Hot Flashes During The Menopause

Hot flashes and night sweats can be precipitated by falling estrogen (oestrogen) levels and can be accompanied by feelings of anxiety.

The first thing to try for regular hot flashes is Sage, either as a tincture or tea. This helps rebalance the sweat regulating mechanism in the brain. This non hormonal method works well for many women. You can take this throughout the day, or once in the day and then experiment with increasing doses at night, if night sweats are your worst problem.

If this doesn't work, you can try Black Cohosh which mimics estrogen in the body ie it's a phytoestrogen. It cannot be taken with HRT though.

Vitamin E also helps. Take 200iu to 400iu daily.

Increase the amount of phytoestrogens in your diet. One way to do this is to eat the menopause cake (yes it does exist!).

Take some milk thistle after meals. Milk thistle is an excellent remedy for the liver and this can help your liver which is probably stressed at this time of life.

Also check that the hot flash is related to the menopause. Other illnesses also cause hot flushes as do some allergic reactions.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Reduces Hot Flashes

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT is a safe and effective therapy for hot flashes and night sweats, the most common symptoms of the menopause and an alternative to Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).
This is according to two new studies published this month. Both studies were led by Professor Myra Hunter of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London.

Almost a quarter of women going through the menopause commonly suffer from hot flushes and night sweats which leads to them experiencing sleep disturbances, embarrassment and discomfort.

The first study followed women who had hot flashes and night sweats after breast cancer treatment and the second followed healthy menopausal women and was published in Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society.

In the second study, 140 healthy menopausal women were followed in a Randomized Controlled Trial over 26 weeks and were divided into two groups. One had group cognitive behavior therapy and the other self-help CBT. It was found that both group and guided self-help forms of CBT led to significant improvements in how women coped with the menopause symptoms.
In addition, mood, quality of life and sleep improved.
What's more, these improvements following brief interventions of CBT were still effective 6 months later.

Source: King's College, London

HRT Increases Risk of Dementia

Even though many women feel that their memory is no longer as sharp as it was before the menopause, apparently that is not the case.
Researchers say the myth of memory loss during menopause is a perception some women have because as they went through menopause, they felt their memory wasn't as sharp as it had been before.
Demantia, which is an age related condition can however affect women as they grow older.
It was believed at one time that hormone replacement therapy could prevent this.
Studies suggesting that hormone replacement therapy might protect against dementia strengthened that belief. However, a large study later found that in older women, hormone replacement therapy not only didn't help protect women from dementia, but could actually increase the risk.

Does HRT Shrink Women's Brains?

According to a US study led by researchers at Wake Forest University, two key areas of the brain involved in thinking and memory were smaller in women who had taken HRT than in those who had been given a "dummy" placebo pill.

These findings may explain previous studies linking HRT to dementia and an increased risk of memory loss.

The big flaw in this study was that the researchers admitted that they they were unable to take brain scans of the women before they began takin HRT.

So in actual fact the brain shrinkage could have occured before these women began taking HRT.

Yet again a big broo ha ha about nothing as this doesn't prove anything.
More studies would have to be done before any conclusions about brain shrinkage and HRT can be made.

Extreme Caution in using HRT

A study conducted by Olga Glinskii and her associate leads her to advise extreme caution in HRT use.

The vascular system depends on estrogen for maintenance. When the body decreases its estrogen production, as in after the menopause, the body is unable to regulate blood vessels like it did before.
This might explain why women lose the protection they get from certain conditions such as heart disease and stroke after menopause," said Olga Glinskii, research assistant professor of medical pharmacology and physiology in MU’s School of Medicine and lead author of the study.

She says, “because the body eventually will naturally adapt to the loss of estrogen, we advise extreme caution when using estrogen-based therapy in postmenopausal women.”

"Eventually, the body starts to recognize that it needs blood vessels and starts to adapt through natural responses.
If we start adding estrogen to a system that is learning to adapt without it, we upset this transition process.
What happens to the vascular system during menopause is complex on many different levels, and we do not know enough to determine the best way to use hormone therapy."

After a period of deterioration, the body learns to adapt to the estrogen loss and eventually maintains the system in a different way.

Tread Carefully with HRT

Not so long ago, the belief that giving post menopausal women estrogen would help prevent heart disease was well publicised.

Now, however, the findings are that giving supplemental estrogen actually increases the risk of heart disease (along with the risk of stroke, breast cancer, blood clots in the legs, and dementia).

So in fact no woman should still be taking hormones to lower her risk of heart attack or stroke.

Even though hormones do have benefits in some people, generally, however, the risks outweigh the benefits.

The Women’s Health Initiative found that the increased risk of heart attack and blood clots began as early as the first year of hormone use. That means most women who use hormones to control symptoms do face some heart risk (as well as an increased risk of breast cancer).

If you do need to take estrogen for severe menopause related problems, then try and use the pills for no more than three years unless your severe symptoms are persistent and your endocrinologist advises you to do so.

Tread Carefully with HRT...

HRT and Blood Clots

New Research on HRT indicates that there is an increased risk of getting a blood clot in postmenopausal women

Women who are overweight or have a genetic pre-disposition to blood clots should avoid HRT pills, but skin patches seem to be safer, says a systematic review and meta-analysis by French Scientists.
This was perhaps due to the different way oestrogen is absorbed into the blood stream, they suggested.
But as the authors themselves say, this needs to be confirmed with more research

However, the authors warned that the results should be treated with caution as the data is from observational studies and need to be confirmed with more research.

No trials have yet investigated the effects of oestrogen patches on the risk of blood clots.

Is it 'just' the Menopause?

I have been experiencing fatigue for many years now and every time I go to the Doctor, they say to me, "it's just the menopause". You'll just have to take HRT, and by now you should know what I think of that!

I've had blood tests and everything has been normal.
However after reading up a bit more, I insisted on having a specific blood test for folic acid deficiency (red blood folate) and guess what?
My folic acid levels are abnormally low and this leads to a certain type of anaemia called 'pernicious anemia', which amongst a host of other things, makes you feel very tired!
Usually it would show up on a regular blood test (as the red blood cells become larger), but mine was normal.

So, after all, it wasn't 'just' the menopause!