Treatment For Menopausal Symptoms

The menopause is a natural process; however, many people, including doctors, treat it like a disease which needs to be cured.  Certainly some of the above symptoms will be excessive and unpleasant for some women, and warrant relief.  Conventional allopathic treatment has largely focused around replacing lost estrogen, and/or treating women for depression.

In the intervening years, side effects and new research (for instance, documenting a rise in endometrial cancers in ORT users) prompted the development of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) which delivers synthetic progestogen as well as estrogen.  Continued research has induced caution, and most doctors now prescribe HRT for only 5 years or so, although some women take it for longer.  Nowadays HRT is  - in theory - customized to suit a woman¡¯s needs and minimize side effects, and it is available in many forms: tablets, pessaries, skin patches, creams and implants.  

The medical justification for prescribing HRT is that it will protect bones from osteoporosis and the heart from heart disease.   However, there is a slightly increased risk of breast cancer, uterine cancer and blood-clotting disorders; therefore HRT contra-indicated for anyone with a family history or tendency to these.   And while some menopausal symptoms are lessened on HRT, side effects may produce other unwelcome symptoms.

Another point worth noting is that while estrogen continues to be manufactured in the body after menopause (albeit in smaller quantities), progesterone production ceases altogether.  As a supplement it is therefore more likely to disturb the bodys natural balance.