In the United States the average age of menopause is said to be 51. Women are considered to be in menopause when they have gone one full year without having a period. Often the hormones begin to fluctuate several years before menopause in the pre-menopause or perimenopause phase. Some women experience no symptoms or some have many such as hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, depression, anxiety, insomnia, fuzzy memory, aches and more.
While they say that a woman will often have the same ease or trouble their mother had at the time, for me that has not been true. My mother and half sister both went smoothly and easily into menopause with almost no symptoms but I've been hit extremely hard with perimenopause.
I understand that many of the extreme symptoms experienced during perimenopause fade away after menopause.
