better metabolism, bone density and reduces the risk of heart conditions is vital.
Try incorporating more snacks that are fruits or vegetables. In addition to whole grains, high-quality protein and dairy products are more appropriate. These foods may reduce menopause symptoms. Incorporate more healthy fats as well to help you with your hot flashes and night sweats. The reduced menopause symptoms may also result in you getting a night of better sleep at night.
Use CareClinic to track your food every day to ensure that you are getting your appropriate nutrients in. As featured on the right, it is effortless for you to add your meals. You can even track your food if your meal prep by journaling it in the app ahead of time and checking it off as you eat.
Post Menopause
Postmenopause is arguably one of the stages that you should heavily monitor your symptoms. As mentioned earlier, it is the stage when you have not had your menstrual cycle for a whole year. This stage varies for every individual, but it is the stage that poses a high risk for women. Earlier I touched on some symptoms you face through perimenopause, and you might experience the same during your postmenopausal period as well.
Breast pain after menopause is something faced by women, and it may cause you discomfort. However, using a menopause symptom tracker is necessary to ensure that you are not experiencing symptoms of another illness. With lower levels of estrogen, postmenopausal women are at risk for diseases related to heart and bone. The breast pain you are experiencing after menopause may be something more significant.
Every woman’s risk is different, but using a symptom tracker to see how you are feeling throughout the day will be a great start.
Using the Symptom Tracker
Using CareCinic for your menopause symptom tracking is easy and already has most of the addressed symptoms in the drop-down menu. For example, if you are experiencing a decreased sex drive, you can easily select it from the menu. Then you can even add any notes like “I have not had sex in x number of days.” If you notice you are experiencing the symptom multiple times, you can even track its frequency.
CareClinic has a variety of symptoms you can pick from. If you experienced a busy day, you could simply choose a busy day from the factors feature. This will help you determine why you missed a day of tracking in the future.
Is CareClinic working for me?
CareClinic has an easy-to-use check-in option, where you can easily input all of your symptoms. Checking-in allows you to seamlessly maintain a record of how you have been feeling throughout the days. This also allows for more accessible communication with your healthcare professional, so you don’t forget to mention any of your symptoms.
As mentioned earlier, a healthy lifestyle can offset the symptoms you experience during menopause. You can maintain a healthier lifestyle by choosing to incorporate more exercises into your daily routine. This may involve more walking outside, a little bit of running, or even riding a bicycle. You can easily move on to track your fitness activities on CareClinic. You can add how many reps you did of a particular workout, and you can even add in any notes about how you felt doing that workout. Adding how you felt about that workout may be motivating for you in the future if you are having a tough day and don’t want to work out.
Besides, you can track your meals or even input them ahead of time if you are meal planning. CareClinic has an easy drop-down menu that lets you choose from a plethora of food options. You can even add in its nutrient breakdown if you want to get into the specifics of your meals. This will keep you on track for a healthy lifestyle and may impact your menopausal symptoms.
Also, you can track any medicines or vitamins prescribed to you by your doctor using the medicine and supplements feature. As mentioned earlier, if you choose to go through hormone replacement therapy, this is a section that you can track the hormones you are taking. This will help you monitor how you felt during your hormone therapy.
A symptom mentioned earlier was night sweats, and this may impact your sleep CareClinic has an easy way for you to track your sleep. Based on your sleeping hours, CareClinic can also provide you with reports to determine if it has impacted any other symptoms.
CareClinic Reports
This article mentioned this a few times but CareClinic a great feature where it creates reports for you based on your menopause symptom tracking. This feature allows you to see if there are any correlations between your symptoms. These reports will let you ask any questions that may benefit your health with your health care professional.
Also, these reports give you an overview of how your health is doing. It can also help you monitor your lifestyle to determine if it is healthy. It gives you a lot of perception based on your logs and tracking provided in the various sectors.
Conclusion
Getting your period for the first few times may have seemed very difficult at first. However, your body was able to adapt and grow from it. Menopause is the same, it is a lengthy process, but it will be easy with the right tools and right healthcare advice. Download CareClinic now to get started on empowering your menopause journey.
