Most women experience the symptoms of menopause around their late forties and in their early fifties. This is a phase in a woman’s life that is associated with changes that indicate the end of her reproductive years and it is a very difficult time to manage. During menopause your menstrual cycle will become irregular and the ovaries stop functioning. The result of menopause is that less estrogen hormones are produced and this is the real cause of the unpleasant symptoms associated with menopause.  Women may start being affected by the symptoms of menopause even though they may still be menstruating though periods will be irregular. There are some effective treatments for menopause that can be prescribed by your doctor or natural herbal products like Menozac that effectively treat the symptoms which can be purchased from health stores, but make sure to investigate their effectiveness first.

 

What Are the Unpleasant Symptoms of menopause.

 

If you are a man that is married to a woman during menopause, then you will know how difficult this stage in a woman’s life is. This is a time when they will experience symptoms indicating menopause, like hot flushes, mood swings, night sweats, aggression, anxiety and even bouts of depression. Some women even complain of itchiness in the genital area, burning and even pain during intercourse. There can be more frequent urination at night and in some woman urinary incontinence can appear. The lack of estrogen can also help the onset of osteoporosis due to decreasing bone mineral density.

 

Men need a lot of patience and understanding during this time considering all the unpleasant symptoms a woman can experience during menopause. These symptoms of menopause are extremely frightening for some women and your support as a husband is vital to help her through it every step of the way.

 

Treating Menopause.

 

The most effective treatment of menopause is that of hormone therapy and treatment should start as soon as the symptoms of menopause become apparent. It is more sensible seeking a doctor’s advice and they will assist you in finding suitable treatments that are worked out according to your age and overall status of your health. There are various more natural treatments for menopause you can investigate yourself, which will help you effectively manage the symptoms of menopause like natural herbal Menozac for example.

 

Reading up information on menopause will also help you better understand it as well. Your family support during this period of your life is the most important pillar that you need to get through menopause. You can also help them understand that you are not crazy or turning into a monster. Menopause is a natural stage in every woman’s life or as the older generation called it the New Celebrated change in a woman’s life. Managed properly using the right products it will not be half as bad as what I could be.



Thanks to Richard for contributing this article to our Menopause blog:

Bleeding After Menopause

As we mentioned in other articles, endometriosis grow somewhere else other than the endometrium also reacts to hormonal signals of the monthly menstrual cycle, building up tissue, breaking it, and eliminating it through the menstrual period. Hysterectomy always is the last resource in treating endometriosis for woman who has exhausted all the treatments without success, or endometrial tissues has become cancerous, her doctor may suggest some kinds of hysterectomy. If the varies were also removed in the endometrial hysterectomy, then estrogen replacement theory may be necessary to restore the level of estrogen in the woman body.

Estrogen is produced by the ovaries and adrenal glands. It helps to regulate the menstrual cycle and reproductive organs in woman’s body. The removal of ovaries causes hormone imbalance of reproductive system resulting in all kinds of symptoms of menopause. In that case, your doctor may suggest estrogen replacement therapy(ERT)

I. What is estrogen therapy

Estrogen replacement therapy helps to restore the balance of hormones in the women reproductive cycle caused by menopause state or temporary menopause state or the removal of ovaries after hysterectomy. By giving the additional estrogen to the patient body through injected, oral or patches, it helps to reduce the symptom caused by low level of estrogen.

Since women with hysterectomy may require different amount of estrogen intake, please make sure check with your doctor to see which form of estrogen therapy is worked well for you.

II. Types of estrogen hormone

1. Estrone

Estrone is produced by adrenal glands mostly in body fat and muscles. Without supporting from the ovaries,the level of estrone is dropped significantly . Low level of estrone causes hot flush.

2. Estradiol

Estradiol is produced by the ovaries. Since the ovaries are removed, level of estradiol also is dropped significantly. Therefore, you doctor may suggest entinyl estradiol, which is a synthetic estrogen to be taken because its effects are similar to those of estradiol. There are other kind of estrogen, such as plant base or animal mixture of estradiol and estrone (conjugated estrogen) which can be converted to estradiol by our body including sodium estrone sulphate and sodium equilin sulfate cenestin, enjuvia, premarin.

