If you are over 45 and starting to have problems sleeping, or have hot flashes, night sweats, or similar symptoms, you are probably starting perimenopause. This is the beginning of what will be a long journey towards eventual menopause, which is the point in time that a woman reaches after 12 months of no menstrual periods.
Since menopause is a natural occurrence, it is not a type of illness at all. The decrease in female hormones such as estrogen and progesterone causes these uncomfortable changes. Also, during this time, fewer potential eggs are ripening in your ovaries each month, so ovulation is much less predictable. Your menstrual periods may become longer or shorter, heavier or lighter, and more or less frequent. Eventually your ovaries stop producing eggs, and you will stop having periods. It's possible, but very unusual, to have periods every month leading right up to your last period. More likely, you'll experience some irregularity in your periods. And of course it’s the unpredictability that drives most women crazy!
When a woman has a hysterectomy, the uterus is removed but not necessarily the ovaries. This means that menopause does not start immediately, in this case. Although she will no longer have periods, the ovaries still release eggs and also produce estrogen and progesterone. However an operation that removes both the uterus and the ovaries (total hysterectomy and bilateral oophorectomy, also called an ovariectomy) does cause menopause, and there is no real transitional phase. The periods stop immediately, and you're likely to have hot flashes and other menopausal signs and symptoms.
Ordinarily the process of menopause takes many years to complete, so it is commonly divided into the two stages: perimenopause, which is the term for when a woman begins experiencing menopausal signs and symptoms, even though she still menstruate. Hormone levels rise and fall unevenly, and you may have hot flashes and other symptoms that come and go in intensity.
Finally, after 12 months have passed since her last period, she has reached menopause. Her ovaries produce much less estrogen and no progesterone, and they don't have any more eggs to release. The years that follow are called post-menopause.
What can a woman do to help relieve these symptoms? There are many things that can help to some degree, the typical therapy of course being HRT (hormone replacement therapy). However the dangers that have been associated with this treatment have led many woman to see a more natural alternative, such as herbs, certain vitamins, DHEA, and bio-identical HRT.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Doug Hart
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