Menopause
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Menopause hormone replacement therapy has been a controversial topic for many years. To date, there is no conclusive evidence that using this therapy will improve a woman’s ability to remain healthy throughout her senior years. Today the terminology has also changed to reflect the fact that physicians no longer believe that replacing hormones is necessarily a good thing. The terminology has changed to Hormone Therapy (HT).
More and more physicians and researchers have stopped looking for ways of improving on the way that the human body works and instead are searching for methods of supporting the body to perform the functions that it can all on its own.
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There are two distinct causes of menopause. One is physiological. This means that the woman’s body is approaching and going through the process of menopause for normal and natural reasons. The other is pathological. This means that a woman is experiencing menopause because there is a medical condition that has caused her ovarian function to decline.
Pathological reasons for a woman to experience menopause early, or even in a normal time frame, are reproductive tract tumors, extreme emotional stress, malnutrition, debilitation, radiation and surgical procedures such as a hysterectomy or other procedures that negatively impact the blood supply to the ovaries.
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Early Symptoms of Menopause
Did you know that menopause isn’t really menopause until you haven’t had a period for at least 12 months? What most women refer to as ‘the change of life’ or menopause is actually perimenopause or early menopause.
The early symptoms of menopause are related to the hormonal levels and changes in the body that happens naturally as women age. Because there is such a negative stigma to menopause many women aren’t all that interested in learning that their bodies are approaching this change.
The negative stigma includes the idea that women who have gone through menopause age faster and gain weight easier. Women are also bothered by the changes to their skin that happens as the protective factors of estrogen are removed and the skin loses collagen and elastin much more quickly. The decline in estrogen is also related to the increased risk factors for heart disease and stroke in women.
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To put it simply, menopause is the end of menstruation for a woman, which brings about the end of her child-bearing years. A woman is considered to be going through menopause when she has not had a period for one year. There is much to learn about menopause, including some of the symptoms to recognize and ways to ease the more troubling ones.
The changes that are happening to a woman’s body which lead up to menopause can last anywhere from a few months up to a few years. For most women, menopause occurs around the age of 50, but there is no set timeline. Some will experience many years of perimenopause, which is the time leading to menopause where the body begins to undergo changes, that can begin much earlier than 50. And, there are some women who will not experience menopause until much later in life.