3. Estriol

Estriol is another estrogen hormone that is produced by placenta. It is produced in great amount during pregnancy. Estriol is an important indicator of a fetus’s well-being.

II. Benefits and Risks

Unlike women in menopause, women with removal of ovaries normally only need to take a small amount of estrogen.

1. Benefits

a) Reduce hot flash

b) Reduce vagina dryness

c) Risk of itching around the vagina area

d) Reduce the risk of osteoporosis

2. Risks

a) Increase risk of breast cancer

b) Increase risk of blood clots in lung and leg

c) Risk of heart attach and stroke

d) Increase the risk of live damage

e) And sometimes unusual vagina bleeding.

I hope this information will help. If you need more information or insurance advices, please follow my article series of the above subject at my home page at:

http://medicaladvisorjournals.blogspot.com

To read the series of endometriosis visit:

http://endometriosisa.blogspot.com



Thanks to Kyle J. Norton for contributing this article to our Menopause blog:

Bleeding After Menopause

Can you answer Erica, AKA Stretch’s question about Menopause?:

I’m 26 years old and have a very consistent menstrual cycle. I’ve only missed my period twice since I’ve started at 12 years old. But I have been experiencing Hot Flashes at night and during the day. There have been people who have started menopause early, but I do not have any other symptoms.

I’ve always been “hot stuff” and do not tolerate heat. It’s winter now and I have still feel like I have hot flashes about once a day. Currently I am not on medications or have any other symptoms. I do have insomnia that I’ve been coping with. Do you have any suggestions on what else could be going on? Is this “minor” issue worth going to the doctor for?

Weight Gain And Menopause

Perimenopause symptoms are most often experienced by women in their late 30’s, 40’s or early 50’s. The perimenopause symptoms such as fluctuating menstrual cycles can signal the slowing down of reproductive capabilities.

Perimenopause (or peri menopause) can be defined as the time before menopause. Menopause is the cessation of menstrual periods for twelve months in a row. Having symptoms of perimenopause can mean that the woman is getting closer to the age of menopause and the ending of monthly menstrual periods.

Here are common symptoms of perimenopause:

• Changes in the Menstrual Cycle (menstrual flow can be heavier or lighter, longer or shorter time between periods, irregular flow)

• Lumpy or Tender Breasts

• Water Retention, Bloating

• Problems with Sleep

• “Foggy, Fuzzy” Thinking, Difficulty Concentrating

• Anxiety, Mood Swings, Depression

• PMS

• Hot Flashes, Night Sweats

• Vaginal Dryness

• Unexplained Weight Gain

Perimenopause and menopause will affect each woman differently. Your only one of the perimenopause symptoms may be that your period stops. However, you may have one or more of the other symptoms of perimenopause. Perimenopause symptoms can be experienced by a woman for a few months or they can last for years. Since the average age of menopause is 51, symptoms of perimenopause can appear in a woman’s late 30’s, any time in her 40’s or early 50’s.

During perimenopause, many women begin experiencing their first symptoms of hormone imbalance. How does hormone imbalance happen?

According to Harvard-trained physician Dr. John Lee, perimenopause symptoms appear because ovulation occurs less frequently or not at all in the years before menopause. When a woman is healthy and ovulating, estrogen is produced during the first part of the menstrual cycle and following ovulation, progesterone is produced during the latter part of the monthly cycle.

With ovulation required for the monthly production of progesterone, if there’s no ovulation, no progesterone will be produced. With declining progesterone production, perimenopause can be the time women experience the onset of hormone imbalance, causing symptoms of perimenopause.

How can a woman tell if the symptoms of perimenopause are related to hormone imbalance? One way is to take a leading womens clinic test for hormone health and related perimenopause symptoms. The health test is free and it takes just a few minutes.

