A woman in the state of menopause should not think of her body as one with no hormone at all flowing in the bloodstream. A menopausal woman still has plenty of hormones passing through the various cells of her body. She does, however, lack one particular hormone.

The ovaries of a menopausal woman no longer produce the hormone estrogen. Her once regular monthly cycle has for some time shown signs of stopping. Hormone replacement therapy looms as a possible way for such a woman to deal with her hormone loss. Such therapy restores to the woman’s body the estrogen that the ovaries have ceased to produce.

Within the past 10 years the health professionals have continued to debate about the benefits and dangers of female hormone replacement therapy. Evidence suggests that such therapy can encourage the development of a malignant breast tumor. Fears of breast cancer have caused a number of women to decide against using any type of hormone replacement therapy.

Now women are learning about yet another aspect of menopause; it is something called perimenopause. Some women see the first signs of perimenopause when they apply their make-up. The hormonal changes created by menopause can affect the skin. A woman in her 40s, a woman in the period known as perimenopause, can see in her skin evidence that her body has lost some of the “biochemistry of youth.”

A woman passing through perimenopause might have some periods, but not periods that always arrive on schedule. She might experience a period for 2 to 3 months and then suddenly have one month when her period fails to make an appearance. When perimenopause takes a woman into the state of menopause, then her reproductive cycle shuts down completely.

Perimenopause can also bring with it the arrival and departure of sudden changes in the body temperature of the affected woman. Some women feel no reason to complain about the slight rise in temperature that they sense on occasion. Other women complain loudly about how hot they become at the most unpredictable times.

Some women have found that regular exercise can help the body to deal with its changing reproductive system. Exercise certainly helps to strengthen the bones. It counters one of the changes associated with menopause—the loss of bone density. That loss can sometimes cause a woman to have osteoporosis.

Well-exercised bones are strong bones. They are less apt to demonstrate the symptoms that have been linked to osteoporosis. Exercise helps a woman to stay in shape. Feeling still “in shape,” she has less of a reason to bemoan the lack of estrogen in her body.

A woman is wise to initiate some sort of exercise routine even before she enters perimenopause. Then she will not fret over the fact that her body shows signs of aging. She will know that her body can still have the female curves that please a man. She will have no regrets about her passage into the stage of female development that is known as menopause.