MANAGING MENOPAUSAL SYMPTOMS WITH TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE
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Menopause occurs as a natural part of a woman’s life transition. As a woman ages, her ovaries slowly stop producing the estrogen hormone, leading to biological changes throughout the entire body, from the brain to the skin.
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Menopause is not a disease, but for many women, these hormonal changes bring about many unwelcome side effects that require medical intervention by health care professionals. The main complaints associated with menopause are hot flushes, genital atrophy, insomnia, and psychosomatic complaints such as irritability, depression, and mood swings.
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These symptoms will usually last for 2-3 years but in some serious cases, they can last for 5-10 years. Women experiencing such symptoms should not be alarmed. According to recent research, in the US 80% of women who go through menopause experience light to severe menopausal symptoms; in both cases there are many solutions available.
If you do suffer from the physical or mental symptoms mentioned above, please seek support as those that neglect to do so risk subjecting themselves to hypertension, heart attack, arteriosclerosis, or bone fracture due to osteoporosis.
TCM SOLUTIONS AND THEIR BENEFITS
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Chinese herbal medicine has been used to treat menopausal symptoms successfully for many years, and it is becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to hormone replacement therapy. The strengths of Chinese Medicine are:
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Chinese Medicine is a holistic treatment; treatment is based on syndrome differentiation. It analyzes the root cause of each individual’s symptoms and offers a specially tailored herbal therapy that not only addresses the symptoms but also corrects the fundamental imbalance inside the body.
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Chinese Medicine effectively treats menopausal symptoms; it is safe and does not have the same side effects seen in the application of Western hormone therapies.
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The Chinese Medicine approach involves leveraging the natural healing power of herbs to slow down the aging process of the reproductive system and increase its capacity to generate essential hormones during the process. If the change is slow and gradual, it makes it a lot easier for the body to adjust. This is very different from the HRT approach, wherein the injection of hormones into the body often decreases the body’s capacity to generate its own hormones. This is probably one of the reasons that the benefits of HRT wear-off after 16 weeks of usage.