Yes! There’s a name for all those bad tempers! It’s been coined Irritable Male Syndrome. It sounds like a joke but it’s actually serious and it can destroy everything from your sex life to relationships on all levels.
We all know that a major sign of menopause in women revolves around hot flashes, but can the same be said for men? We have talked about Manopause, the male menopause, before but there are still skeptics out there. Call it male menopause, menopause, andropause or even IMS (irritable male syndrome), the fact is that as men age, their hormone levels changes too, just like women’s do. Sometimes it causes side effects, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it requires treatment, sometimes it doesn’t, but the fact is there are treatments like testosterone therapy that can help steady the hormone imbalance that causes these symptoms of aging.
More and more professionals are treating it as a real issue, which is a huge step forward in an industry where hormone treatments for men were previously considered to be a fad or even worse, merely taken by men who wanted physical and training enhancement.
Side effects of manopause don’t just revolve around low sex drive and diminishing sexual performance. Some other side effects that often get ignored include anger, irritability, depression and frustration, the kind that creeps up on you unexpectedly and for little reason and turns itself into chest crunching anxiety. Men can even experience hot flashes and night sweats, just like women do. That’s why some people now refer to it as Irritable Male Syndrome. IMS can strike at any point, not just during the aging process. When it’s down to aging it’s more detectable as more physicians are aware of it, when it strikes earlier on in life, it sadly often gets overlooked.
Men regularly complain about the effects that menopause has indirectly on their lives. They suddenly feel like their wife or partner have turned into another kind of being. The hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, physical body changes and low libido that a woman can experience during the peri-menopause and menopause years alters their personalities and affects relationships. It may come as no surprise then to find out that this goes the other way too. When it’s the man going through hormonal change, the wives or partners suffer from the change too, especially when symptoms include anxiety, anger and rages due to frustration.
We recently came across a book called “The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression”. This book is largely about men, hormones and anger management. As the author Jed Diamond explains, he considers what many call manopause to be more like IMS. IMS has 4 main symptoms and 4 reasons why they occur:
The four main symptoms he lists are: Hypersensitivity, Anxiety, Frustration and Anger
The four main reasons contributing to IMS symptoms are: biochemical changes in brain chemistry, hormonal fluctuations, stress, and loss of male identity. Sometimes these occur individually and sometimes one underlying cause spurs on another. Stress seems to be a large contributing factor.
While IMS and low testosterone can occur at any point in a man’s life it is more apparent after the age of 40 when testosterone levels naturally start to decline. Many men don’t realize the problem until symptoms get quite severe. This is because many of the symptoms of IMS and the associated low testosterone levels mimic the symptoms of depression. We can’t count how many times we have received emails from men who have automatically been put on anti-depressants only to discover months or years down the line that their Irritable male syndrome and symptoms of depression were in fact down to their hormones. Whatever you want to call it, this stage in a man’s life does not have to have a negative impact on the man’s life or their loved ones. A combination of therapeutic therapies, like testosterone replacement therapy, and relationship advice tips can make all the difference. You can even come out the other side feeling more on top of things than you did before it all began.
The book could be an interesting read for you as it explains all about preventing, diagnosing and treating Irritable male syndrome and how to manage your relationships through the difficult times, whether IMS strikes early on in life or as a consequence of aging. You can download it or buy it from Amazon. We do not know Jed Diamond personally and we are not being paid for this recommendation, we just thought we’d share with you an interesting support resource that we came across. We understand that Diamond is a psychotherapist whose logic and advice is based on 35 years of clinical research spanning more than 10,000 males.
Let us know if you read it and if you find it interesting.
If you think you have IMS or low testosterone then this FREE online testosterone self-assessment test might be able to help you. W@e also came across this specific IMS quiz.