Menopausal women's symptoms vary in terms of:

1. Frequency
2. Severity
3. Other symptoms that accompany them.

Let’s consider hot flashes:

• One women may experience relatively few hot flashes during a day, but each with profuse sweating.
• Another women may experience many hot flashes during a day, but sweating is not as profuse.
• Still another women may experience a more moderate number of hot flashes with a moderate degree of sweating, but accompanying their hot flashes is severe anxiety.

All three women may describe their hot flashes as "severe" - but each of their experiences of hot flashes is completely different.

This means that when you talk about a menopause symptom with another woman, you may think that the two of you are discussing the same experience, but you are not.

While women may experience individual symptoms uniquely, what they do have in common with other menopausal women is their perception of the degree of difficulty they are having with their passage through menopause.

Women will describe their passage through menopause according their overall perception of the impact that their symptoms are having on their day-to-day lives. Generally they will describe their passage through menopause as one of the following:

1. Mild
2. Moderate
3. Severe

Even the term "menopause symptoms" leads to conversations between women where they are essentially comparing "apples" and "oranges".

Why is this?

There is no such thing as menopause symptoms. There are perimenopause symptoms and postmenopause symptoms. While there may be an overlap in the terms used to describe some of the symptoms endured by both, the experience of those symptoms are very different.

Also, a majority symptoms described as menopause symptoms are only experienced during perimenopause. They are not experienced during postmenopause.

There is much for women to learn and understand about

• perimenopause
• postmenopause
• perimenopause symptoms
• postmenopause symptoms
• the treatment/remedy options available that relieve both sets of symptoms

The Stages Of Menopause

To eliminate confusion caused by the factors discussed above, a system has been developed to describe the stages of menopause. There are 4 main stages of menopause:

1. Early perimenopause
2. Late perimenopause
3. Early postmenopause
4. Late postmenopause

Each stage is unique with its own set of symptoms.

To clarify matters even more, the two phases of perimenopause have been been broken down further into 5 distinct phases of perimenopause.

Each phase of perimenopause has its own set of symptoms.

How can you make your passage through menopause EASIER?

The path to an easier passage through menopause is by way of educating yourself about menopause.

When you understand the stages of menopause (and their symptoms) and the phases of perimenopause (and their symptoms), it will help you to identify the following:

• Where you are right now in your passage through menopause?
• What may lie ahead for you in the passage through menopause?

To help you increase your knowledge and understanding of all things menopause, I have written a new book entitled 50 Shades Of Menopause: Cry, Laugh, Forget … You Are Not Alone. This book is based on the research I have done over the years to help my menopausal patients; research that has resulted in the publication of more than 500 articles about menopause.

Not only will this book answer the questions posed above and many other questions you may have, but in it you will also find reviews of all treatments and remedies that are available to relieve all menopause symptoms. I have explained the pros and cons of each treatment and remedy, to enable you to make the best informed choice to relieve your symptoms.

Buy 50 Shades of Menopause: Cry, Laugh, Forget ... You Are Not Alone by Dr. Mickey Harpaz now!

This article is reproduced with the permission of Menopause Matters.