CeMCOR

What's Normal?

Women who are menopausal are often more clear about their purpose in life and are less willing to please others ahead of themselves. The first two letters of the word menopause spell “ME.” However menopausal women often have heavy, self-chosen or economic responsibilities.

The official graduation from the reproductive years is achieved with a year free of flow. Although about five percent of women will have further spotting or bleeding, no disease reason is likely nor investigation is necessary if a woman feels breast tenderness, bloating, mood swings or weight gain/appetite changes before it. It does, however, redefine her age at menopause and a one-year clock again begins ticking. Women’s quality of life in menopause has improved to the best since before adolescence. She can finally count on physiological stability. Some women (perhaps 10-25%) continue to have hot flushes and night sweats.

What Can Go Wrong?

This is the time of life when some of the problems of aging are first noticed including high blood pressure, arthritis and insulin resistance or Type 2 Diabetes. Women may also develop breast cancer although the rate of increase has slowed by menopause. The most common development is of knee, hand, and feet and less commonly hip osteoarthritis. There is no increase in heart disease that is specific to menopause but rather the steady age-related increase may be first diagnosed for some women.

Myths

The myth of menopause is that the lower estrogen levels cause heart disease, strokes, dementia and osteoporosis. What is now known is that the reproductive pattern for women differs from that in men and includes a menopause, a time of normally lower estrogen and progesterone levels. Heredity, aging and lifestyle choices, not menopause, cause heart disease, strokes and dementia. Osteoporosis has its origins in childhood and especially in abnormal menstrual cycles and ovulation during adolescence, pre and perimenopause. Although menopause is a time of rapid bone loss, the rate is actually greater in perimenopause when estrogen levels are normal or high. It is now known that estrogen-dominant hormonal treatment causes heart diseases, strokes, and dementia although it does prevent hip fracture.

Resources and Tools

• Daily Menopause Diaries and instructions
• CeMCOR Research Study: Progesterone therapy for hot flushes in menopause
• The ABCs of Osteoporosis Prevention for Women in Menopause
• Beyond “Estrogen Deficiency”—news from Women’s Health Initiative
• Estrogen Deficiency: The Wrong Idea About Menopause
• Progesterone (not Estrogen) for Hot Flushes in Perimenopausal and Menopausal Women
• Stopping Estrogen Treatment
• Hot Flushes in Menopause
• Mood Swings & Depression in Menopause
• Early Menopause