I Have Horrible Menopausal Symptoms: Can You Help?

We want to kick off this discussion with two facts about menopause: 1) It’s an unavoidable transition for women; and 2) No two women have the same experience.

Each year in the United States, 1.3 million women enter menopause, which marks the transition out of your reproductive years. Though some sail through this transition with a few hot flashes, others are saddled with life-altering changes — and few of them are good changes.

If you’re having a tough time with menopause, the team of women’s healthcare experts here at Bay Area Physicians for Women’s Health has you covered. Even though menopause may be inevitable, many of the side effects don’t have to be.

In the following, we explore some of the changes that can take place as you transition through menopause and how we can offset a few of these unwelcome and horrible symptoms.

Why the changes during and after menopause?

Menopause is the transition from your reproductive years into your non-reproductive years, and we consider this transition complete after you’ve gone 12 months without a period. The average age when this occurs is 52, but women can transition sooner or later.

Menopause occurs when your ovaries begin to shut down, which means they stop releasing eggs and producing estrogen hormones. It’s this loss of hormones that leads to the side effects, which include:

• Hot flashes and night sweats, which occur in 75% of women
• Vaginal dryness, which affects more than 50% of women between the ages of 51-60
• Urinary urgency
• Urinary incontinence
• Insomnia
• Weight gain
• Hair loss
• Bone loss
• Mood changes
• Dry skin, eyes, and/or mouth
• Difficulty concentrating
• Headaches

As you can see, none of these potential side effects is small, and many of them can have a profound impact on your life. For example, many women struggle with bone loss after menopause, which increases their risks for fractures.

Many women also find the disruption to their sex life a serious quality of life issue. After menopause, you may run into vaginal dryness, as well as vaginal atrophy, both of which can make sex uncomfortable, if not painful.

Even symptoms like hot flashes, which might not seem all that serious, can impact your life — sitting in a meeting when a hot flash flares is not a great experience as you become drenched in sweat.

Addressing your menopause symptoms

The good news is that we offer a wide range of solutions for managing menopause symptoms. One of our frontline treatments is hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which, as the name suggests, is a technique in which we replace lost hormones, chiefly estrogen and progestin.

We offer different types of hormone replacement therapies, such as:

• Slow-release pellets
• Estrogen patches
• Progestin pills
• Estrogen vaginal creams, gels, rings, or sprays

The primary difference among these options is that you can target certain areas locally or try a more systemic approach. For example, if vaginal dryness is your primary complaint, a topical estrogen cream may be sufficient. If, however, you want to address vaginal dryness, hot flashes, and bone loss, you might want to try a more blanket approach with patches, pills, or pellets.

Outside of HRT, we also offer prescription medications for the vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes and night sweats). We also offer prescription medications that can tackle bone loss.

We also have a long list of lifestyle changes that you can make to counter some of the side effects of menopause. For example, diet and exercise can go a long way toward supporting bone health.

Our point here is that most women benefit from a combination of therapies to take the teeth out of menopause, and we’re happy to sit down with you to figure out which combination is right for you.

So, if menopause has taken over your life, let’s get it back on track with a solid menopause treatment plan. To reclaim your life from menopause, contact our office in Mobile, Alabama, to schedule an appointment.