Post Menopause

Congratulations, you've made it through menopause without killing yourself. Back in the day, women endured the symptoms without really understanding what it was all about. Now, there are so many six-syllable words to describe a woman's body and its systems that it's still a mystery. If you're beginning the change of life trip, here are a few explanations or definitions so you'll better understand your own body and what's happening to it. If you just want to know the information for future use, read on.

Beginning

Just like it takes an oven thirty minutes to preheat before a cake is baked, so it takes the body twelve to thirteen years to preheat, so to speak. In the case of the change, it takes at least fifteen to twenty years to cool down. This is where the hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes and missed periods come in. All women know the symptoms but they rarely understand what makes them happen. The first reason is that it takes time to stop.

Onset

The body runs on an electrical system. These currents inform the brain when something is amiss. Hormones are the traffic cops that keep the lanes open. When hormones slow down, speed up or disappear, the lanes get messed up and electrical currents don't send the right messages. In the case of menopause, the "it's time to stop" hormones slow production over a period of years. This signals the brain to accept night sweats, hot flashes and mood swings as normal conditions.

Definitions

Estrogen is the female hormone, although both sexes have male as well as female hormones. Necessary to reproduction, it wraps around DNA to determine many things. Some of those six-syllable words like estrogen receptor is what is received in the fat cells of the body. Luteinizing hormone, for instance, stimulates the production of estrogen in the ovaries. Estrogens can be made, also, in other places, such as the breasts and liver, but in smaller amounts.

Since estrogen is found in all mammals, it stands to reason it could be used in medication. Another six-syllable word, conjugated equine estrogen, is a hormone replacement therapy using pregnant mare's urine. It regularizes estrogen levels in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women.

The Other Side of the Story

Just as a hand can be burned on a cooling oven, so can the body be hurt by the slowing of the reproductive years. Lack of hormones can cause stroke, heart attack, breast cancers, osteoporosis and a host of other calamities. For these, some women take hormones while others prefer the natural route and take herbs to regularize their systems.

While vaginal dryness, mood changes and bone loss are just some of the natural things associated with the change, they can be mitigated with medications. Those meds, though, can cause some of the un-natural things listed above. Researching hormonal therapies should include harmful side effects and should be discussed with a doctor. Natural remedies and herbs such as black cohosh will be known to doctors, as well.