Menopause Symptoms
What is menopause anyway and what are the outwardly observable symptoms that show that we have hit that milestone on our life? Are there any ways of dealing with menopause symptoms or do we just have to resign ourself to the fact that it's just one of those things that we have to live with?
All of use women are born with a finite number of eggs and as we age, the number dwindles until finally at 45-55 years of age, they run out completely and we get the classical symptoms associated with menopause. That's how it usually happens for most women. However, women who have had to have their ovaries removed or if they've had chemotherapy or radiation therapy for some reason or another sometimes experience menopause symptoms earlier due to the sudden depletion of the egg supply. It's not just the lack of eggs per se that results in women having menopause symptoms, rather it's the fact that the lack of eggs also signals the halt in production of hormones primarily oestrogen and progesterone.
Most women suffer from menopause symptoms to some extent in the transition years before the ovaries shut down and these are what cause the most angst and discomfort.
Menopause symptoms - general
- Hot flushes (some call it 'hot flashes')
this is the annoying symptom where you get a flushed face, sweat profusely and basically undergo a very uncomfortable time. Night time sweats make it terribly difficult to sleep. Hot flushes can last anything from a few seconds to 5 minutes and whilst some women just have it occasionally, others suffer the consequences almost every hour. It is not so much the lack of oestrogen that results in hot flushes, it is more the sudden drop in oestrogen levels that triggers it which explains why as women reach the end of their menopause when oestrogen levels have seized to fluctuate, that it stops. This is well and good if it takes a few months but for some unfortunate women, it can take a few years. Most women seem to be able to cope with hot flushes in the day time, but it's the night time sweats that usually make it difficult to deal with as it inevitably results in broken sleep which results in poor concentration and irritability in the daytime. - Vaginal dryness - this can make sexual activity uncomfortable and even painful.
- Irregular periods - as menopause approaches, most women will find that their fluctuating hormones result in their usually regular periods becoming increasingly difficult to predict.
- Urinary Incontinence - as if the indignity of hot flushes isn't enough, your bladder sphincter required oestrogen to keep it taut, so as your supply of oestrogen dwindles, so does your ability to hold your urine in. Symptoms include leaking urine when you cough, sneeze or laugh. A great majority of women experience this symptom when they hit menopause.
- Mood swings - if you thought you were irritable before, you would be thought to be wildly unpredictable when you experience menopause. Frequent teariness, feelings of sadness, rage are some of the varied moods that you could experience.
- Hirsuitism - this is just the technical term for unwanted hair growth. One of the most distressing outwardly symptoms of menopause (aside from all the indignities above) is the unwanted growth of facial hair. This is where all those 'bearded women' jokes stem from. For some women they are spared this and only suffer from a faint fuzz on the chin, other women literally grow beards.
- Migraines and headaches - another menopause symptom that is debilitating to say the least. Some women suffer from these constantly and are rendered almost bedbound when they have these disturbing migraine type headaches. Not all menopausal women suffer from this.
- Flatulence and bloating - a lot of menopausal women report having bad gas problems but as it stands, it is unclear as to whether the flatulence they experience is the result of the low oestrogen per se or if it's related to the fact that most menopausal women change their diet to counter the above symptoms and the dietary change could be the cause of the increased flatulence. Increasing consumption of soy based products, vegetables and fruit does tend to increase gas production in the gut.
Menopause symptoms - what can you do about it?
Just as every woman is different and her experience of menopause is different, so some remedies would work well for some women and others would find that they do little to help. Most women I know go through a trial and error thing to deal with their menopause symptoms until they find what suits them.
- Dietary management - Japanese women have a very low incidence of menopause symptoms. This is often attributed to their diet which is rich in soy which has a high concentration of phytoestrogens. It is surmised that dietary replacement of diminishing oestrogen supplies in the body with phytoestrogens would therefore result in fewer menopause symptoms for women of the west. The problem here is that dietary control alone is not sufficient for some women and they continue to experience menopause symptoms regardless. Other naturally occuring phytoestrogens include Red Clover. Other dietary changes that are encouraged is to reduce the intake of known hot flush food triggers ie spicy food, alchohol, coffee.
- Alternative treatments for menopause - With a lot of women now opting to 'go natural' with treatment of diseases in general, it is no wonder that alternative 'natural' therapies have grown in popularity. These include black cohosh which is a plant that has been used for decades in Germany to treat hot flushes. It's been 'packaged' and sold as Remifemin. It is unsure how black cohosh actually works to reduce menopause symptoms like hot flushes but it has been shown in studies to reduce menopause symptoms by as much as 70% in recent studies. Other alternatives include Dong Quai which is a herb used by the Chinese for generations to treat hot flushes. There aren't any scientific studies done that prove it's efficacy and it needs to be used with caution if you are on any other medication.
- Hormone Replacement Therapy - There are the synthetic Hormone Replacement Tablets which have gotten really bad press of late. This is the mainstay of most treatments medically ie usually when the menopaus symptoms are severe, women end up on some form of HRT. With the growing number of women wanting a more 'natural' alternative to the synthetic version of HRT, bioidentical hormone replacement is now all the rage. Never heard of it? Essentially derived from Wild Yam, bioidentical hormone replacement involves using raw materials from nature (so it is natural not synthetic) to manufacture a compound that has a molecular structure that is identical to the human oestrogen hormone. This is in contrast to phytoestrogens which is natural but isn't bioidentical to the human oestrogen molecule ie it doesn't have exactly the same molecular structure as the human oestrogen molecule. Bioidentical replacement hormones are available at compounding pharmacies who work together with your doctor to find the right dose suitable to your needs to keep your menopause under control the natural way.
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Menopause Symptoms
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