Menopause

MENOPAUSE

Menopause is the cessation of the menstrual period in women.It occurs when the female hormone levels drop below a critical value needed to produce the normal cycle of ovulation and menstruation.This occurs between the ages of 45 and 50 in most women.

This article can help you avoid and correct menopausal symptoms in most cases without the use of replacement hormones.Hormone replacement therapy is, in my experience, a dangerous, costly and usually quite unnecessary way to correct menopausal symptoms.

MENOPAUSAL SYMPTOMS

Menopause should occur without difficulties.However, often women experience symptoms such as hot flashes, fatigue, irritability and vaginal dryness.Others can rarely be more severe, including the development of breast lumps, tumors and fibroid uterine tumors.

Emotionally, menopause is a profound shift in a woman that signals that child-bearing is no longer her prerogative and role in life.It should be a time of great joy, ease and even relief for women who have been concerned with unwanted pregnancy, often for years.However, due to impaired body chemistry, too often it causes stress, fatigue and even anguish.

CAUSES OF MENOPAUSAL SYMPTOMS

The main cause of menopausal symptoms is imbalances in the thyroid and adrenal glands that react incorrectly when the ovaries cease producing the same amount of ovarian hormones such as estrogen and progesterone.Said differently, the inappropriate responses of the adrenal and thyroid glands to the changes in the ovarian hormones are what cause the vast majority of menopausal symptoms.

This means that correcting thyroid and adrenal imbalances can go a long way to preventing and correcting menopausal symptoms.

THE ADRENALS AND MENOPAUSE

The adrenal glands, perched on top the kidneys, produce small quantities of both male and female sex hormones.At the menopause, the adrenal glands should produce adequate estrogens, progesterone and other needed hormones in the correct balance and amounts to avoid symptoms that can occur when ovarian hormone production of these hormones diminishes.

However, many women today have a condition that is termed adrenal insufficiency.This is basically underactivity of the adrenal glands.These women’s adrenals do not respond correctly to the new need for sex hormones in response to diminished ovarian hormone secretion.

Briefly, the causes of weakened adrenals include stress of any kind, nutritional deficiencies and almost always a buildup of toxic substances.These include toxic metals and perhaps environmental chemicals in the adrenal glands themselves and/or in the pituitary gland, which regulates the adrenal glands, signaling them when and how much of its hormones to secrete.

At times, an imbalance of the autonomic nervous system is at fault as well.This can cause the adrenals to malfunction, secreting either too much or too little or the incorrect balance of hormones.This brings us to the other vital gland involved in menopause symptoms.

THE THYROID GLAND AND MENOPAUSE

The thyroid gland is the other piece of the puzzle that frequently is involved in menopausal symptoms.This is not to say there are not other causes, which are covered later.However, thyroid imbalances are very common and definitely affect female hormone regulation in the body.

The thyroid produces thyroxine, a powerful hormone that affect the burning of sugar or glucose in the body and in so doing regulates the rate of metabolism, body temperature and much more.It is such as critical hormone that many people are given thyroid hormone replacement when they feel tired, cold, short of breath or have thin, brittle or falling hair.Low thyroid activity can also cause weight gain, a sallow complexion and many more problems for a person.

CAUSES OF THYROID IMBALANCE

Thyroid difficulties occur for many reasons.However, these are the most common ones today.Most women with thyroid problems have an underactive thyroid gland.Diagnostic names include hypothyroidism, a general term or a doctor may call the problem a goiter or swelling of the thyroid.Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and other nodular or swelling may also occur.

Regardless of the name, the cause from our perspective is similar.The gland is either toxic, depleted of vital nutrients, or being affected by tumors or dysregulation from the pituitary gland, which secretes TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone.This hormone directs the thyroid to secrete its hormone in the proper amount.

Other thyroid imbalances that are somewhat less common include an inability to convert T4, a largely inactive hormone to its active form, called T3 or triiodothyronine.This imbalance is called Wilson’s Syndrome, and can be researched on the internet.It is over diagnosed in our opinion since many times the cause is once again a toxic or depleted body chemistry.

Another cause of thyroid problems that is extremely common is stress.This is a general term for excessive physical, mental or emotional activity that overtaxes the gland.When it can no longer respond correctly, it mis functions, either secreting too much or too little hormone.These are among the major causes of thyroid imbalances.

Another cause of thyroid imbalances, touched upon but in need of elaboration, is mental and emotional stress that affects the thyroid gland in particular.Women are much more prone to this stress-related condition than men.Women are, in most cases, not accustomed to expressing themselves completely.They have been shut out of the mainstream of society by men and by tradition in many cases, for generations.As a result, when faced with a crisis, they often go into a form of “overdrive” or a more technical term is a stress response that severely taxes their thyroid gland.

When this occurs, and it can happen at any age and usually in childhood, the thyroid is severely damaged.The problem frequently does not reveal itself on tests until menopause, when the deficiency of ovarian hormones places added stress on a woman’s body.

At this time, the problem “catches up” with the woman and she experiences symptoms that are attributed to menopause but are really due to an underlying thyroid imbalance.The thyroid problem may or may not be revealed on standard blood tests.However, it is very apparent on properly interpreted hair mineral analysis and often by symptoms such as a low body temperature, dry hair and very dry skin at times, fatigue and other related conditions.

THE BONES AND MENOPAUSE

Bone health is impacted to some degree by menopausal symptoms.Copper is sometimes involved in this process.Copper helps fix calcium in the bones.Without adequate bioavailable copper, calcium may go to the bones, but does not remain as well as it should.

Another related syndrome we call slow oxidation involves the bones.Slow oxidizers, as those with sluggish adrenals and thyroid activity are termed, often have biounavailable calcium and magnesium because the body cannot keep these minerals in solution in the blood and they precipitate or collect in the soft tissues instead.The body then robs the bones of calcium to place more calcium into the blood.This is also explained more in another article on this website, Osteoporosis.

Lead can also enter the bones and weaken them and this is the case in many, many women.Like the fatigue and stress feelings, the bone problems often begin to show up at the time of menopause or afterwards as the hormone system is under more stress and begins to malfunction more obviously.

PREVENTING SYMPTOMS OF MENOPAUSE

The standard medical treatment for menopausal symptoms is estrogen, preferably accompanied by progesterone. A synthetic estrogen is used in the common preparations, although studies show little benefit and much danger in these synthetic or semisynthetic prescriptions.Breast cancer has decreased as less of the synthetics are being used.

Progestin, not natural progesterone, may be given along with the estrogen. This treatment is not too effective and may be quite toxic for some women.It also does not address the causes at all and further disrupts the natural hormone balance.Therefore I cannot recommend it very much.

Another alternative is the use of all natural, bio-identical hormones.This is better, but still does not address causes at all, and definitely upsets the natural hormone balance further because it does not address the causes outlined above.For this reason, I cannot recommend these either, except in rare cases where the glands cannot be rebuilt.These do occur, but not frequently.

The best solution is to address the causes listed above and correct them.That is the goal of the programs we design and on this website are a list of practitioners for those who wish to have their system balanced in this way.We find that in most cases, menopausal symptoms are quite easy to remedy by this method!Natural vitamins, minerals, herbs and lifestyle changes, along with sauna therapy and perhaps other detoxification procedures are usually quite sufficient to rebuild the glands enough to stop the most annoying and dangerous of the menopausal symptoms.

© 2007, LD Wilson Consultants, Inc.