JJ Virgin explains why perimenopause causes 3 AM wake-ups: low progesterone. She also links afternoon crashes to thyroid dysfunction and recommends a full thyroid panel, not just TSH. Declining estrogen reduces ATP production and impairs recovery, which creatine can help.
Okay, if you're in perimenopause, you have probably struggled with the 3:00 AM wakeups. Big thing that triggers that, low progesterone. And progesterone is usually the first hormone to start to go down when perimenopause starts to happen. So watch for the middle of the night wakeups. And if that starts to happen to you, run, don't walk, to your menopause doctor and get a little progesterone. I mean, this in itself can be a game changer. Not for just for that, by the way, for that feeling where you want to crawl outta your skin, That's low progesterone too. Then what about the afternoon crash? That can be low thyroid. Now, this can obviously go way beyond the afternoon crash. You might be noticing your energy down all day long, or maybe you're just a little colder than you used to be, or constipated, or your hair is falling out. Now, this is when you really want to dig in with a good functional medicine doc who will look at more than just thyroid, TSH, and we'll look at a comprehensive thyroid panel to see what's really going on. Please, please, please Do not settle for a TSH that's in normal range because this is not giving you the full story and you do not have to suffer. I know because this happened to me. Now, the other big hormone to watch for during menopause obviously is estrogen, and estrogen can really land a blow to your energy and your overall performance because low estrogen can lead to a decline in ATP production, and then you're going to have general all-day-long fatigue. And this is where a dose, by the way, or two of my Sheatine, my non-bloating creatine for women, can really come to the rescue. Now, low estrogen can also create this overall inflammation. So you feel like you don't really want to go to the gym, but when you do go to the gym, you just can't recover like you used to. And so that's that double whammy. You don't feel like working out, and when you do, you can't recover. Really rotten.
