What makes menopause symptoms worse?

What makes menopause symptoms worse?

The useful first step is noticing what changes around your symptoms during stretches of poor sleep, travel, or a packed schedule.

Begin with a two-week log

Start with your own log, and read two public overviews for background. The federal drug regulator keeps a menopause overview for consumers, and a government women's health office keeps a menopause guide of its own.

What to jot down each day

You can learn more from your own pattern than from a general list. For two weeks, jot down the day's symptoms next to what else happened: how you slept, what you ate and drank, how stressed the day was, and whether you were away from your normal routine. Note any medicine or supplement you started or skipped.

Bring the log to a clinician rather than settling the cause yourself.

Taking the log to a clinician

If sexual health symptoms are part of the picture, a menopause professional society has a patient page on sexual health that can help you find words for them. Take the log and your list of questions to a licensed clinician and ask which patterns look worth acting on.

What a log can and cannot show

Logging what changes in a busy week shows you where to look and does not name your triggers. A clinician who knows your history can tell you what worsens yours.