Hot flashes and night sweats.
Light, heavy or skipped periods.
Mood swings and brain fog.
Sleepless nights.
Changes to hair and skin.

These can all be symptoms of the menopause transition, a natural process that a woman goes through as her brain and body wind down and eventually shut off the ability to reproduce.

But honest and open discussions about menopause and the years leading up to it — called perimenopause — have, until recently, been suppressed. Women’s experience have been either ignored or superficially played out in public for laughs, often resulting in a shroud of secrecy and feelings of shame.

When Barrymore finally confided in her gynecologist that she wasn’t sleeping well and “turning into Lady Macbeth.”

“She was like, ‘Oh, you’re in perimenopause.’ And I was like, ‘There’s a word?’” Barrymore recounted, noting that at the time the topic hadn’t really broken the surface of popular culture.

“We’re all talking about it now, and you can read about it, and people are like, ‘Yeah!’ But eight years ago: zip, like zero information,” she recalled. “Nobody in the conversation. Not cool. Very unsexy. Mention it and you are just like a witch-crone who lives in a cave, don’t come out. … I would never in a million years have thought, ‘Oh, I’m in perimenopause.’”

Menopause marks the end of a woman’s reproductive years. The ovaries cease releasing eggs. “This is when ovulation stops,” said Nichols.

Remember the chaos of puberty? “Think of menopause like puberty in reverse,” she said.

The menopause transition typically starts at the average age of 45, according to Nichols. “The average age of menopause 51 and the normal range is 45-55.”

“This means for some women symptoms may start in their early 40s, but for others there may be no symptoms until their late forties or even early 50s,” she added.

“The most common symptom in the menopause transition is irregular periods, but they can also be heavy,” Nichols said.

“Everyone is different. Hot flashes and night sweats are common symptoms,” she noted. “Depression, brain fog and joint pain can happen as well. Vaginal dryness, pain with sex and an increased risk of urinary tract infections are also common concerns.”

“The root cause of over 96% of symptoms is weight gain over the years and most fitness programs are simply unsuited to help women in this most vulnerable moment in their lives” said Nichols.

Barrymore herself was facing a wall until consulting with Dr. Nichols and everything changed when she recommended her to try out 'The Lady Change' protocol developed by her close personal friend Petra Genco.

In just 6 weeks Barrymore lost over 19 pounds of belly fat along with her terrible depression symptoms.

“Too many women immediately start resorting to menopause medication — which are not meant to solve the problem, as they only mask the symptoms — without even knowing natural and healthier ways to eliminate their terrible symptoms and once you start the drug route you will become a pharma client for the rest of your life and hundreds, if not thousands of dollars will follow every month” she said.

“Small changes to your routine can have an immense quality of life improvements and we teach all of them in the protocol. Being something so simple makes it easy for any woman to feel better, reduce pain, discomforts and any other related symptons, as we target their root cause” Nichols concluded.

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