What’s with this sore breasts & menopause? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this before? Women & their breasts- they might give pleasure to men but they are often a “pain” to us!
Who would have thought they would still be causing discomfort long after the periods have stopped?
Breast pain & sore nipples have been part of my life, and I have been quite attached to them in some circumstances. As a young girl they would signal a period about to come, so there were never any surprises on that front. As a newly married woman hoping to get pregnant their presence was a hopeful sign of success. And as a young Mum breastfeeding my new baby breast discomfort was par for the course.
Who would have thought though that they would still be causing me angst long after my periods have stopped? I Googled “breast pain and menopause” and there were nearly 780,000 hits! So I am not the only one suffering!
I thought all this would go once my periods stopped but little did I know. As I keep finding out, there is a whole world of “secret women’s business” going on out there that you do not find out about until you too hit the dreaded menopause.
Anyway by searching the Net I did find out some interesting facts. One was that caffeine can make them worse because it dilates blood vessels and stretches nerves- perhaps cutting back on the coffee and coca cola will help me. Taking evening primrose oil was also a suggestion. I will try anything to make this discomfort go away. Perhaps in my 70’s I will finally get some relief- if I can wait another 20 years!
To HRT, or not to HRT: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of menopause,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To HRT; to HRT….
Couldn’t resist plagiarizing a bit of Shakespeare & doesn’t he put it in context? The dilemma of the modern woman…..succinctly summarised by a 16th century man!! I had to use HRT though…To “hormone replacement therapy” just doesn’t read as well!
Ina nutshell HRT provides women with the hormones estrogen & progesterone, the hormones that decrease as you age. It can relieve the symptoms of menopause, and its use is associated with lower rates of bowel cancer & osteoporosis. Sounds good so far….but…..its use is controversial.
So just what is the story with HRT? (or Hormone Replacement Therapy for those readers who have been living in a cave somewhere away from modern civilization!) Is it safe to take or not?
Guess what- the answer depends on who you ask! And most people play safe & say things like…”As with most drugs, there are some risks associated with HRT”, and then go on to mention risks like “breast cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke and blood clots”. I mean we are not talking about minor risks here like “you might feel sleepy” or “do not operate machinery while taking this anti-histamine” type of side effects.
Then other people say that in healthy women the risks “of an adverse event” are extremely low. Then they give you numbers to illustrate this like:
In 10,000 women who have had menopause and do not use HRT, about 30 will get breast cancer.
If the same 10,000 women did use HRT, 38 women (i.e. 8 more) would get breast cancer.
This finding is from the US Women’s Health Initiative study, “a large trial investigating the major health risks and benefits of taking HRT for post-menopausal women aged 50to 79 years.”
(http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/whi/)
The study was stopped early because to was found that the women on HRT had a statistically greater risk of breast cancer and heart disease.
So what to do? The consensus seems to be that HRT should no longer be used long term. It should not be prescribed to prevent osteoporosis or heart disease. The risk, though small, is considered significant. There is lots of information about to help you with your decision. For example I found this web site useful: Menopausal Women’s Hard Decisions (http://bcendocrineresearch.com/newsletter/v06/n02/Menopausal_Women_s_Hard_Decisions_s01.php
If you think you just have to relieve the symptoms with HRT you are advised to only take for the minimum amount of time, do it under doctor supervision & continually reevaluate your need to take it.
To replace or not replace,
That is the question…
If you want to find out more there are lots of books on this topic. Books I have found helpful include:
HRT: The Answers - A Concise Guide for Solving the Hormone Replacement Therapy Puzzle
The HRT Solution : Optimizing Your Hormone Potential
If all this information about HRT has scared you off and you want to try and explore alternative therapies one of the best selling books at amazon on this topic is:
And finally, if you want to read more about the use of natural hormones, Erike Scwartz has written a best selling book about re-energising yourself with natural hormones called:
The 30-Day Natural Hormone Plan: Look and Feel Young Again–Without Synthetic HRT
As usual I am feeling confused. But this time it’s not just because of the muddled state that I often get into with menopause; its because I am being bombarded with information that I as a layperson find hard to decipher. As they say, just when you thought it was safe to go into the water…….As I am sure you know, black cohosh is a herbal remedy available around the world for the treatment of the symptoms of menopause, particularly hot flashes. It is actually a member of the buttercup family, (known scientifically as Actaea racemosa) and is native to North America.