Copyright 2006 InfoSearch Publishing



Thanks to Olinda Rola for contributing this article to our Menopause blog:

Making Money Online

Balancing out your hormones, if you are a woman, can be tricky business. Yet, when your hormones are off, it can affect you physically, mentally and emotionally in ways that are inexplicable.

The one thing we are hearing more about, especially among women in the United States and more developed countries is estrogen dominance. What is estrogen dominance – it is when the body doesn’t have enough opposing progesterone to lower estrogen levels during the second half of the menstrual cycle. And why would it be a bigger problem in developed countries? It is thought it is due to what is called xenoestrogens, manmade chemicals that mimic estrogen that we consume from our environment – which means that we aren’t necessarily getting enough progesterone but just way too much estrogen.

These hormones can be in our water and food and possibly the usage of birth control pills.

Pesticides are perhaps the biggest source of xenoestrogens. Most bioaccumulate, meaning they are stored in fat cells of fish, poultry and other food sources in increasing concentration until they reach the top of the food chain — where you and I consume them! They are highly estrogenic, and some experts estimate that the average American ingests over a pound of pesticides a year.

A second major source of xenoestrogens is the many growth hormones given to livestock and poultry, most of which contain fat-soluble estrogens. When we consume those animals or their milk, we ingest that estrogen. Organochlorides like dioxin (a by-product of chlorine when it is burned or processed), PCB’s, PVC’s, and some plasticizers are just a few of the many manmade chemicals that act like estrogen in our bodies. Many others have the effect of interrupting our normal endocrine function, hence the term “endocrine disruptors.”

So what are the symptoms of having too much estrogen? Anxiety, breast tenderness, cyclical headaches or migraines, irregular bleeding, water retention, weight gain and more. (Note that a number of these symptoms are also indicative of the exact opposite condition — a deficiency of estrogen — another example of why the concept of estrogen dominance is too simplistic.)

If estrogen levels stay unopposed, women may develop infertility, endometriosis, amenorrhea (skipped periods), hypermenorrhea (heavy bleeding), fibroids, uterine cancer, heart disease and stroke, and decreased cognitive ability, among other conditions.

How can we help ourselves with estrogen dominance? One can start with putting more fiber in our diet.  A low-fiber diet causes estrogen levels to be higher, while a diet high in fiber results in decreased estrogen levels in the bloodstream. Why? Excess estrogen is excreted in the bowel. When stool remains in the bowel for a longer time, the estrogen is reabsorbed. Studies have shown that women on a vegetarian/high-fiber diet have lower levels of circulating estrogen. Lower levels of estrogen mean less estrogen stimulation of breast tissue, for example, which reduces the risk of breast cancer.

We can also help strengthen our liver. The liver is a filter of sorts. It detoxifies our body, protecting us from the harmful effects of chemicals, elements in food, environmental toxins, and even natural products of our metabolism, including excess estrogen. Anything that impairs liver function or ties up the detoxifying function will result in excess estrogen levels, whether it has a physical basis, as in liver disease, or an external cause, as with exposure to environmental toxins, drugs, or dietary substances.

Use dietary supplements. Lecithin (a phospholipid) and the sulfur-containing L-taurine and L-methionine amino acids are compounds that will promote bile circulation, which enhances estrogen’s excretion out of the body. These lipotropic formulas support the liver metabolism of estrogen. A typical formula might provide the following, sometimes in a base of liver-stimulating herbs like milk thistle, black radish, beet, or dandelion, for twice-daily consumption: choline (a concentrated form of lecithin), 500 milligrams; inositol, 250 milligrams; taurine, 250 milligrams; methionine, 250 milligrams.

And last, eat soy foods like bean curd or tofu. They contain phytoestrogens, including diadzin and genistein. They act as estrogen blockers at the tissue level, blocking receptors that could promote cancer.



Thanks to R. Fredriksen for contributing this article to our Menopause blog:

Bioidentical Hormone Replacement