Table 4.
What is Your Experience With the Menopausal Transition?.
| Theme | Experience | Perception |
|---|---|---|
| Headache | Headaches started coming since hot flashes | -- |
| Experienced headaches | Are others having headaches? | |
| Hot flash | Have had hot flashes | -- |
| Irregular period | Skipping and intermittent periods | Not knowing what to expect or when, that can be stressful |
| Weird flow changes, weird consistency, more clumpy | -- | |
| Last period was 7.5 weeks long | Feeling is a loss of control; I feel crazy, it’s so hard to cope with complete extremes | |
| More inconsistent | It’s been frustrating | |
| Changes in menstrual period | -- | |
| Memory loss | Lately having trouble communicating because of forgetting certain words | -- |
| Feel like losing her memory | -- | |
| Forgetfulness all the time | -- | |
| Mood change | PMS is getting more severe; feeling unraveled | Overwhelmed, it’s unpleasant |
| Sometimes crying, having feelings of loneliness and nobody loves her | It’s difficult; not knowing why it is so difficult | |
| The feeling is a loss of control | It is so hard to cope with -- | |
| Anxiety and quick to be unnerved | ||
| Sleep disturbance | Have to take 5HTP and melatonin to shut off her brain | -- |
| Usually comes home so tired, and sleeps on the way to bed | -- | |
| Lack of sleep | -- | |
| Vaginal dryness | Experienced some vaginal dryness | -- |
| No hot flashes experienced | Never once had a hot flash and if anything felt colder | No idea what that’s like |
| Never experienced a single hot flash | -- | |
| Unsure about experiences | -- | Something is weird, something is going on Don’t know what is going on basically |
| -- | Going to be 50 and not having the symptoms that were anticiapted | |
| -- | Did not relate these symptoms to menopause | |
| Mood and sleep problems | What is this, what is going on? Why are there mood and sleep problems, plus hot flashes? |