Menopause Symptoms and Their Best Treatment
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Women over their 45 will face the trouble of irregular menstruation. They can’t control own emotion and always lost their temper. And the occurrence of insomnia makes this confusion worse. After excluding other diseases, doctors always diagnose they are in menopause. Although menopause is a natural procedure for female, you should accept certain treatment to relieve the symptoms if they have impacted your normal life.
What is the menopause?
Menopause, also known as climacteric syndrome, is defined as the absence of menstrual periods for twelve consecutive months, giving rise to a series of physical and psychological changes. Natural menopause occurs when the ovaries reduce the production of oestrogen, leading to a dysfunction of the vegetative nervous system. During menopause, these symptoms may occur:
• Menstrual periods become irregular
• Hot flashes (sudden warm sensation with blushing)
• Palpitations
• Sleep disorders
• Fatigue
• Depression
• Mood swings
• Irritability Difficulty to be attentive.
The average age of menopause is 45 to 50 years, but it may occur earlier (30+ years) or later (more than 60 years). Due to the lack of an explicit lab test, it’s still hard to predict when a woman will experience menopause.
Menopause complications include heart disease, osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s.
Almost all women experience mild menopausal symptoms as their ovaries slowly degenerate, allowing their bodies to adjust to these changes due to self-regulation and compensation. Some women who can’t adapt to these changes with obvious symptoms quickly enough require special therapy. In very rare cases, women with severe symptoms that affect normal work and life must accept drug treatment prescribed by doctors.
Cause of menopause
In general, menopausal women carry the enormous burden of body and mind caused by changes in the family and environment can trigger menopause or even aggravate the original symptoms. Although induced menopause is caused by physical changes, personal experience and mental stress often result from the fact that menopause has occurred. For some mentally sensitive women, physical discomfort is more of a psychological change and they suffer from menopausal symptoms. Therefore it is necessary to adopt healthy psychology.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, menopause occurs when the body is deficient in Qi of kidney and Gui (the sexual function of both sexes), resulting in a disruption of the balance between yin and yang. Therefore, the main treatment of menopause is based on the supply of kidney Qi and adjusting yin and yang.
How to treat menopause?
Menopausal symptoms have many individual differences in severity. Some patients do not need treatment; others require general therapy, such as a tranquilliser or a small dose of hypnotics and antidepressants. Rarely do women want hormone therapy, a kind of replacement therapy that can effectively control the symptoms. However, it contains the following disadvantages:
• Uterine bleeding (differentiated from endometrial carcinoma)
• Prolonged intake of a large dose can result in endometrial adenocarcinoma.
• Occurrence of venous embolism.
• Increased incidence of gallstones.
• Increased blood pressure.
• Nausea, breast tenderness, and swollen limbs.
The purpose of menopausal treatment
• To treat and relieve menopausal symptoms.
• To prevent long-term illnesses like CVD (cardiovascular disease), osteoporosis, bone fracture, skin aging, sex organ shrinking, Alzheimer’s disease and so on.
The current treatment of menopause can divide into drug therapy (based on western medicine), physical therapy, diet therapy (based on Chinese medicine) and nutrition.
1. Drug therapy
The drugs of menopause include α2 receptor agonist, Beta-adrenergic blockers, sedative-anxiolytics, and antidepressants.
• α2 receptor agonist: For example, clonidine, a kind of centrally acting antihypertensive drug, can relieve the hot flashes and night sweats that contribute to sleep disturbances. But it contains the side-effect of dizziness, drowsiness, and dry mouth.
• Beta-adrenergic blockers: The drug can trigger palpitations.
• Sedatives: Such as diazepam and phenobarbital.
• Antidepressants: Take it when obvious symptoms of mind and nerves occur.
2. Physical therapy
CES (Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation), which differs from traditional drug therapy and psychological therapy, uses the low-intensity of micro-electricity to stimulate the brain and alter the abnormal brain waves, whereby the brain secretes a number of neurotransmitters and hormones that are closely related to menopausal insomnia, anxiety and other diseases.
3. Diet therapy of eastern herb
In eastern countries, people prefer to adjust their period by herbal diet. The following part will introduce you to two recipes.
A. Licorice & Wheat Drink
Ingredient: wheat, jujube, and licorice
Method: Put all the ingredients in the water to boil
Indication: Use to treat premenopause or postmenopause accompanied by hot flashes, night sweats, restlessness, heart palpitations, depression and lacklustre facial expression.
B. Wolfberry and jujube soup
Ingredient: Wolfberry, mulberry, jujube
Method: Put all the ingredients in the water to boil.
Indication: Use to treat menopausal symptoms such as dizziness, loss of appetite, tiredness and pale facial expression.
Prevention-Home Remedies
Traditional Chinese medicine emphasizes that women should stabilise the kidneys, accompanied by dispersing the liver and strengthening the spleen. The following methods may help you alleviate menopausal symptoms and prevent exacerbations.
1. Lifestyle adjustment
All menopausal women should:
• Lead a normal life
• Physical activity should alternate with rest
• Get sufficient sleep
• Do bed for a long not stay in bed for a long time
If you can be flexible, try to:
• Do some work or housework.
• Play some physically undemanding sports or participate in social activities such as Qigong (a system of deep breathing exercises) and Taichi (a kind of traditional Chinese shadow boxing)
• Enrich your spiritual life and strengthen your body
• Keep a healthy sex life
2. Psychology
The patient should realize that menopause is a natural and unavoidable period that may last for several months to years. Therefore, it is unnecessary to be over-anxious about it as this can cause a spiritual burden. You should:
• Keep an open and positive mind
• Participate in more entertainments to enrich your life.
• Improve interpersonal relationships
• Overcome mental barriers to maintain a good mood and stabilize the emotions
Otherwise, friends and relatives of the patient should:
• Comfort the patient and give support mentally and physically.
• Avoid spiritual stimulation and irritable emotions.
The above suggestions can alleviate the symptoms of menopause or even cure without any treatment.
3. Other methods include acupuncture and pressure on auricular point (ear reflexology).
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