The bad news is that menopause can be a terrible ordeal. Hot flashes are experienced by about three-quarters of women during menopause. (It is a feeling of sudden warmth, generally in the chest or above, induced by hormonal changes for unknown reasons.) Menopause is related to a fall in production of estrogen, but even now there isn’t any test that can definitively confirm the condition. The best indicators for a woman that she is entering menopause (a stage known as perimenopause) are that her periods become irregular and she is likely to find herself experiencing a “sense that things aren’t
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