Menopausal Symptoms
Every woman is familiar with the classic symptoms of menopause: Hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness.
These all stem from one common cause: Estrogen deficiency.
Estrogen Deficiency Symptoms
- Hot Flashes
- Night sweats
- Sleep disturbances
- Vaginal dryness
- Vaginal itching
- Vaginal bleeding
- Urinary frequency
- Urinary urgency
- Breast atrophy
But estrogen isn’t the only hormone that declines when menopause begins. Besides the estrogens, two other major sex hormones produced by the ovaries fall off as well: Progesterone and testosterone
Progesterone
Progesterone, the “forgotten” hormone during menopause is critical to a woman’s health. Progesterone deficiency symptoms aren’t as dramatic, but they do affect many female systems.
Complicating matters is the fact that birth control pills and synthetic hormones appear to hinder the natural production of progesterone decades prior to menopause.
Long term progesterone deficiency doesn’t always begin to show up only at menopause. It appears to be a rampant health problem in women of all ages, culminating in a host of chronic health problems.
Problems such as:
- Migraine headaches
- PMS
- Uterine fibroids
- Depression
- Fibromyalgia
- Ovarian cysts
- Increased tendencies towards heart disease
- Blood clots
- Gynecologic cancers
Progesterone Deficiency Symptoms
Symptoms attributed to progesterone deficiency include:
- Decreased libido
- Mood disturbance
- Irritability
- Fatigue
- Memory loss and problems with concentration
- Depression
- Osteoporosis
- Joint pain
- Muscle pain
- Back pain
Even when women show none of these classic progesterone related deficiency symptoms prior to menopause, when menopause finally arrives, they usually appear in full force.
You can also see from the above list how progesterone deficiencies are less dramatic than estrogen deficiency symptoms and are more difficult to pinpoint. If you visit your doctor with some of these symptoms, most likely you’ll be prescribed an anti-depressant – a waste of time. This is one reason why anti-depressant prescription use is out of control.
Bio Identical Hormones Do Help
If you were to take bio-identical progesterone, these symptoms would in all probability disappear. Unfortunately, mainstream medicine has yet to catch up to this practice.
When women are given bio-identical estrogen to quell their classical menopausal symptoms, there is a universal recommendation the estrogen should not be taken “unopposed” (see Unopposed Estrogen). We always give bio-identical progesterone together with bio-identical estrogen. This not only takes care the potential problems, but the above symptoms at the same time.
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