Women Living Better founder Nina Coslov wrote a blog post for Our Bodies Ourselves to tee up a presentation that WLB advisor Dr. Jerilynn Prior gave at Tufts Medical School about perimenopause.
In it, Nina shares her personal story, how it led her to create Women Living Better and Dr. Prior’s contributions. The presentation (YouTube link included in the post) includes lots of research and is very informative for those that want to delve in.
In my early 40s, I started noticing changes in my body. A once great sleeper, I was now waking at 2 a.m. – often with lots of energy and sometimes with anxiety. I’d be awake for about 3 hours before I could get back to sleep. Around the same time, premenstrual breast tenderness returned — something I hadn’t experienced since my 20s before I had children. Not long after, I’d notice from time to time a pervasive edginess, a revving — an energetic feeling, but not a positive one! And I felt like I couldn’t cope as well as I used to.
When I mentioned this new set of symptoms to my primary care provider, she asked about my period and noted my age. I was 42 and still getting regular periods. It wasn’t hormonally related, she said and offered me one medication for sleep and another for anxiety. Several months later I ran these same symptoms by my ob-gyn at my annual visit – same questions, same response …
Video interviews with Dr. Jerilynn Prior:
“Then You Don’t Think You are Going Crazy“
“The Only Conclusion I Could Make was that Medicine had it Wrong”
“This is Not Me! When Do I get my Self Back?”
Dr. Prior is the founder of The Centre for Ovulation and Menstrual Cycle Reseach.
