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Symptoms associated with menopause are not inevitable. If you are experiencing the unpleasant side effects of hormonal fluctuations, your hormonal balance can be achieved safely and naturally, restoring your vitality.

Who says menopause is a disease?

Dry skin, vaginal dryness, weight gain, hair loss and increased visible signs of aging are not to be expected. Forgetting where you put your car keys (memory fog and forgetfulness) is unacceptable. Heart disease, bone loss, arthritis, depression and other diseases of inflammation are not a normal part of menopause and aging.

The medical industry is promoting a stereotype of menopause to the public. It describes menopause as a "deficiency syndrome", an endocrinopathy or disease of the hormonal system resulting from loss of estrogen. Women are judged "estrogen deficient" until they die. Menopause is no longer a matter of months or years, but a life sentence. It is a permanent condition to be permanently managed.

From this perspective, the menopausal woman is in a diseased state from pathology and should be treated medically. By this definition, the end of menstruation is removed from the individual woman's control to become a matter for doctors. In short, menopause is transformed from a stage in the normal process of aging into a hazard of health.

When evaluating hormones, it is important not to focus on individual levels of the hormone but rather on the circadian rhythm and/or hormone ratios. Hormone replacement will cause major disruptions to hormone rhythms and ratios and it may also increase a woman's risk for breast or uterine cancer.

Breast and uterine cancer risk need not increase. A healthy body can and will regulate hormone balance through the normal transitional stages of aging without ill effects and unwanted symptoms. If your hormones are in balance (if the feedback loops communicate properly and hormones are regulated and in balance) hot flashes and night sweats are not normal.

Medicine argues that menopause under its control is more normal than an "untreated" one. The word replacement in the term "hormone replacement therapy" implies that a normal condition is being regained by the drugs. In reality, the medicated menopause is a mutation and an artificial remodeling of the experience of menopause.

Physicians who provide exogenous hormones--whether prescription, pellets, bio-identical, compounded, creams or botanicals--without consideration for the reasons related to the imbalance as well as the alteration that will be created from the hormones, have narrow understanding or respect for human physiology.

Hormones operate through a check and balance system. It is an imbalance that triggers unwanted symptoms of aging. Hormone feedback loops communicate and self-regulate in a healthy body. Hormone production, synthesis, utilization, clearance, and communication to and with associated glands and organs all influence how a woman feels.

Menopause-Functional Medicine Model

Menopause is caused by a gradual change in the ovarian sensitivity to the neurohormones (FSH & LH), and disruption in the hormone feedback loop. These changes are reflected as imbalances in ovarian hormone output and manifested as cessation of menstrual flow. As previously stated, a healthy body will self correct and reregulate.

In menopause, while the ovaries reduce the production of estrogen, the adrenal glands production of estrogen increases to about 95% of what the ovaries was producing. This is due to enhanced conversion of circulating adrenal hormone into Estrone in fat and muscle cells, and to increased conversion of Estrone to Estradiol. As women progress into the menopausal years, Estrone becomes the dominant estrogen.

Unfortunately, both women and men suffer the ill effects of adrenal fatigue. It is this adrenal fatigue that causes the symptoms of low estrogen with menopause.

The use of simplified protocols and models to support adrenal disorders are self-limiting. Adrenal dysfunction is always secondary to physiological mechanisms that need to be identified. Mechanisms that prevent adrenal rehabilitation are Anemia; Dysglycemia; Low Cholesterol; Infection; Increased Intestinal Permeability; Surgical Menopause; Dehydration; Inflammation; Chronic SSRI Usage; Emotional Stress; Autoimmune; Heavy Metal; and Environmental Allergen Burden. Once your specific conditions are identified and treated, balancing can take place.

At Wellness Alternatives, we understand the function and alteration in metabolism and apply natural therapies to rebalance your hormones. If you or someone you know has questions about menopause, your risk for breast or uterine cancer, hot flashes or bone loss, call Wellness Alternatives today at 636-227-4949.