What happens to oestrogen & progesterone throughout a woman’s lifecycle? Oestrogen is low in childhood and then high and fluctuating during our teenage years, this is very different to progesterone which is low until we form regular menstrual cycles. Most teenagers experience heavy periods, and this is due to high oestrogen, paired with low progesterone.
As we form regular cycles our oestrogen to progesterone status balances out, working together in harmony to produce ovulation and further on to support pregnancy (if fertilisation takes place). All too often this isn’t the case for lots of women today, which can be due to a variety of reasons, such as the pill and other drugs, genetics, diet, stress, exercise, endocrine disruptors, environmental influence and the list goes on.
There are a mountain of reasons why our hormones may be out of balance, but that doesn’t mean they need to stay that way. There are plenty of natural options that you can adopt to support and regulate your hormones, preventing all of those pesky symptoms associated with hormone imbalance.
In perimenopause we start to lose progesterone and experience soaring levels of oestrogen bringing about all kinds of symptoms such as anxiety, irritable mood, breast pain, migraines, night sweats, heavy periods and heart palpitations.
The presence of hot flushes in perimenopause is due to fluctuations in oestrogen. Other symptoms caused by this imbalance in oestrogen/progesterone status are insomnia, memory loss and vaginal dryness.
As we drift from the temporary state of Perimenopause into Menopause, we eventually stop producing progesterone all together and oestrogen levels significantly drop.
Although some stages can be next to unbearable, it’s comforting to know that there is so much help out there to support women throughout this tumultuous journey.
