Healthy Living explores the signs and symptoms of menopause
Every woman who goes through the second phase in life at middle age will experience this condition. In this week’s edition of Healthy Living News Five looks at that important phase when women go through the experiences of menopause.
Marleni Cuellar Reporting
Menopause is an inevitable milestone in every woman’s life. Also referred to as “change of life”, menopause has been the cause of much anxiety; taking a bad rap for the symptoms associated with the transition. Doctor Tracey Nicholas is a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist who conducts menopause counseling and treatment. She explains the need to look at the “change of life” as ONE part of the aging process.
Doctor Tracey Nicholas, Obstetrician & Gynecologist
“Menopause occurs at time when the aging process is going on so there are other factors that are going to influence it that is just one aspect of aging that’s going on . It is the one that everyone says is the problem, right. Anything that happens to you during that time it is said “oh she’s going through menopause” but that is not the real honest truth of what’s going on.”
The medical definition of menopause is the time in a woman’s life when menstrual periods permanently stop.
Doctor Tracey Nicholas
“After twelve months of Amenorrhea which is when you no longer see your period or the last time you’ve seen it that is when you are said to be in menopause. The problem with that however is that the symptoms and everything we’re gonna talk about happens before that time and you call that period the peri-menopause, pre-menopause or the menopause transition.”
The symptoms associated with the peri-menopause are numerous. But the most infamous are the hot flashes or hot flushes. This symptom affects as many as seventy-five percent of peri-menopausal women. Dr Nicholas explains that the lack of estrogen makes the body unable to regulate its temperature.
Doctor Tracey Nicholas
“But what ends up happening is that you get peripheral vasodilatation, the vessels open up and the blood rushes to the surface and this happens more in the face, the neck and the upper chest of the women. In fair skin women you see the flush which is why it’s called the flushes. But in a darker skinned person feels it, you can feel when the blood rushes like when you blush or something but this is not the same kind of feeling. It’s sudden in onset it can occur many times in the day you get nauseous, dizzy, anxious, you have palpitations all at the same time. Having all of this flushing happen to you your body now is trying to cool off. You sweat which is what you do when you want to cool off and having done that you drop the core temperature and what happens now you get the cold sweat part of it where you get the cold sweat and the chills.”
Other common symptoms include sleep disturbances, Night sweats, vaginal dryness, irregular periods, some sexual dysfunction, lower sex drive and osteoporosis due to the estrogen depletion.
The average age for a woman to experience menopause is between 46 to 51 years, but for an even clearer indication looking at the other women in your family can be a very good indicator.
Doctor Tracey Nicholas
“Look at your mother or older sister, when they went through menopause is when it’s going to happen to you around the same time because you have similar chromosomes makeup and the genes are around the same place. There are racial differences the Japanese are tend to go through menopause than the Caucasians, than the blacks or Hispanics. Those women who have few children or no children go through menopause earlier as well as. Those who have shorter cycles people who smoke have about 2 years earlier for them as well. People with diabetes mellitus type 1 so those who have it form teenage years and stuff; they are also going to go through menopause a bit earlier as well.”
The most common treatment available for the hot flushes is hormone replacement therapy, which is a method of replacing the hormones lost. The treatment is delivered in a variety of methods including pills, patches, crèmes and other methods. It is reported to be effective in controlling approximately ninety percent of hot flushes in women. Better general health and a positive outlook are also helpful in the transition.
Doctor Tracey Nicholas
“How you approach it is important if you consider it the kiss of death, it’s probably going to be the kiss of death for you because everything that happens is gonna send you to depression. Every bad thing that you see happening to your body is you’re going to hate it more and more and you have to try to cope with it. I think in the past, nobody talks about it because it is considered the end of your life as you know it basically and I think one the main thing is to try to think of it more in a positive light. If you think about it you’re going to spend at least one-third of your life now in that phase because life expectancy has actually increased now. Every woman will experience this once they’ve attained the appropriate age. So there’s always someone who you can speak to. You can’t say ‘you don’t know what I’m talking about’ ‘you don’t know what I feel’. Every woman is going to go through it.”
