A 3rd paper, Effects of Bothersome Symptoms: Observations from The Women Living Better Survey, from our analysis of data from the Women Living Better Survey, has been accepted by the peer-reviewed journal of the North American Menopause Society, Menopause and is available “ahead of print”. It will be published in the January 2023 issue.
For this paper, our research question was:
In what ways do bothersome symptoms on the path to menopause*** interfere in our lives, affect how we feel, and how we view our health?
***menopause = the final day of the final menstrual period
This is a companion paper to another paper called Perimenopause Meets Life.
What do we mean by “bothersome symptoms”?
The bothersome symptom groups we looked at were the same in both papers. They were:
- Anxiety/Vigilance
- Pain/Fatigue
- Brain Fog
- Volatile Moods
- Vasomotor symptoms/Sleep onset
These are the symptoms that were included in each group:
What do we mean by “interfere in our lives”?
- Interference with daily activities
- Interference with relationships (spouse/partner relationships, relationships with other family members, relationships with other people)
- Participants reporting “not feeling like myself” (how often over the past 3 months)
- Participant’s ratings of their own health
What we found
Outcome:Symptom Group |
Interference with
|
Interference with
|
Not feeling
|
Health
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anxiety/Vigilance | √ | √ | √ | |
| Pain/Fatigue | √ | √ | √ | √ |
| Brain Fog | √ | √ | √ | |
| Volatile Mood | √ | √ | ||
| VMS/Sleep onset | √ | √ |
How to Read the Chart: Those people who reported greater symptom bother associated with anxiety/vigilance, also reported greater interference with daily activities, greater interference with relationships, and not feeling like themselves more of the time.
In summary, bothersome symptoms interfere with our daily activities, relationships, and the extent to which “we don’t feel like ourselves”.
Of note
- Only bothersome fatigue/pain symptoms were associated with poorer health ratings. Perhaps survey participants did not view cognitive changes, mood changes and vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes and night sweats) as related to health per se. Perhaps those of us on the path to menopause think about our health as only influenced by bodily symptoms.
- “Not feeling like myself” was NOT associated with vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes and night sweats). We wonder if this is because hot flashes are commonly associated with the path to menopause. A new experience of other symptoms (i.e., brain fog, volatile mood, fatigue and pain and anxiety/vigilance) that are less likely to be associated with the path to menopause could cause more concern due to an unknown cause. Not as easy to say “oh, it’s menopause!”
