Posts Tagged "menopause"

I got all my sisters with me…redux

Posted by Liz on May 27, 2011 in Inspiration, mind-body therapy | 0 comments

Wednesday Bubble: Menopause in the City?

Posted by Liz on May 25, 2011 in Inspiration | 1 comment

Scene:

Mr. Big has just left Carrie, who’s gained 50 lbs, for another woman. Charlotte is quickly pursuing her post-menopause dreams. And Miranda has finally come out and destroyed her family.

Yes, it’s menopause in the city.

But, it’s not the only tragedy in the ‘City that Never Sleeps.’ In fact, there’s a new book in town: Menopause in Manhattan. And while I’ve not yet gotten my hot flash hands on the pages, and am all for self-realization regardless of age, I’m not sure what to make of the title. Or why menopause in Manhattan is any different than menopause in any other metropolitan or non-metropolitan city.

Billed as a novel that “will challenge women over a certain age to continue to pursue their dreams,’ Menopause in Manhattan promises to meld the worlds of New York publishing, interior design, fashion and food and I assume, flashes into a story of the trials and tribulations of a woman trying to put her life together after it falls apart.

So, if I am to understand this correctly, menopause (and turning 50) marks the time when our lives start to fall apart, when we stop pursuing our dreams and goals, when we stop living? In other words, the cessation of reproduction is, for all intents and purpose, a woman’s rapture. And if she fails to realize the dangers, she may fall into fires of hell rather than rise to the heavens of the occasion?

Hmmm. Seems like only a few weeks ago, I was shouting to the universe that I wasn’t dead yet. And having just marked that turning point in style, I have to say that I still pretty much feel the same. Nothing much has changed, except a number. My dreams, goals and drive remain the same. And despite a few life challenges, I don’t believe that either transition I’m undergoing is going to result in less me, only more me.

Bubble-worthy??? You betcha!

Musings for a Monday: Menopause. Be Very Afraid.

Posted by Liz on May 23, 2011 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Don’t let the change of life torture you with fear!

I stumbled across this vintage ad for Mrs. Lydia E. Pinkham’s vegetable compound for menopausal symptoms. Evidently, Mrs. Pinkham had a history of brewing home remedies to combat menstrual and menopausal woes. Among its many ingredients (pleurisy root, life root, emmenagogue, fenugreek, unicorn root), it also contained black cohosh, which does raise the question of whether it was truly snake oil or a modern miracle?

Regardless, a simple musing for a Monday.

To everything, there is a season

Posted by Liz on May 16, 2011 in menopause | 1 comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ga_M5Zdn4]

We know that certain aspects of the menopause, in particular hot flashes can be influenced by weather. But did you know that menopause onset may also be seasonal?

In my weekly scan of the news, I ran across an older but interesting study that had been published in Maturitas in 2005. In it, researchers discuss how human reproduction is seasonal in order to optimize fertility and tends to correlate to the most favourable environmental conditions, including light and temperature. This fact led them to evaluate the medical records of over 2,400 white women who had attended outpatient menopause services in order to determine if entering menopause is also a seasonal phenomenon. The following were taken into account:

• Age
• Race
• Education
• Weight/BMI
• Smoking history
• Major illnesses that may have required surgery or chemo
• Number of pregnancies
• Type of menopause, last menstrual period, years since menopause
• Use of hormones
• Occupation

On average, the majority of women were 52, had been in menopause for 2 years, weighed about 143 pounds and were right on the BMI cut off of normal and overweight. Amongst this group of women, onset of menopause occurred significantly more often in winter than in spring, summer or autumn, respectively (although a minor peak in onset of menopause was also observed in smaller numbers of women during summer). When the researchers compared this timing to reproduction, they found that it was concentrated between the highest and lowest points of reproduction. Moreover, none of the other factors appeared to influence this seasonal variance of menopause onset.

However, like all studies, there are limitations, such as the fact that the women were of one race and were evaluated retrospectively. Or, that only two other studies have had similar findings and both of these were in monkeys. Still, it is rather interesting and I’d love to take a poll with those of you readers who have fully entered menopause and whose period has stopped for at least 12 months. If you are willing, leave a comment as to which season your menopause started. Meanwhile, the intrigue remains: is menopause a seasonal phenomenon and are there factors other than environment that influence its start?

Wednesday Bubble: 10 is the loneliest number…

Posted by Liz on May 11, 2011 in hot flash | 0 comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTO4hvLEH4Q]

I’m using this Bubble to burst a few illusions, such as hot flashes during menopause don’t actually last very long.

How about 10 years?!

Right now, one year for hot flashes to come and then go sounds pretty tempting, doesn’t it?

A few years ago, I wrote about a study in the journal Menopause that alluded to the fact that hot flashes were likely to last for five years or more. Just this week, I ran across another study in Obstetrics & Gynecology that adds another 5 years to the evidence. Yikes!

How long is long enough?

Clinical Guidelines suggest that hot flashes peak one year into menopause and for most women, last anywhere from six months to two years. So, why is popular opinion, if you will, being challenged in research circles?

Using data from the Penn Ovarian Aging Study, which followed and monitored women over a 13-year period, researchers evaluated moderate-to-severe hot flashes on average, every 9 months. The women did not report having hot flashes at the study’s start, but developed them between the first year and near the study’s end. During each assessment, interviews were conducted on overall health, height, weight, hip and waist measures were taken and blood samples collected (to evaluate hormone levels).  Menopausal status was also delineated by  five stages:

• premenopausal (regular menstrual periods)
• late premenopausal (cycle change of 7 days or more in either direction observed one time)
• early transition (change of 7 days or more observed at least twice in a row)
•  late transition (three to 11 months without a menstrual cycle)
• postmenopausal

More than 90% of women in the study were pre or late premenopausal at the study’s start.

Unfortunately, the results of the study are not very promising. On average, the median duration of moderate to severe hot flashes was 10.2 years, with only 37% of women reporting that their hot flashes stopped during the study. However, researchers found a relationship between length of time and when hot flashes began. For example. hot flashes tended to last longer (i.e. more than 11 years) in women who reported their hot flashes started in the premenopausal or late premenopausal stage compared to women whose hot flashes began in the early transition (average 7 years) and late transition (average 4 years).

Age was also a factor as the median duration of hot flashes tended to be longest in women who started flashing before the age of 40. Most commonly, however, more than a third of women tended to have the worst flashes when they were between the ages of 45 and 49.  Other factors such as African American race and a body mass index less than 30 were also associated with having hot flashes for longer periods of time.

If you are wondering about the silver lining in this story, there actually is one. The researchers say that it may be a good idea to start addressing vasomotor symptoms like hot flashes in younger women who are starting to have irregular menstrual periods.  Because “traditional hormonal therapy may not be the ideal choice for this population, given, for example, the problems with breakthrough bleeding and the need for contraception,” other treatments need to be evaluated.

I’ve long espoused the value of taking steps to shut symptoms down sooner rather than later, which is why alternative strategies may be so useful. If duration of hot flashes last longer when they start a younger age, and it is recommended that hormonal therapy be used for the shortest period of time possible, it’s not a bad idea to speak to a health practitioner about incorporating things like black cohosh into a daily routine. As always, there’s no time like the present to start taking charge of your health and get ahead of the change.