Black cohosh is often recommended on menopause sites and in books as a natural way of combating the symptoms of menopause. However as usual when it comes to medications that might actually help women when they go through menopause there is controversy about its use. Whether it is HRT or black cohosh, look hard enough and you will find scary stories about possible side effects from use. Where does this leave the poor sweaty, hot women just looking for some relief? Confused is where!
Today our national newspaper today carried a report from the Medical Journal of Australia about the use of black cohosh to treat menopausal symptoms. It stated that the report showed that there was evidence of liver failure associated with the use of black cohosh, with eight reports of hepatotoxicity in patients associated with black cohosh being published over the last decade, with six requiring liver transplants. Apparently none of the patients had a clinical history making liver damage a possibility through other causes, with none showing any signs of excessive alcohol intake, injecting drug use, prior blood transfusions, a family history of liver disease, or a past history of liver disease. Scary stuff.
But then if you look further you get reports refuting this suggestion of a connection between the herb and liver damage. In fact the The National Herbalists Association of Australia web site seems to imply it is a big conspiracy trying to prevent women from getting access to a safe, effective and naural alternatives to the traditional methods used to relieve menopausal symptoms. Now that I find a bit hard to believe. I am not into conspiracy theories! They say that black cohosh has been administered to many women in clinical studies during the last 40 years, and no association has been found!
So where does that leave us, the poor consumer? As I said earlier- confused and worried! Who is right? Who should I believe? Is black cohosh safe or not? Should I take HRT? I am sure I am not the only menopausal women facing this dilemma. And they say life was meant to be easy!
Apparently there is a parallel universe inhabited by menopausal women that I neither knew nor cared about…..until I became one. Who knew there was such a market out there for menopausal products? Particularly natural menopause relief products that give natural relief to menopause symptoms. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised - after all menopause is natural!! I was expecting to see specific herbs for menopause - I mean there are herbs for every medicinal problem but no, there was more….
The ones I really liked were the advertisements trying to sell you “natural lubricants to combat menopausal vaginal dryness” Products like coconut oil, vitamin E, acidophilus, comfrey ointment, honey, or olive oil!! I’m not too sure whether you are supposed to eat some of them or use them to lubricate your passage…
It’s true a lot of women do experience vaginal dryness as a menopause symptom. The physical signs of this are pretty obvious but the symptoms are spelt out in case you are not sure what “vaginal dryness” might feel like? Huh?? So they tell you about the dryness, itchiness, irritation, burning and say it might cause some discomfort. Talk about the self-evident.
Don’t you love the way medical people say “this might cause discomfort, or “this may be a little uncomfortable” e.g. when you are having your breast squashed flat between two metal plates during a mammogram or your aforementioned vagina being jacked open when having a PAP smear. Tell the truth- this is going to be excruciating (referring to the mammogram) but hopefully won’t last long and then you can go out and have a stiff brandy to recover!
Back to description of vaginal dryness – they remind you that it is caused by a decrease in the level of estrogen (or oestrogen). Estrogens keep your passages lubricated (sounds like a car engine additive) & elastic (nothing better than a bouncy vaginal passage) so if the levels fall guess what? Vaginal lubrication and elasticity decreases, and the vagina becomes thinner and more fragile (alternatively they could say the car engine splutters and your passage gets less bouncy!).
And guess what? As in so many cases, the cure is often worse than the complaint. Why do so many natural suggestions sound so boring? I’d love to read “A cure for your problem is a prawn cocktail, followed by a lamb roast and then apple pie- with a couple of glasses of wine”. But no, the cure is always lots of water, a low fat, high fibre diet (often vegetarian), lots of soy products & plenty of water. Booorrrrring!! They might be natural cures for menopause claiming natural menopause relief, but then so is wine…and much more enjoyable! Of course you could go the artificial estrogen route and look at creams, rings & tablets, or even HRT. But that’s for another blog…
If you want to read more about how to treat menopause naturally I found this book very helpful
