Menopause Treatment Medicomat-21M Menopause Signs Symptoms Causes Treatments Emotions Depression Moodiness

I'm Dr. Jennifer Payne and I direct the Johns Hopkins Women's Mood Disorders Center which is located both at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and here at Howard County General. So, menopause is only one day in a woman's life. The time leading up to menopause is called perimenopause and can actually last for years. But menopause is defined as not having ones menstrual cycle for one year. And so menopause is actually one day and then thereafter it's called post menopause. So, in perimenopause, a women's brain is subjected to multiple hormonal fluctuations that really become somewhat random. During most of a woman's reproductive life, she has very regular hormonal fluctuations which result in a menstrual cycle. In perimenopause, they become more random and that can affect a women's mood and cognition as those hormonal fluctuations become random and difficult to deal with. So, depression is twice