My wife has just come out of menopause, at 51. She has entered the glory of graceful aging, now that all problems of menopause are over for her. She feels brand new and it shows in her color, attitude and receptiveness.
If you are right now in the age range of 45, below or above and feeling stranger than usual, do not panic. Symptoms of menopause are not pleasant, but are manageable. The word is manageable, not treatable ? menopause is not a disease so should not be ?medicalised?
The most traumatic of all the symptoms of menopause is hot flashes, and research has since revealed that "hot flashes" is the most widespread symptom faced by American women going through menopause - about 75% of women in the States suffer hot flashes regularly, especially at night
If you are a woman of about 45 and you begin to feel hot in the neck and head, that is the symptom of menopause called hot flashes.
My wife had panicked when she first experienced the hot flashes, then to worsen her state of mind, she noticed that her heart was beating irregularly.
You can imagine our dilemma when a pattern of sudden dizziness, sweating, feeling of nausea and persistent headache caused her a lot of anxiety, irritability and depression that always followed a feeling of chilliness following each attack. And Even though her sleep was shortend due to night sweating, her weight began to balloon.
She told me that some times the attack was mild, lasting just a few seconds, but severe attacks last for hours on end. The worst of it all was that we could no longer make love; for she felt hurt any time we tried due to dryness of her private part.
Now she is rid of it and feeling on top of the world without any of those awful symptoms anymore. Even her vagina is no more dry. Our sex life has received a boast. Her new found enthusiasm has rekindled my libido. I am 56 years old.
I have written this article so you can read my personal anecdote and know that menopause is not a disease but a transitional process through middle age, which every woman will experience.
Though the degree of suffering will vary according to lifestyle, nutrition, knowledge of how to manage the symptoms of menopause, or early seeking of such knowledge from those who know.
Believe me, Menopause is nothing but middle age hormonal crisis. For example, with the onset of puberty, hormone production increases, which protects females from lots of illness while at the same time making them women. But with the advent of menopause at about age 45 or there about, the body's ability to produce those hormones decline, precipitating what I called "hormonal crisis" in the female body.
For my wife, her problem with hot flashes was gigantic. Her vaginal dryness was very severe, and that affected her moods terribly. Our family doctor said that her hormonal levels fluctuated widely.
The cause of most of the menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes?
Doctor also told us that her blood vessels in the neck and the head dilated to cause increased blood flow, causing the warm feeling called hot flashes, and possibly the other symptoms.
As for why the blood vessels dilated he did not know. But from what I have read from my wife's ebook, A - Z, The Difinitive Guide to Mordern Menopause, it is a function of dietary deficiency at a time when so much nutrition was required to boost the body's ability to make the stabilizing hormones that make females women.
If you are lucky and your symptoms, especially hot flashes, are mild, you may be able to get on with your life, taking the incidences as some inconvenience. But even moderate hot flashes requires some form of management.
When you are approaching menopause, about age 45 or so, your lifestyle ought to change. For instance, exercise, diet and relaxation techniques should become your habits, even when you are already menopausal.
Over-the-counter drugs such as blood pressure medication, methyldopa and clonidine, Vitamin E and Vitamin B6, and anti-depressants like epinephrine and serotonin may bring down the severity of the problem, but they have their own problems of side effects.
Even though medical intervention with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) seems to provide appreciable solution, controversy surrounds its long term side effects.
So you have to make a personal decision about what treatment to take. Consider a consultation with your physician or the use of alternative therapy which are readily available, even online.
