How to Avoid the Risks Associated With Hormone Replacement

Modern medicine has turned menopause into a disease.

Doctors offer hormone therapy during perimenopause and menopause for symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings because this is all they're taught and all they know.

Sad.

Sad that we take advice from anyone who wants us to take potentially harmful chemicals into our bodies on a regular basis, rather than investigate natural menopause solutions first. If you've ever agreed to 'try' hormone replacement and taken a good hard look at the information sheet from the pharmacist, you know the list of frightening side effects associated with adding hormones to your body.

Many women delay taking action for mood swings or night sweats at the start of menopause, when it would be most beneficial. Unfortunately for them, they've ignored what seems to be a law of the Universe that it's better to prevent a problem, than to treat it after it becomes bigger, more noticeable and more disruptive. Many women seek help with distressing menopause symptoms only after they've become intolerable and they demand immediate relief. Hormone therapy usually provides faster results than herbs at the crisis point, but how much better to take herbs or homeopathy or use an energy medicine method such as Emotional Freedom Techniques, that work with the body, rather than force it into an artificial state where it has been fooled rather than respected.

You may not know that hormone therapy is usually a long-term solution, that when it ends, can bring back the same problems it was intended to solve. That's what happened to my mother who was on HRT for 20 years. She, like millions of other women, was scared off HRT in 2002 when a large clinical study found that HRT increased the risk of heart disease and cancer. She went off the hormones and went right back into hot flashes and night sweats - somewhat ridiculous and definitely stressful for a woman in her mid-70s.

Call it hormone therapy or HRT or hormone replacement or bioidentical hormone replacement - it's all the same thing. You're putting hormones into your body that your body did not create. With the addition of these so-called 'bio-identical' hormones, your body will stop producing hormones of its own, when if left alone, it would continue to produce a small measure of its own hormones. Your own hormones could help your body transition to its permanent post-menopause state of fewer hormones than during all of your life since puberty. Your own hormones could protect your body from osteoporosis and heart disease.

Why do we give away our power to anyone who thinks the answer to a natural life transition involves chemicals? It doesn't make sense.

Now, of course, at this point I've got to agree that hormone replacement almost assuredly has a role to play in our stressed out, toxic world for some people. People who would choose to take a pill every day rather than take a supplement or herb that would nourish their bodies; people who waited too long to seek help and are in a very troubled state of health by the time they show up in their doctor's office wanting a prescription. God love you and protect you ladies. You really let this one get ahead of you didn't you?

And how about the woman who had a hysterectomy for whatever reason and finds herself in a hellish situation because her body has been shocked into premature menopause? My dear, get thee to a doctor for some hormone replacement. You've been through enough already.

As for the rest of us...let's slow down.

Take time to examine your options. Find yourself a practitioner - naturopathic doctor, holistic health practitioner, herbalist, homeopathic doctor, doctor of traditional Chinese medicine - someone you trust who can advise you on your journey through menopause.

Meanwhile all of us, at whatever stage of menopause we're at, can make healthy lifestyle choices to manage menopause. We can nourish ourselves with herbal infusions of oatstraw, stinging nettle, red clover, and/or garden sage. We can choose to eat a piece of dried dulse daily and take a fish oil supplement or a vegan equivalent. Take a daily anti-aging supplement that has Vitamin D, CoEnzymeQ10 and Resveratrol - fantastic for the heart health too. We can cleanse our bodies of toxins on a regular basis so our bodies function like they were meant to.

Take care of yourself woman. Your body is all that's between you and eternity, which you will agree, is a very long time.

Don't present yourself passively to your doctor and say 'do me with those drugs ya' got there doc'. It's not right to take hormones because that's what your friends do - it's irresponsible, and downright dangerous! Look at the alternatives. They exist and they're bountiful! Just look for them!

Honey, menopause is coming. Won't you agree that it's better to embrace menopause and take charge of your own health and wellness, than to medicate yourself into a drug-dependent old age?