All women who have reached their menopausal stage will experience being moody, will experience impaired concentration and sometimes physical injuries. But the fact of the matter is, menopause is not the main cause why women can have mood swings but it’s those hot flashes that she will occasionally feel. The intense heat will start from the face and will spread throughout the body thereby making her lose a lot of restful sleep and in the morning, you could expect some not-so-good morning at all. For her doctor, the best recommended hot flashes relief if HRT or hormone replacement therapy but it’s not the only way. She can find some natural hot flashes treatment on the Net that can help her without any risks or compromises.
Archives for Menopause
Signs Of Menopause Symptoms – What You Need To Know About Menopause Symptoms
Menopause is not some enemy you have to stand on guard for and wait for it to come over the horizon. Many women get themselves into an absolute flutter standing on guard for the signs of menopause symptoms when they don’t need to.
The best way to prepare for them is to simply know what they are and understand them and the treatment options available. This is great for mental preparation but don’t go overboard and think it signals the end of your life. Well in a way it does end the life you’ve known from a reproductive point-of-view but the truth is, it’s the beginning of a whole new experience and life for you.
In this article, we will examine the signs of menopause symptoms from the more common to those which affect some women and not others. Another great way to get up to date is to simply have a chat with your physician.
Menopause Symptoms
There are about thirty-five common signs of menopause symptoms that you need to be aware of and these include hot flashes and flushes, night sweating that alternates with cold flashes and feelings of clamminess are also commonly experienced, among other things. When these signs start to show up; they do so very frequently and cause a lot of discomfort to the patient.
Other common signs of menopause include rapidly beating heart along with mood swings accompanied by shedding of tears for no plausible reason. In addition, there can also be some amount of problems experienced with getting adequate sleep at night and these sleeping problems can be accompanied with night sweats or without it.
Another sign of menopause is that your periods start to become irregular – being heavier in some instances and lighter in other instances. In addition, there is also phantom type periods that can be shorter or even longer than normal periods. People that have begun to notice signs of menopause will also notice that their libido suffers adversely and dry vaginas are another consequence of menopause.
Having problems with concentrating, feeling slightly disoriented as well as being fuzzy in the mind and being forgetful are other signs of menopause. You may also suffer from inconsistence when sneezing, coughing or even when laughing. In addition, you can suddenly want to go to the toilet which in turn will cause you to feel anxious about going out of the home, especially to places where there are no restrooms.
Other common signs of menopause include itchy skin and joint pains as well as soreness in the tendons and muscles. Some signs of menopause symptoms can also cause you embarrassment such as when your hair begins to thin, or when you may start to notice excessive hair beginning to grow on your face. You may also suffer from body odor which can cause acute embarrassment and your fingernails too can become weakened and will crack quite easily.
Another cause for concern for every woman in her middle age is that of pre-menopause symptoms, which occur prior to the onset of menopause and which should be treated at an early stage in order to cope with menopause on a firmer footing.
Symptoms Of Pre Menopause – 5 Peri Menopause Symptoms Which Could Affect You
The incidence of the pre menopause symptoms can be regarded as a preview of what to expect with full menopause. They are in a sense, a scouting party for the full cavalry.
But should they be something to be concerned about? Not at all especially if you prepare mentally for them. In other words, resist the temptation to ignore the subject and think it’s still a long way off. There is evidence of many women who have done this only to realize that life is short and menopause arrives sooner rather than later.
What we’re trying to say here is wouldn’t it be easier to deal with something when you know more about it. Having some type of plan in place to handle the pre menopause symptoms is a lot more sensible than trying to tackle them without some preparation.
This can be easily achieved by visiting your doctor and discussing the issue with them. Ask for information such as what you could expect and what treatment options would be available to you. Menopause affects different women in different ways so it’s not a “one size fits all” situation.
Symptoms Of Pre Menopause
Let’s take a look at some of the more common symptoms of pre menopause and this will give you a strong guide to whether Mother Nature may be turning the change of life key in your life.
Pre Menopause Symptoms
1. Irregular periods are a major giveaway but as explained above, they can also be a mask for something more serious. Many women report suffering some of the same emotions as pregnancy during this stage.
2. Hot flashes are another very common symptom. Hot flashes can often be responsible for other symptoms including sleep deprivation.
3. Mood swings are not uncommon. In fact, mood swings could also be as a result of hot flashes. Lack of sleep can lead to tiredness and irritability and this is something you need to be really aware of especially if you don’t want to alienate yourself from other family members.
