Menopause in women — age, symptoms and traditional medicine

Cli­max (menopause) is a nat­ur­al state of a woman, the same as men­stru­a­tion or preg­nan­cy, this is a nat­ur­al process of the extinc­tion of a wom­an’s sex­u­al func­tion, asso­ci­at­ed with a change in the activ­i­ty of the ovaries and pitu­itary gland. At what age does menopause begin? What symp­toms do women expe­ri­ence? And what are the best herbs to use to help the body?

Con­tent:

Menopause is the last inde­pen­dent men­stru­a­tion due to ovar­i­an func­tion (the date is set ret­ro­spec­tive­ly, name­ly after 12 months of absence of men­stru­a­tion). At this time, the amount of estro­gen, the female sex hor­mone, decreas­es, and this process is accom­pa­nied by a vari­ety of changes in health. Ovar­i­an fail­ure is a long process that takes 5–6 years, and some­times more.

Age of menopause

The aver­age age of onset of menopausal changes is 45–48 years. In some women, under the influ­ence of stress, the first signs of menopause may appear before the age of 40, while in oth­ers — even at 55 years. The aver­age length of the menopause peri­od is 8–10 years.

• Per­i­menopause. On aver­age, it begins at the age of 45, although this is very indi­vid­ual — some­times the first signs appear as ear­ly as 38–40 years old, and some­times women do not feel any changes until almost 50 years old. The ovaries are still work­ing, but the peri­ods become irreg­u­lar and the inter­vals between them increase. Dur­ing this peri­od, a woman may first feel hot flash­es, some note a decrease in libido, bouts of blues and headaches.
• Menopause. The aver­age age for a woman to go through menopause is 50–53 years. The ovaries stop work­ing, men­stru­a­tion stops, although they can still come at a very long inter­val. Changes caused by a lack of estro­gen begin to man­i­fest them­selves espe­cial­ly clear­ly. Dur­ing this peri­od, the bones become brit­tle, the devel­op­ment of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases and even dia­betes is pos­si­ble.
• Post­menopause. This term refers to the peri­od from the last men­stru­a­tion to the end of life. Dur­ing post­menopause, all the unpleas­ant symp­toms that plagued menopause, as a rule, dis­ap­pear. Most menopausal symp­toms occur dur­ing pre­menopause and menopause. Both of these peri­ods togeth­er can last an aver­age of 5 to 10 years.

menopause symptoms

Dur­ing menopause, hor­mon­al changes in the body occur and a woman expe­ri­ences typ­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tions of menopausal syn­drome. The most com­mon menopause symp­toms are:

• hot flash­es
• pro­fuse sweat
• increased ner­vous­ness
• irri­tabil­i­ty
• headache
• insom­nia
• sense of anx­i­ety
• depres­sion
• pros­tra­tion

This state of the body is asso­ci­at­ed with a drop in the lev­el of the hor­mone — estro­gen. At the same time, the bio­chem­istry of process­es in the brain changes, mal­func­tions occur in the reg­u­la­tion of tem­per­a­ture in the body. As a result, the brain sends sig­nals to the ves­sels, caus­ing them to con­strict, which leads to an increase in body tem­per­a­ture, and you feel warm. In response to this, the body begins to dilate blood ves­sels in order to cool. This caus­es a rush of blood to the upper body (face red­den­ing), which is felt by the woman as a hot wave, and there is a strong sweat­ing.

Medical care for menopause

It is not nec­es­sary to sto­ical­ly endure the symp­toms of menopause. Today, there are many ways to bring health back to nor­mal and pro­long youth.

Hor­mone replace­ment ther­a­py. A very effec­tive way, based on fill­ing the lack of your own sex hor­mones. It is only nec­es­sary to take pills con­tain­ing their syn­thet­ic coun­ter­parts on time. But such ther­a­py has a lot of con­traindi­ca­tions — oncol­o­gy, dis­eases of the liv­er, gall­blad­der and pan­creas, chron­ic headaches, throm­bophlebitis, mastopa­thy, a his­to­ry of stroke or heart attack, dia­betes mel­li­tus, endometrio­sis and acute throm­boem­bol­ic dis­ease. In addi­tion, choos­ing the right hor­mon­al drug can be dif­fi­cult — with the wrong choice, side effects such as swelling and chest pain are pos­si­ble.

Phy­tother­a­py. Herbal prepa­ra­tions and prepa­ra­tions can solve many of the prob­lems that women face dur­ing menopause. Of course, pro­vid­ed there is no aller­gy. They can bal­ance the mood, relieve insom­nia, increase over­all tone. Their effec­tive­ness may not be so pro­nounced, how­ev­er, they have few­er con­traindi­ca­tions and side effects.

Med­ical ther­a­py. Many reme­dies have been devel­oped that can help women dur­ing menopause elim­i­nate unpleas­ant psy­cho­log­i­cal symp­toms. These drugs work in sev­er­al direc­tions at once — they reduce anx­i­ety, improve mood, and also help nor­mal­ize sleep, stop somat­ic and auto­nom­ic dis­or­ders. To achieve a last­ing effect, they need to be tak­en in a course that should be repeat­ed from time to time.

