I thought I would focus a bit on the transition into menopause as we had a lot of interest in this topic from our talk this month, so I felt to share some of the material.

My second job out of medical school I inherited a large number of menopausal women, I understood the concept of what menopause was but did not really have a deep understanding of the journey. It was not until reading books like Christine Northrup’s ‘The Wisdom of Menopause’ that I started to understand menopause more, Dr Northrup describes the transition as the lifting of the veils. She describes the changes in the woman’s body, when the hormones that promotes caring for the home and nurturing the children begin to falter and recede, this then allows the woman to focus more on herself and on her community. In the native tribes this woman would then be known as the wise woman or crone. In our modern day society, we often do not respect the wise women and this can make this transition feel frightening for women. Instead of celebrating their wise years they fear becoming the old dried up hag.

Let’s look a bit deeper at what is really happening in a woman’s body during this phase. First some terminology, menopause means when the body has no cycles for a year, however this term is often used to describe the whole time period from perimenopause to post menopause. Everyone’s journey through menopause is unique and it can occur between ages 35-60 with the norm being around age 50. Not all women will develop signs of menopause, some women have periods that just stop one day with no trouble at all, while other women ride the menopause wave for years. In general, you will go through menopause roughly when your mother or older sister did, of course things can affect this such as childbearing, medications and surgery. If you have your uterus out but not your ovaries, you will still go through menopause, just not have the sign of your period stopping.

Usually the ovaries start to falter in ovulation, when an egg is not made the progesterone levels do not rise, this then leads to no menstrual cycle and some of the early symptoms of perimenopause. In this phase the FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinizing hormone) which are produced in the pituitary and stimulate the ovary to ovulate (produce an egg). This makes sense as the pituitary is working harder to get the ovary to make an egg and this is the sign we look for in blood tests to diagnose perimenopause. During this phase usually the progesterone drops, this can cause poor sleep, mood swings, anxiety, headaches and sometimes hot flushes. Occasionally I see women whose estrogen surges at this time and this can create different symptoms such as weigh gain, moodiness, depression. Most of the symptoms of menopause in this time are created by hormone fluctuation and again periods can become irregular, get longer or shorter and get heavier or lighter. Eventually both the estrogen and progesterone will drop and then periods will cease. This can bring with it the hot flushes, vaginal dryness and weight gain around the middle. Some woman’s testosterone levels also fall and this can affect sex drive. When a woman has not had a period for one year she is then officially menopausal and for many women at this time, symptoms stop, but for others they can persist on.

So what can you do about menopause? First thing to remember is that this is a natural transition of a woman’s body and not to fight it or fear it. It is no different than going through menarche, just in the opposite direction. If you have symptoms of menopause there are a variety of techniques and treatments that can relieve the symptoms. Acupuncture is very effective in relieving hot flushes and other symptoms or herbal remedies are also great at relieving the symptoms of menopause. At times some woman may need hormone therapy or bioidentical hormone therapy to relieve her symptoms. Bioidentical hormones are low dose hormones that are used in a variety of combinations to deal with different symptoms.

The good news is that all of these modalities are available at The Healing Rooms offered by our experienced compassionate practitioners. Learn even more about menopause and how some of these modalities can help you navigate this life transition.

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