4. Vaginal dryness can be a major concern. Lack of sex drive may result simply because you’ll experience a fair degree of discomfort. Make sure you let your partner know it’s not him.
5. Depression is another major symptom. It’s not hard to figure out why especially if you are not getting your normal sleep. In many cases, two or three of the major symptoms of menopause can be the catalyst for other symptoms to emerge.
Menopause Support Groups
One particularly effective method to overcome the negative effects to menopause is to pair up with women who are going through the same phase. A woman can join a support group and discuss freely her ongoing impressions or experiences. In this manner many women find some comfort.
In case such a group does not exist in your locality, you can just decide to form one! Or she may take the help of the internet and join forums which are dedicated to the discussion of pre menopause symptoms.
Pre Menopause Symptoms – What You Need To Know About Pre Menopause
Pre menopause symptoms are like a welcome committee signaling the impending arrival of a change of life experience by women. To be honest, they are nothing to fear if you prepare for them.
So how do you prepare for pre menopause symptoms? In short, simply learn as much about them, what they are, how they could affect you and the best treatmet options available to you. Education about menopause and it’s effect on women is extremely important in dealing with them.
Too many women skip the subject when it’s brought up and that’s understandable especially if it indicates they are at an age that may be considered old. No woman wants to be considered old right. Really, you need to get over it because the problems really occur when someone is totally unprepared for menopause and try to deal with it without knowing anything about it.
The truth is, there really is nothing to be worried about. It’s a time of your life which should be considered a new start in many ways. So let’s take a look at some pre menopause symptoms which could affect you and why.
Pre Menopause Symptoms
One common pre menopause symptom is fatigue. To prevent fatigue from hindering activity, a woman experiencing this symptom should make sure to eat a balanced nutritious diet and do some exercises. Exercising has a lot of benefits; it releases endorphin hormones in the body which assist in getting a deeper and more relaxing sleep.
When the menstrual periods become irregular or cease entirely, these symptoms are important to the diagnosis. Anemia occurs sometimes due to heavy menstrual bleeding. A woman should contact her physician if she observes any of these pre menopause symptoms.
Depressive states are often observed during this phase. A depression or sadness can occur due to imbalanced hormone production or just the grief of not being able to give birth. A woman experiencing depression should contact her physician to get proper care.
The experience of menopause can be very positive too if only the woman chooses it to be. Instead of being set back by the onset of pre menopause symptoms a woman can decide instead to evaluate her life and look positively towards the future.
She must keep in mind that menopause will bring her a lot more free time, her tasks as a mother will decrease because her children have reached a stage of independence. They can now use this time in pursuit of career or hobbies. Just by a choice she makes, a woman can not let pre menopause symptoms prevent her from having a gala time in her life.
One has to keep in mind that pre menopause symptoms and menopause will not last forever. It is merely a phase and the woman has to adapt to it. After that she will experience that those symptoms are fading away. The human body has a remarkable capacity to adapt to changing conditions, and menopause is not an exception. A healthy life free of liquor and tobacco will go a long way in the management of menopause.
Natural Treatment For Menopause That Works
Every women experiences menopause symptoms in a different way. On the whole, the symptoms of menopause for most women are relatively mild. For others, even though in the minority, the signs of menopause will be quite strong and could be quite a uncomfortable event. If that’s you, don’t let it get you down, because there are a lot of acclaimed menopause treatment options particularly natural herbal menopause that provide help and support in easing your symptoms virtually altogether.
Believe it or not, the menopause is an important juncture in your life. If viewed positively, it can be a rewarding and revealing one. As we age, we encounter many gateways. In our younger days we would hurtle passed each milestone with our eye constantly on the lookout for the next. As we grow older it’s important to look back and ponder on what we’ve done. As you move into the menopausal phase of your life, you may decide the time is right to select a new lifestyle. The menopause is a great chance to take the bull by the horns.
Planning for your future is much like preparing for a vacation. See it as your repayment for a lifetime of work or for raining a family. Pause for a second and think back to your last vacation. Half the fun was planning it a long way in advance. Perhaps you got out guide books and maps, decided on the places you wanted to visit, and booked the trip.
The further into the future you planned, the greater the anticipation, and the more you enjoyed the journey. There may have been some out of the blue adventures along the way but because you had prepared yourself thoroughly you were capable of coping with any eventuality.
The signs of menopause may just be your reminder to embark on your next adventure.
A Healthy Diet To Manage Menopause and Weight Gain
Starting with the moment we are first conceived through to our dieing breath, the quality of food and nutrition that we eat controls our health and vitality for the rest of our life. The immediate benefits of a nutritious diet is good looks, and feeling and looking great. It can help protect us against viruses and disease, give us more energy and increase our strength and stamina.