Psy­chother­a­py. As a rule, the great­est dis­com­fort to a woman is caused not so much by the phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tions of menopause as by a depressed mood and fear of the future. How­ev­er, menopause is a com­plete­ly nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non, which does not at all imply the end of an active life, and the help of a psy­chother­a­pist will help improve the emo­tion­al and men­tal state.

Traditional medicine for menopause

How to help this state of the body? And herbs that con­tain in their com­po­si­tion the so-called “phy­to­hor­mones” that com­pen­sate for the lack of estro­gen will help us in this. Heal­ing plants, such as: birch, St.

With uter­ine bleed­ing dur­ing menopause effec­tive­ly use birch leaves: pour 2 tea­spoons of small dry birch leaves with 1 cup of boil­ing water, leave for 30 min­utes and drink 1/4 cup 3 times a day before meals. Birch decoc­tion not only stops bleed­ing, but also nor­mal­izes the men­stru­al cycle.

St. John’s wort for depres­sion or mild psy­chogenic dis­or­ders. St. John’s wort is a good anti­de­pres­sant, so in menopausal con­di­tions it is very good to use the herb of this plant. At home, depres­sion can be treat­ed as fol­lows: 2 tea­spoons of St. John’s wort should be poured with a glass of boil­ing water, left to cool, strain. Take 1–2 cups in the morn­ing and evening.

With increased sweat­ing, the leaves of sage offic­i­nalis help. Strong tea is pre­pared from it (3 tea­spoons of sage leaves are poured with 1 cup of boil­ing water, boiled in a sealed con­tain­er for 5 min­utes, then removed from heat, fil­tered, allowed to cool and tak­en 1–2 cups inside). But if you have stom­ach prob­lems, then you need to pre­pare tea of ​​low con­cen­tra­tion. To do this, instead of 3, take 1.5 tea­spoons of the leaves of the plant.

With neu­ral­gia, migraine, men­stru­al dis­or­ders, due to menopausal dis­or­ders, tra­di­tion­al heal­ers rec­om­mend prim­rose (prim­rose). In Bul­gar­ia, prim­rose infu­sions are wide­ly used for neu­roses and insom­nia.

To do this: 10 g of dried flow­ers are poured into 1 cup of boil­ing water and fil­tered after 15 min­utes. Take this infu­sion 2 hours before bed­time. In Ger­many, dried prim­rose flow­ers are brewed into a tea that strength­ens the nerves, and their broth is mixed with wine.

For insom­nia dur­ing menopause, it is rec­om­mend­ed to turn to a peony. Peony devi­at­ing — a plant for the treat­ment of patients with dis­or­ders of the ner­vous sys­tem, among which tear­ful­ness, irri­tabil­i­ty, intense itch­ing, anx­i­ety neu­ro­sis, depres­sion, poor sleep, loss of appetite, lethar­gy, fol­lowed by excitabil­i­ty pre­dom­i­nate. These symp­toms are very com­mon in women dur­ing menopause.

At home: tinc­ture of peony leaves and roots (for this, 150 grams of fresh peony roots and leaves equal­ly, washed and fine­ly chopped, pour 0.5 liters of vod­ka and infuse for 3 weeks. Then fil­ter and take up to 2–3 tea­spoons dur­ing the day.The course of treat­ment (25–30 days) is used as a seda­tive for neuras­the­nia with increased excitabil­i­ty, insom­nia, hypochon­dria, veg­e­ta­tive-vas­cu­lar syn­drome, increased lethar­gy.

It is very impor­tant for women dur­ing the menopause to care­ful­ly con­sid­er and, if nec­es­sary, revise the diet. Watch your weight, blood cho­les­terol lev­els, and take vit­a­mins and min­er­als.

Myths about menopause

Do you lose your sex dri­ve dur­ing menopause?

No, if you elim­i­nate the effects of menopause. Dur­ing menopause, sex becomes painful because the mucous mem­brane is dry, thin. But if a woman removes insom­nia and irri­tabil­i­ty, dry­ness of the mucous mem­brane, then noth­ing pre­vents her from return­ing to sex­u­al activ­i­ty. In addi­tion, dur­ing menopause, a woman is sex­u­al­ly lib­er­at­ed, because she does not wor­ry about con­tra­cep­tion and the onset of an unplanned preg­nan­cy.

Is it impos­si­ble to get preg­nant with menopause?

Dur­ing the peri­od of pre­menopause, and even in the first year or two of menopause, you can get preg­nant. Women do not con­trol their ovar­i­an reserve, and the ovaries work alter­nate­ly: one month — the left, the next — the right (by the way, accord­ing to sta­tis­tics, the right ovary ovu­lates on aver­age 3 times more often in most women). Mature fol­li­cles may appear in them, even despite irreg­u­lar peri­ods. How­ev­er, after five years of menopause, it is pos­si­ble to get preg­nant only by a mir­a­cle.

Is there a male menopause?

Yes. Menopause in men, also known as andropause, is a nor­mal phe­nom­e­non. As a rule, the first changes in a man’s body occur at the age of 50+, although it is pos­si­ble even ear­li­er. Menopause is char­ac­ter­ized by a decrease in the lev­el of the male sex hor­mone testos­terone in the body. This is due to both a decrease in libido and many oth­er changes in the body. Often the process pro­ceeds almost imper­cep­ti­bly and much more calm­ly than in women.

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The opin­ion of the edi­tors may not coin­cide with the opin­ion of the author of the arti­cle.