Menopause Symptoms
What is menopause?
Menopause is a disease in women in which menstrual period gets absent for the 12 months. The transition of menopausal started with varying the menstrual cycle length and ended with the last menstrual period. Menopausal transition period is also known as perimenopause which means the time near around the menopause.
When ovaries functions are ceases, then menopause causes in women once in a life. The reproductive glands in women are ovary, and female gonad. They are placed in the pelvis on each side of the uterus. The shape and size of each ovary is same that of almond. The eggs and estrogen (female hormones) are produced by the ovaries. At the time of each menstrual cycle, egg gets released from the ovary. This egg moved from ovary to the uterus through fallopian tube.
Women's age for reaching the menopause:
The average age of occurrence of menopause in women is 51 years. But there is no any way for the prediction for the menopause that is when women enter in to the menopause. The menopause age is not related with start age of menstrual cycle. Normally the women suffering from menopause Most women reach menopause between the ages of 45 and 55, but menopause may occur as earlier as the 30s or 40s or may not occur until a woman reaches her 60s. As a rough "rule of thumb," women tend to undergo menopause at an age similar to that of their mothers.
Perimenopause, often accompanied by irregularities in the menstrual cycle along with the typical menopause symptoms of early menopause, can begin up to 10 years prior to the last menstrual period.
Menopause Symptoms:
Menopause is not a medical illness or disease and it is very important to that each and every woman's experience is individual. Most women have experience no menopause symptoms and some of women may experience few symptoms. Some women may have a hard time due to hormonal changes during menopause.
Start irregular period is clearest sign of menopause and when blood flow become lighter or heavier. Some women's experience multiple psychological and physical symptoms such as night sweats, weight gain, dry eyes, vaginal dryness, insomnia, joint pain, fatigue, short term memory loss, bowel upset, itchy skin, mood swings and hot flashes.
These above menopause symptoms are discussed in detail below:
Irregular vaginal bleeding:
Irregular vaginal bleeding may occur during menopause. Some women may experience problems with irregular abnormal when menstrual period is too heavy or too light. No normal pattern of bleeding during irregular vaginal bleeding some time may excessive bleeding and some time may to get period after going for several months. In abnormal cases cycle shorten means menses may occur frequently and cause excessive bleeding. Lengthens cycle means menses may to get after long period before stopping. Irregular virginal bleeding is common symptoms for women in menopause, and to get period after going for several months. This may vary women to women and there is no set length of period to complete menopausal transition.
Irregular vaginal bleeding condition that time women should be evaluated by her doctor to confirm that sign of other medical dieses or are due to per menopause. perimenopause decrease in fertility and ovulation become irregular. Women may become pregnant until they have reached true menopause.
Hot flashes and night sweats:
Hot flashes and night sweats are common symptoms in menopause. Hot flashes are a warmth feeling over body and mostly in the chest and head. Sometimes perspiration associated with flushing. Hot flashes from several minutes last from 30 seconds also. Hot flashes occur due to a combination of biochemical and hormonal fluctuation on by declining levels of estrogen. 40% of hot flashes occur regularly menstruating in their forties and 80% of women finish hot flashes after five years also. Sometimes night sweats are accompanied with hot flashes.
Vaginal symptoms:
Vaginal symptoms in which the vagina becomes thinner, less elastic, drier as estrogen level decrease. Vaginal pain and itching, pain or irritation with sexual intercourse may be occurred in this case.
Urinary symptoms:
Urinary symptoms in which the vagina becomes thinner, less elastic, drier as estrogen level decrease.
Emotional and cognitive symptoms:
Emotional and cognitive symptoms are variety of thinking cognitive and emotional symptoms in which memory problems such as rapid changes in mood. Sometimes these symptoms are common so we can't recognize exact reason is menopause. Research result these symptoms occur due to many reasons.
Other physical changes:
Several women occur other physical changes such as weight gain, wrinkles, adult acne, and some time produce male hormone such as hair growth on the chin, chest, upper lip with menopause.
Treatment for the menopause:
Menopause is a normal part of the life and not a disease. Following are some of the treatments used on the menopause:
Hormone therapy:
Estrogen and progesterone therapy:
Hormone therapy (HT) is related to the replacement of hormone therapy or the postmenopausal hormone therapy (PHT), contains estrogens or the combination of progestin and estrogens. Hormone therapy is used for controlling the menopause symptoms connected for waning the estrogen levels like vaginal dryness and hot flashes and hormone therapy is the effective way for treating the symptoms.
Oral contraceptive pills:
Another form of hormone therapy is oral contraceptive pills which are generally prescribed for the women for treating the irregular vaginal bleeding.
Local (vaginal) hormone treatments:
For the vaginal estrogen deficiency symptoms, local (vaginal) hormone treatment is given. This treatment includes the vaginal estrogen cream, vaginal estrogen ring, or the vaginal estrogen tablets. Oral estrogen and local treatments are some of the times combined for the greater effect.
Other pharmaceutical therapies:
Antidepressant medications:
Antidepressant medications are venlafaxine (Effexor) that is related to SSRIs, and the sertraline (Zoloft), SSRIs fluoxetine (Prozac), citalopram (Celexa) and paroxetine (Paxil) are used for decreasing the hot flashes in the women. These antidepressant medications also have some side effects such as libido gets decreased and the sexual dysfunction.
Other medications: Other medications are used for getting relief from the hot flashes, but are not used for the treating the hot flashes. Mostly all of the drugs have the side effect and all these are monitored by the doctor. Some of the medications used for the relief are clonidine (Catapres) and gabapentin (Neurontin).
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