The more long term effects of a healthy and balanced diet are increased resistance to diseases like heart disease, cancer, all forms of diabetes, cataracts, and high blood pressure. When you notice signs of symptoms of menopause, choosing the right menopause diet and incorporating certain foods, such as soybean based products, is very important. Being aware of what you eat will also make a big difference to relieving symptoms of menopause and help keep your body healthy and in great shape.
Interest in nutrition, health and anti aging has never been greater. The media, friends and family all believe they are experts about what to eat and not to eat to protect our health. With such an onslaught of confusing information, it can be near on impossible to know who to trust or what to eat. Not only that, but a lot of the time it appears as though health experts are constantly changing their opinions and telling us something different.
The truth of the matter is that the standard advice on what a healthy and balanced diet consists of has not changed in several decades.
What Makes Up A Balanced Diet
A healthy diet has several-key ingredients but one of the most important is balance. Nutritionists divide foods into five main food groups. To ensure that you get all the nutrients your body needs, you need to make sure you eat some food from each group each day.
Especially during the menopause, finding the balance will determine how much you suffer with menopause symptoms.
A Natural Herbal Relief For Menopause – Cooling Down Hot Flashes
The benefits of green tea make it one of the three popular Asian teas sold in Western markets today (the other two being black tea and oolong tea). Like all Chinese herbal tea, the tea herb comes from the leaves of a small aromatic plant, Camellia sinensis. However, unlike the other two tea types, herbal green tea is a tea that has undergone minimal oxidation, thereby, leaving the green tea health benefits intact and powerful.
The main constituent contained in herbal green tea is polyphenol, an antioxidant. Polyphenols work to keep our cells healthy and strong. If you have ever felt completely exhausted or your energy levels are low, it might be because your immune system is overworked. You can combat exhaustion by drinking herbal green tea, which contains high amounts of polyphenol to provide you with energy and keep your immune system from being overworked.
One of the leading green tea benefits making herbal green tea is the hottest-selling tea product today is its ability to burn fat faster. Herbal green tea provides people suffering from obesity the natural way of getting rid of excess body fats. Women and men wishing to keep their bodies trim and strong drink green tea in many forms. You can buy refrigerated green tea in bottles at almost any supermarket or health food store.
Green Tea Health Benefits are obvious. Ask yourself: when are you going to add green tea to your diet?
A natural herbal relief for menopause can provide relief from one of the most embarrassing and difficult challenges of menopause- hot flashes. There is such unpredictability in hot flashes. Some women have them only a couple times a week; others have hot flashes many times a day.
Herbal remedies that include a higher consumption of phytoestrogens such as soy, red clover, ginseng, black cohosh and yam may relieve hot flashes. However, there are reports that using Black Cohosh can cause severe side effects of liver function.
There are very few good quality studies on the effect of using ginseng for herbal relief of menopausal symptoms. However, hundreds of years of anecdotal evidence exists using ginseng as part of tonics made by Chinese herbalists. In a large double-blinded randomized controlled trial, reduction in hot flashes was not statistically significant but showed a strong trend towards improvement.
St. John’s wort has long been used to treat symptoms of depression. There is ample evidence that the mechanism of action of this herb is similar to that of SSRIs. In a research pending publication, physicians presented a report at this year’s American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s Annual Clinical Meeting shows that Tao Formulations’s Harmony product relieves hot flashes in 83.5% of women with a 89.4% reduction in hot flash severity. So keep your ears open. The first viable case of menopause herbal remedies may soon be available.
Menopause: Signs and Symptoms
Menopause is the absence of menstrual periods for 12 months. The menopausal transition starts with varying menstrual cycle length and ends with the final menstrual period. Perimenopause means “the time around menopause” and is often used to refer to the menopausal transitional period. It is not officially a medical term, but is sometimes used to explain certain aspects of the menopause transition in lay terms. Postmenopause is the entire period of time that comes after the last menstrual period.
Menopause is the time in a woman’s life when the function of the ovaries ceases. The ovary, or female gonad, is one of a pair of reproductive glands in women. They are located in the pelvis, one on each side of the uterus. Each ovary is about the size and shape of an almond. The ovaries produce eggs (ova) and female hormones such as estrogen. During each monthly menstrual cycle, an egg is released from one ovary. The egg travels from the ovary through a Fallopian tube to the uterus.
