• Hot flushes, flashes, night sweats and/or cold flashes, clammy feeling
• Irregular heart beat
• Irritability
• Mood swings, sudden tears
• Trouble sleeping through the night (with or without night sweats)
• Irregular periods; shorter, lighter periods; heavier periods, flooding; phantom periods, shorter cycles, longer cycles
• Loss of libido
• Dry vagina
• Crashing fatigue
• Anxiety, feeling ill at ease
• Feelings of dread, apprehension, doom
• Difficulty concentrating, disorientation, mental confusion
• Disturbing memory lapses
• Incontinence, especially upon sneezing, laughing
• Itchy, crawly skin
• Aching, sore joints, muscles and tendons
• Increased tension in muscles
• Breast tenderness
• Headache change: increase or decrease
• Gastrointestinal distress, indigestion, flatulence, gas pain, nausea
• Sudden bouts of bloat
• Depression
• Exacerbation of existing conditions
• Increase in allergies
• Weight gain
• Hair loss or thinning, head, pubic, or whole body; increase in facial hair
• Dizziness, light-headedness, episodes of loss of balance
• Changes in body odour
• Electric shock sensation under the skin and in the head
• Tingling in the extremities
• Gum problems, increased bleeding
• Burning tongue, burning roof of mouth, bad taste in mouth, change in breath odour
• Osteoporosis (after several years)
• Changes in fingernails: softer, crack or break easier
• Tinnitus: ringing in ears, bells, ‘whooshing,’ buzzing etc

When I stopped reeling after finding that list, I had to take a note of the few signs and symptoms I didn’t have and count my blessings.

This list of signs of peri-menopause and menopause was developed by women on the Internet ‘Menopaus’ mailing list, hosted by St. John’s University. The list 35 symptoms is based on the real life experiences of these women. All symptoms appearing on the list were experienced by numerous women and were either cyclical in nature, or responded to treatments (both traditional and alternative) known to address hormonal imbalances.

The women who directly contributed text and/or ideas to this list of signs are: Judy Bayliss, founder & owner of the Menopaus mailing lis, Lucy L. Brown, PH.D., Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Krista Glickman, Susan Jessen, Roberta J. Leon, Susan Klee, Betty Clark, Jennifer Hesketh Aviles, Christine Cody, Keri Webb, Bonnie Dreps Voigtlander, Jean Bauer, Joan Starker, Miriam Biddleman, Graciela Spivak, Susan Ariew

* July, 2008 : The original website has vanished now, but I have left the original link as a mark of respect for those women

How effective is Traditional Chinese Medicine? Does acupuncture help with difficult menopause?

I’ve never tried it, so I can’t tell you anything about its effectiveness – or otherwise, but I see that the United Nations World Health Organisation has approved acupuncture as a treatment for symptoms associated with menopause. So it could be an answer for women who don’t want to take the chance with HRT.

In Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), menopause is seen as a natural process which alters the balance of Yin and Yang. After menopause many women discover (and may be disturbed by) the more yang (energetic, aggressive) side of themselves.

From a TCM point of view, mind and body are one, and the whole woman and her experience of life is considered in diagnosis. These life experiences (especially when out of balance and not dealt with properly) can manifest as disease in the body, and especially as gynecological problems.

Interestingly, TCM holds that all perimenopausal symptoms to be signs of ill-health, and the biggest factors in determining your comfort through this time will be the dietary and emotional health you’ve maintained throughout your adulthood.Well that seems fairly obvious.

Is it worth trying acupuncture? That’s up to you of course, and if there are any practitioners in your area – and how much it costs!

But TCM offers dietary suggestions too

• Cutting back on your sugar intake.
• Taking a break from coffee, chocolate, colas (tough for a lot of people, but think about feeling better!)
• Eating more tryptophan-rich foods – turkey, bananas, figs, whole grain crackers, figs, and dates.
• Eating more foods rich in phytoestrogens – red clover sprouts, yams, and linseed.

What’s Tryptophan?

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid, meaning that the body can’t manufacture it. The body has to get tryptophan and other essential amino acids from food.

Tryptophan helps the body produce the B-vitamin niacin, which, ­in turn, helps the body produce serotonin, a remarkable chemical that acts as a calming agent in the brain and plays a key role in sleep.

What are Phytoestrogens?

The Phytoestrogen Buzz

Earlier posts mentioning phytoestrogen and where you can get it

The Power of Soup

Soya

Please let me know if you have some experience with acupuncture.

All women have some risk of developing breast cancer, but having someone from your family — specifically, a biological relative — who has been diagnosed with breast cancer can mean a significantly increased risk for you.

So the first step to understanding your risk is by analysing your family’s medical history, taking into account how many people in your family had breast cancer and at what age the cancer developed.

Once you know your risk level, you and your health professional can determine a screening schedule that is appropriate for you. That screening could include mammograms.

I’m not suggesting for one minute that you ignore medical procedures. However, massive campaigns exist to encourage all of us to have annual mammograms and it’s still uncertain whether these screenings have actually lowered the death rate from breast cancer or how much harm they really do us.

See if you can arrange for a thermogram instead. A thermogram is a heat imaging screening.

I recently read a disturbing article from Sherry Baker …

Common sense suggests there is plenty of reason to be worried about radiation causing breast cancer. And now there’s a new reason to be concerned. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered that radiation exposure can alter cells’ microenvironment (the environment surrounding cells). And that greatly raises the odds future cells will become cancerous.

Here’s the full article : Studies show how radiation causes breast cancer

I don’t know what Sherry’s qualifications are, but in that article she is quoting the findings from various studies. And they all give me great cause for concern. You should be concerned too.