Previously, if someone asked me what estrogen does, I would answer like this: estrogen is a female hormone involved in menstruation, reproduction, and finally menopause.
But recently I started learning about perimenopause, and lo and behold! I just got to know that estrogen has receptors in almost every tissue in the female body and influences hundreds of different functions.
Guess what my immediate reaction is?
Aha. No wonder lah!
Did You Know that Estrogen Is Involved in Almost Everything?
The estrogen receptors are found in the brain, heart, bones, skin, gut, bladder, joints, and blood vessels. Gosh! I now understand why the list of things women experience during perimenopause can seem completely unrelated.
How many of these symptoms do you experience? These are some of the most common ones:
Brain fog, difficulty finding words, sleep problems, anxiety, irritability, joint aches, changes in body composition (belly fat), changes to periods, hot flushes, and night sweats.
When you put it all together, you start thinking, "Wait... are you saying these things can all happen at the same stage of life?"
Take the Menopause Quiz
If you're unsure about what's going on with your body, especially if you don't feel quite right but aren't diagnosed with clinical conditions, try this (peri)menopause quiz/symptom checker from Menopause Asia. It will be insightful.
The Brain Fog
This one caught my attention because it's so annoying. Have you ever experienced the following?
- You are talking halfway through a sentence, and suddenly the word you wanted is just... gone.
- You walk into a room and forget why you went there.
- You read the same paragraph three times and realise that absolutely nothing has registered.
- You know that you know someone's name, but your brain refuses to retrieve it.
And when it starts happening more often, you start to think, "Is there something wrong with me?"
What I didn't realise before is that estrogen also plays a role in brain function, including memory, language, concentration, processing, and mood.
Estrogen supports processes involving acetylcholine, which is important for memory and learning, blood flow to areas of the brain involved in focus and decision-making, synaptic plasticity, and neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine.
So when estrogen fluctuates during perimenopause, that's why some women experience cognitive slowness, difficulty retrieving words, trouble concentrating, or that strange feeling of mental static.
Aha. No wonder lah!
Estrogen Doesn't Just Drop Dramatically During Perimenopause
This was another big aha moment for me. For years, I thought hormones were high when we were younger, then declined as we got older, and finally became very low at menopause. Simple, right?
But... perimenopause doesn't behave quite so politely!
Estrogen does not decline in one nice, smooth line. During perimenopause, estrogen actually fluctuates quite dramatically like a rollercoaster before eventually settling at a lower level after menopause.
Source: LinkedIn
Now this makes the unpredictability of this stage make a little more sense.
- Why do I feel relatively normal one week and quite unlike myself another week?
- Why does something suddenly bother me when it never used to?
- Why can a symptom appear, disappear, and then return?
How Much Have I Been Blaming on "Getting Older"?
This is probably the part that has made me think the most. There are so many little changes that are incredibly easy to dismiss once you reach your 40s. You basically just lump everything into the "getting older lah" bucket.
- Tired more easily? Must be because old already lah.
- Brain fog? I just have too many things to remember lah.
- Stubborn belly fat? Metabolism slows down liao lah.
- Easily triggered, irritable? Stress from work, driving, incompetent people...
- Can't fall asleep fast enough? I play too much phone before sleep lah.
Perhaps sometimes those explanations may absolutely be part of it. But learning more about estrogen has made me a little less willing to automatically throw everything into the "I'm getting older" bucket.
The Biggest Shift for Me
I'm not trying to explain every little thing that happens to me with hormones, and I'm definitely not suggesting that every ache, forgotten word, bad night's sleep or bad mood is only caused by estrogen.
But I'm starting to understand that midlife isn't always as simple as "you're getting older".
The more I learn about perimenopause and estrogen, the more I feel reassured because understanding why something might be happening makes it feel a little less random.
I have a feeling there will be another Aha. No wonder lah! coming very soon. 😅
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