Menopause
What is Menopause?
In the narrow sense of the word, “Menopause” means cessation, as in the cessation of menstruation. Menopause is the period of a woman’s life that follows her last menstruation.
When we know a woman is in Menopause?
Is Menopause Just a Moment? If we think about it this way, the final cessation of the period, which is the definition of Menopause, lasts only a few days. The days a woman has her last menstruation.
For this reason, the medical community has determined that a woman is defined as menopausal, if there is no menstruation for at least one year. If she bleeds again beyond the 12-months’ time frame, an immediate medical examination is strongly suggested.
Why does menstruation stops in menopausal women?
Permanent cessation of the period during menopause occurs when a woman’s ovaries stop functioning. That is, when the ovaries stop producing their hormones, Estrogen and Progesterone, which controls the menstrual cycle. When the ovarian reserve has been depleted, menstruation cannot occur and that’s when we say that the woman is in menopause.
Symptoms of Menopause
All the symptoms that potentially appear in a woman during peri-menopause, are intensifyingduring Menopause.
The vast majority of women, approx. 80-85%, will experience menopausal symptoms. Women who smoke tend toexperience more severe symptoms both during peri -menopause – andmenopause while they enter Menopause, about 18 months earlier than non-smokers.
Menopausal women experience some, all or a combination of the following symptoms:
- Hotflashes, Night sweats, cold sweats
- Fast heart rate (tachycardia), bounding pulse
- Headaches, migraines
- Abnormal uterine bleeding, menstrual irregularities
- Weight gain – Fat accumulation (belly fat)
- Back pains
- Segmented sleep, insomnia
- Irritability
- Εmotional disorders
- Mood swings
- Depression
- Memory loss, forgetfulness
- Inability to Concentrate
- Lack of energy
- Breast pain and change of shape
- Joint pains
- Muscle pains
- Vaginal dryness
- Pain during intercourse
- Reduced sex drive
- Frequent vaginal infections
- Frequent urination – nocturia
- Recurrent UTIs
- Stress incontinence
- Skin Disorders, with multiple changes: increased wrinkle depth, changes in the structure of the face, thin, dullskin without radiance
- Skin itching and dermatitis
- Dry skin
- Increased unwanted hair on the face (upper lip, chin, forearms, cheeks), nipples and midline of the body
- Hair loss
But isn’t menopause a normal process?
Indeed, many refer to Menopause as it being a Disease. Still others describe it as a Normal Biological Process. In fact, menopause is a natural consequence. It is a consequence, a result, which would not bother us at all, if it was not accompanied by a plethora of health risks for women.
To clarify that, the fact that the woman from Menopause onwards will lose her periods is not of our interest. In reality our interest focuses on the fact that the woman starts to lose her Hormone Balance many years before Menopause (approximately from the age of 26). It is beyond obvious that such a thing is extremely dangerous.
Menopause, demands from the Modern woman, to live more than half of her life, in complete Hormone Imbalance. In a chaotic endocrine environment, opposite to her Survival.
At the end of every woman’s reproductive age, when her hormones stop producing and her body is left unprotected, a powerful question arises. “And now what?”.
The modern way of treating
Natural Hormone Restoration Therapies
Thereareplentykindsofnaturalhormonerestorationtherapies (bio-H.R.T.), that work in different ways in order to minimize the symptoms and the health problems that may arise due to hormone imbalance that comes with menopause.
- Elimination of menopause symptoms (hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, joint pains, depression, mood swings, hair loss, vaginal dryness etc.)
- Zero side effects
- Prevention of Osteoporosis
- Prevention of Heart Disease
- No synthetic substances
- Weight managements
The huge hype around Bioidentical hormones arises from the fact that the female body can metabolize and use them as it is designed to do with its endogenous produced hormones. They act in the exact same way as the ones the body naturally produces, thus lacking side effects.
Micronized natural estrogens and progesterone, is a series of products that are compounded is specified pharmacies. They are available in several pharmaceutical forms such as creams, pills, drops, patches, gels and vaginal suppositories.
On the contrary, synthetichormonesthatareadministeredthroughHRTtherapiesareextremely potent with serious side effects and can be prescribed for a maximum of five years. Theyarealso inflammatory (raise of C Reactive Protein –CRP- inflammatory marker)contrary to bioidentical hormones which exhibit anti-inflammatory properties as well as anti-ageing.
Thetherapeuticprescriptionisselectedamongahundreddifferentprotocols and is further personalized based on the patient’s individual lab exams.
The patient makes no alterations to her daily activities while her overall health condition and appearance is gradually improved.
