Signs & Symptoms of Menopause

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Dr. Susan Jewell and we’re going to talk about the signs and symptoms of menopause. So when you enter the menopause phase, what are the most common signs and symptoms that a patient comes in to complain about? Well, one of the main symptoms is hot flashes, so the person, so the woman comes in and she says, you know, I’m feeling hot and I’m having these hot flashes. She also complains of sweating, there are times of intermittent sweating, there are times when she could get very cold or very, very hot, sweating and very hot. She is also at a, at a, because of the loss of estrogen in her body she has the mood changes, so she’s more inclined to be prone to depression, and you know manic behavior. So mood changes, depression, one of the main, also signs of menopause, is a dryness, because estrogen keeps the skin looking youthful, keeps the moisture retained in the skin, but when you lose the effect of estrogen then you are prone to dryness, so you’re going to get dryness of the skin, but also one of the main common complaints is dryness or atrophy of the vagina, atrophy means that the, because of the dryness and the lose and effect of the protective estrogen then the vagina shrinks and that’s basically what atrophy is, it is shrinking and like I said, so when a woman has a menopause, she enters her menopause phase, she has all these very common complaints, signs and symptoms of, of this particular condition. "