Menopause and menopausal syndrome

Is it possible to prolong youth?

Anastasia Shunto, TUT.BY

This is a terrible word "menopause"... It scares many women and is strongly associated with old age. Is it really necessary to be afraid of menopause? Is it really possible to postpone the date of its onset? How to minimize its manifestations? We talked about this with the obstetrician-gynecologist, the head of the women's consultation of the 4th city polyclinic Anna Korban.

– What is menopause? This is the cessation of menstruation in the age range from 45 to 49 years. Menopause can be both natural and artificial – arising as a result of any gynecological operations with the removal of reproductive organs.

Menopause is a natural process, yes, associated with the aging of the female body. Approximately 40% of women have this transition period without any bright manifestations. However, most of the patients still feel the onset of menopause and face, to one degree or another, menopausal syndrome, which develops against the background of a decrease in the production of sex hormones – primarily estrogens.

It is very rare when a woman "comes" to menopause completely healthy, and any disease aggravates the course of menopausal syndrome. Moreover, literally anything can have an impact: obesity, stress, difficult work, heavy physical exertion, material difficulties and unsettled life.

The manifestations of menopause can be divided into three groups: early symptoms – occurring immediately after the onset of menopause, medium–term – a woman will face them after 3-5 years, and late - occurring in the postmenopause period, 10 years after its onset. I must say that the mid–term and late manifestations of menopause are the lot of about 15% of patients, while almost everyone faces early ones to one degree or another.

Early manifestations of menopause are divided into vasomotor and psychoemotional. The most typical vasomotor disorders include hot flashes, redness of the face, increased sweating, chills, headaches, a sharp change in blood pressure. Some patients report difficulty breathing, a sudden feeling of fear. Sometimes a rush can be confused with an attack of angina pectoris. Tides occur, as a rule, suddenly, most often in the evening or even at night, and last from 30 seconds to 1-2 minutes.

Psychoemotional disorders include irritability, drowsiness, weakness, anxiety, depression, frequent mood swings, forgetfulness, inattention, decreased libido.

According to the severity of the menopausal syndrome, there can be three types: mild (up to 10), moderate (up to 20) and severe (more than 20 hot flashes per day, with nausea, vomiting, dizziness, high blood pressure) degrees.

If we talk about the average symptoms, then due to the lack of estrogen, urogenital disorders come to the fore, which is manifested by dryness in the vagina, pain during sexual intercourse, vulvovaginitis, cystitis, stress urinary incontinence. The vaginal mucosa becomes thinner and more prone to inflammatory diseases. The same estrogen deficiency leads to deterioration of the skin, hair, nails.

The late manifestations of menopause include osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases.

There is also such a thing as early or premature menopause. Approximately 1-3% of women face it. The first symptoms – menstrual cycle disorders – can be noted by patients up to 40 years old. Early menopause is diagnosed based on an analysis of hormone levels.

Is it possible to alleviate the manifestations of menopausal syndrome? Treatment should be comprehensive. When a woman approaches this period, she should take a more careful approach to her health, visit specialized doctors, carefully monitor the level of thyroid hormones, blood glucose levels, and treat any disorders in a timely manner.

With a mild degree of menopausal syndrome, non-drug therapy is widely used: physiotherapy, various types of massage. Hydrotherapy is very useful in its various manifestations and especially aimed at training vessels, that is, contrasting souls. Phytotherapy will also be used – there are a huge number of drugs containing phytoestrogens, the main thing is to choose "your own". It should be noted that such drugs will not help with the first pill, they should be taken for a long time, up to six months, and in combination with other types of treatment.

In addition, sedative therapy may be prescribed, taking vitamins, especially such as B1, B6, B12 – normalizing the nervous system, calcium preparations and means to improve cerebral circulation, as well as neurotropic and sedative drugs for the correction of psychoemotional disorders.

With moderate and severe manifestations of menopause, hormone replacement therapy really has a real effect – improvement occurs already 3-4 days after the start of treatment. However, there is one big "but" here: hormone therapy has a lot of contraindications: tumors of any genesis, bleeding and bleeding of an unclear nature, blood clotting disorders, migraines, bronchial asthma, uterine fibroids, severe diabetes, etc. Before prescribing hormone replacement therapy, a woman should be fully examined!

It should be noted that mono-replacement hormone therapy, that is, therapy with the use of estrogen alone, is possible only in situations of artificial menopause, since otherwise therapy causes endometrial hyperplasia. In situations of natural menopause, combined hormone replacement therapy is used to protect the endometrium: estrogens are "covered" with progestogens.

Ideally, menopausal patients should not use oral, but transvaginal or transdermal drugs. The most modern today are transdermal estrogens – they have a minimum of side effects, and in terms of effectiveness they are not inferior, and sometimes even ahead of oral remedies. The use of hormone replacement therapy without risk to health is recommended for no more than five years and under the mandatory supervision of a doctor (at least once a year!). With a longer, long-term use of hormone replacement therapy in women with a burdened background (heredity, related diseases), a predisposition to breast cancer may increase.

Is it possible to postpone the menopause? You can't fool nature and genetics. But yes, if a woman aged 45-48 wants to prolong her youth a little, then today there are certain combined hormonal drugs. That is, menopause has already come, the ovaries do not synthesize hormones, but we accept synthetic analogues that can bring us closer to the natural level of hormones. It's civilized, the whole world uses it, it's enough to look at some stars – in order to look 45 at the age of 80, plastic surgery is not enough, most likely, it can't do without hormone replacement therapy.

It is also important how a woman treats herself. If she takes care of herself, leads a healthy lifestyle, eats right, avoids stress, treats diseases in a timely manner, then the manifestations of menopausal syndrome will not be so noticeable.

Be healthy!

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  22.04.2016