Hormone Treatments for Perimenopause

Hormone Treatments for Perimenopause:
Perimenopausal symptoms affect about 70% of women, who are approaching menopause. The symptoms of perimenopause usually last for the whole menopause transition (untill the mid 50's), but some women may experience them for the rest of their life. Perimenopause is not an illness, but a natural process in a woman's body. The symptoms of perimenopause are just indicators of changes between the hormones estrogen, testosterone and progesterone. These changes result in a hormonal imbalance in a woman's body and cause the common 34 menopause symptoms.

Though the pharmaceutical companies would have women believe that for the treatment of hormone imbalance, drugs are the best solution - that isn't the case. Before a woman make the choice of taking synthetic hormones, she should consider less riskier approaches, like alternative medicine or lifestyle changes. The medical establishment is becoming increasingly interested in alternative medicine since breast and ovarian cancer as well as heart diseases, blood clots and other side effects are associated with conventional HRT treatment.

Three approaches of Hormone Treatments for Perimenopause:
Three levels of approaches can be considered for treatments of perimenopause. These are categorized as: (1) Lifestyle Changes, (2) Alternative Medicine and (3) Drugs and Surgery. Women should always start with the least risky approach (lifestyle changes) and go on to riskier approaches (surgery/drugs) only if necessary.

(1) LIFESTYLE CHANGES
The first level involves no risk but may be the hardest way to go. Women have to restrict theirself from many things. So if a woman is considering this approach, she will need a strong mind and a positive thinking for managing these changes.

Surprisingly, there has been less research on how lifestyle changes can affect hormonal imbalance. Nonetheless, techniques for stress reduction (e.g. yoga), a diet rich in estrogenic food (soy, apples, alfalfa, cherries, potatoes, rice, wheat and yams) or even becoming more fit by doing regular exercises, will have positive effects on a woman's hormonal imbalance.

It's not easy to follow up this approach, that's why most women might want to consider the next level of hormone treatment for perimenopause. Alternative medicine has proven to be excellent for balancing hormonal levels in a natural and safe way.

(2) ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
Alternative approaches involve little or no risk and can be considered as the best and safest way to provide an hormone treatment for perimenopause. In this level of approach, Herbal remedies and Acupuncture established themselves as the best treatments. Acupuncture is a Chinese medical treatment involving the insertion of very fine sterile needles into the body at specific points according to a mapping of "energy pathways". It's an excellent treatment, but complicated to follow. A successful acupuncture treatment involves time, money and finding the right practitioner. Therefore, most women are looking for less complicated ways of hormone treatments for perimenopause with alternatives, and think herbal remedies are a safe and effective solution.

There are basically two types of herbs for treating unbalanced hormonal levels: phytoestrogen and non-estrogenic herbs. The phytoestrogen herbs (e.g. Black Cohosh, Dong Quai) contain estrogenic components produced by plants. Though, these herbs are good for treating low hormone levels, because they replace some of the missing estrogen hormones, they aren't the best solution for treating hormonal imbalance. As a result of adding hormones from outside, a woman's body will become less responsive to produce estrogen on its own. This causes a further decrease of body-own hormone levels.

Unlike phytoestrogen herbs, non-estrogenic herbs, as its name suggests, don't contain any estrogen. These herbs nourish the hormonal glands into producing more efficiently body-own, natural hormones. This ultimately ends up in balancing not only estrogen, but also progesterone and testosterone. In other words, non-estrogenic herbs stimulate a woman's own hormone production, by inducing the optimal functioning of the pituitary and endocrine glands. Due to this, non-estrogenic herbs, like Macafem, can be considered as the safest way of hormone treatment for perimenopause.

A combination of approaches is a good route to take. Lifestyle changes combined with alternative medicine will probably take care of the hormonal imbalance in a more efficiently way. Nonetheless, there will always be some women who need or want to go through the third level of approach. Side effects are inevitable, but sometimes these are worth if considered the relief this approach provides.

(3) DRUGS AND SURGERY
Interventions at level 3 involve the highest risk and often the highest costs. The most common drug therapy of hormone treatment for perimenopause, is hormone replacement therapy (HRT). There's no doubt that this is the quickest and strongest way to combat hormonal imbalance; but, unfortunately, it entails serious side effects and increases the risk of different cancer types among women, as the following study has proven.

If a woman still want to consider this approach, she should take a visit to her physician, and be more informed about what this treatment option involves.

These three levels of approaches are not mutually exclusive. A woman can use different approaches at different times or combine several at the same time. Nowadays more and more women think that the best treatments of perimenopause are best accomplished via a combination of healthy lifestyle and alternative treatments.