self esteem for women

Using Herbs For Menopause Symptom Relief

There is a great misunderstanding about the terms used to elucidate the experience of menopause. The word itself is widely employed to describe the entire period in which women undergo symptoms due to their hormones being in flux. In reality, the word “menopause” refers simply to the final period of menstruation, in the same manner that “menarche” indicates the initial.

Pre-menopause is used by some to refer to the time when menstruation is regular and before hormone levels start to decline. Some people use the word to define the time within the peri-menopause before the last period.

Before and after the last actual menstrual bleed is called peri-menopause and it starts after hormone levels have started to fluctuate and before they settle and there are no more symptoms due to this fluctuation. For the climacteric the above symptoms are same. It is more and more usual for women to refer to this time as their menopause.

The term “post-menopause” covers anything after the final menstrual period. It overlaps with “peri-menopause”. A woman is described as postmenopausal following her final bleed, though the term is not used until a year has passed, to give time to be sure which period is the very last. Nine out of ten women who are in peri-menopause and have not had a period in six months will not menstruate again.

Menopause Hormones

Until menopause, estrogen and progesterone are produced and released over an approximately 28-day cycle. As the supply and quality of eggs declines in midlife, hormone production from the ovaries becomes erratic. With progression towards menopause, levels of progesterone and estrogen diminish.

Premenopausal. During the first half of the menstrual cycle is when estrogen levels reach their peak. After ovulation these levels then decline gain and progesterone levels start to increase. If the egg does not get fertilized these hormones both decline which triggers menstruation.

Peri-menopausal. Estrogen is still being produced by the ovaries, but ovulation is sporadic, so progesterone is not produced every cycle and there may not be a monthly bleed.

Post-menopausal. At this stage of life, there is very little estrogen present in your body, and what small amount is present is actually produced by the process of your body’s fat cells processing the androstenedione hormone.

How Estrogen Affects Bone Health and Osteoporosis

In the western world 50% the women at the age of seventy are seriously affected by osteoporosis, and just only 10 years after the average age of menopause i.e. around the age of sixty nearly 25% of women will have already brittle bones. This is clearly due to the level of estrogen circulating the blood stream. The increased risk of osteoporosis is a good enough reason to find menopause treatments, of some kind, to help protect your health well into old age.

The metabolism of calcium, the mineral mainly involved in bone building, is in part dependent on estrogen and there are estrogen receptors in the osteoclasts and osteoblasts. The levels of available calcium circulating in the bloodstream are partly controlled by the hormones calcitonin and parathyroid hormone.

Most of our calcium is stored in our bones, and if blood calcium levels fall the parathyroid hormone will act to break down bone and release calcium into the blood. Low estrogen levels make bone more sensitive to parathyroid hormone, causing it to be broken down more rapidly after menopause.