The ovaries are the main source of female hormones, which control the development of female body characteristics such as the breasts, body shape, and body hair. The hormones also regulate the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. Estrogens also protect the bone. Therefore, a woman can develop osteoporosis (thinning of bone) later in life when her ovaries do not produce adequate estrogen.
Clinically, the signs of menopause are not diagnosed as menopause until a woman has gone at least 12 months without a menstrual period. The time leading up to the 12 month mark is referred to “perimenopause” and the time following menopause is called “postmenopause”
In terms of symptoms. it is important to remember that each woman’s experience is highly individual. Some women may experience few or no symptoms of menopause, while others experience multiple physical and psychological symptoms. The extent and severity of symptoms varies significantly among women. These symptoms of menopause and perimenopause are discussed in detail below.
Irregular vaginal bleeding
Irregular vaginal bleeding may occur during menopause. Some women have minimal problems with abnormal bleeding during perimenopause whereas others have unpredictable, excessive bleeding. Menstrual periods (menses) may occur more frequently (meaning the cycle shortens in duration), or they may get farther and farther apart (meaning the cycle lengthens in duration) before stopping. There is no “normal” pattern of bleeding during the perimenopause, and patterns vary from woman to woman. It is common for women in perimenopause to get a period after going for several months without one. There is also no set length of time it takes for a woman to complete the menopausal transition. It is important to remember that all women who develop irregular menses should be evaluated by her doctor to confirm that the irregular menses are due to perimenopause and not as a sign of another medical condition.
The menstrual abnormalities that begin in the perimenopause are also associated with a decrease in fertility, since ovulation has become irregular. However, women who are in perimenopause may still become pregnant until they have reached true menopause (the absence of periods for one year).
Hot flashes & night sweats
Hot flashes are common among women undergoing menopause. A hot flash is a feeling of warmth that spreads over the body and is often most pronounced in the head and chest A hot flash is sometimes associated with flushing and is sometimes followed by perspiration. Hot flashes usually last from 30 seconds to several minutes. Although the exact cause of hot flashes is not fully understood, hot flashes are likely due to a combination of hormonal and biochemical fluctuations brought on by declining estrogen levels.
There is currently no method to predict when hot flashes will begin and how long they will last. Hot flashes occur in up to 40% of regularly menstruating women in their forties, so they may begin before the menstrual irregularities characteristic of menopause even begin. About 80% of women will be finished having hot flashes after five years. Sometimes (in about 10% of women), hot flashes can last as long as 10 years. There is no way to predict when hot flashes will cease, though they tend to decrease in frequency over time. The average woman who has hot flashes will have them for about five years.
Sometimes hot flashes are accompanied by night sweats (episodes of drenching sweats at nighttime). This may lead to awakening and difficulty falling asleep again, resulting in unrefreshing sleep and daytime tiredness.
Vaginal symptoms
Vaginal symptoms occur as a result of the lining tissues of the vagina becoming thinner, drier, and less elastic as estrogen levels fall. Symptoms may include vaginal dryness, itching, or irritation and/or pain with sexual intercourse (dyspareunia). The vaginal changes also lead to an increased risk of vaginal infections.
Urinary symptoms
The lining of the urethra (the transport tube leading from the bladder to discharge urine outside the body) also undergoes changes similar to the tissues of the vagina, and becomes dryer, thinner, and less elastic with declining estrogen levels. This can lead to an increased risk of urinary tract infection , feeling the need to urinate more frequently, or leakage of urine (urinary incontinence). The incontinence can result from a strong, sudden urge to urinate or may occur during straining when coughing, laughing, or lifting heavy objects.
Emotional and cognitive symptoms
Women in perimenopause often report a variety of thinking (cognitive) and/or emotional symptoms, including fatigue, memory problems, irritability, and rapid changes in mood. It is difficult to precisely determine exactly which behavioral symptoms are due directly to the hormonal changes of menopause. Research in this area has been difficult for many reasons. Emotional and cognitive symptoms are so common that it is sometimes difficult in a given woman to know if they are due to menopause. The night sweats that may occur during perimenopause can also contribute to feelings of tiredness and fatigue, which can have an effect on mood and cognitive performance. Finally, many women may be experiencing other life changes during the time of perimenopause or after menopause, such as stressful life events, that may also cause emotional symptoms.
Other physical changes
Many women report some degree of weight gain along with menopause. The distribution of body fat may change, with body fat being deposited more in the waist and abdominal area than in the hips and thighs. Changes in skin texture, including wrinkles, may develop along with worsening of adult acne in those affected by this condition. Since the body continues to produce small levels of the male hormone testosterone, some women may experience some hair growth on the chin, upper lip, chest, or abdomen.