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Menopause in women: signs, symptoms, treatment
Those who have not survived menopause cannot imagine how scary, sad and disgusting it is. All the worst that could happen in this world happened to you in an instant. How is it easier to cope with this period? Wday.ru columnist reports.
I was forty when at work I wanted to shoot a hole punch at the boss who was yelling at me. And this is me, a super-positive and an optimist. Then at home, the desire to conflict with her husband for any of his whining and tediousness turned into the usual evening exercise, although before that she considered it the height of woman’s stupidity. I yelled at the child when he was stupid doing his homework, at my mother when she retold some stupid program. Then I began to wake up at night and sob into my pillow – well, I am poor and unhappy, I was fed up with everything. And so for an hour crying in the dark, in the morning – circles under the eyes, a swollen face, terrible wrinkles.
And once, out of anger, she knocked over a pot of borscht in a clean kitchen. Then I decided to go to the doctor and start doing something.
How to understand that it has begun
At 40-45 years old, sometimes a little later, every woman’s ovarian function begins to decrease. And we from a beautiful Gioconda in an instant turn into a wrinkled and eternally disgruntled grandmother. This process is inevitable: the living is always aging. But we must understand and accept that menopause is the next stage of life.
Why is this happening to us? This is due to the ovaries, which one day stop producing female sex hormones and eggs. Our body, accustomed for all the years of existence on earth to monthly menstruation, suddenly begins to slow down. And then rebel. Hey, where is our legitimate PMS with gag and annoyance? Where is this wonderful state after the end of menstruation, when everything is wonderful again: people are all good, husband is the best, eyes are burning, skin is shining, and the girl who lives inside each of us sings and dances? But there is nothing: all life is a continuous depression.
Something like this describes the period of withering of a woman in menopause. Doctors distinguish three phases of the physiological aging process: premenopause, menopause, and postmenopause. These changes are called menopause, and it lasts from 3 to 8 years. So, you need to be ready for a long work on yourself.
How to understand that it has begun
1. Hot flashes several times a day. It is impossible to predict when this will happen. You are riding a bus or sitting at an important meeting and suddenly you are covered with red spots, you start to sweat, you want to get up and urgently open the window. And everyone, as luck would have it, is looking at you.
2. The menstrual cycle is disrupted: the frequency, duration, and intensity of discharge change. But this point, in principle, is not so bad.
3. You don’t want sex. You used to get turned on by these touches of your beloved, but now you don’t feel anything. Only sometimes there are glimpses of excitement. At the same time, the husband wants daily passion, and you want to sleep.
4. Gradually begins to grow weight, and no habitual diets can stop this process. 2 workouts per week are no longer enough to keep fit. And the usual fasting day does not affect your scales in any way.
5. Swelling in the morning on the face and cellulite all over the body. You notice how sagging all your skin, and 10 sessions of anti-cellulite massage before the beach season does not help either.
6. Wrinkles on the face, which are becoming more and more every day. Nasolabia, forehead, small grooves near the eyes and lips – in the morning an old woman meets you in the mirror. Sometimes the hair on the face still begins to grow, but on the head, as luck would have it, it falls out.
7. You become wildly irritable, flare up like a match with or without reason. Family members wonder why our beloved fairy of comfort and peace has turned into an evil witch, ready to kill for any oversight.
8. Insomnia comes at night, and bad mood and depression during the day. We become whiny. After any comment from my husband, we either cry or get angry.
9. Blood pressure rises regularly, a tonometer and pressure pills appear in the house.
– Modern medicine offers women to receive the missing female sex hormones in pills. This is the main tool for preventing malfunction of the body, for maintaining a good quality of life and well-being, normalizing weight, blood pressure, preventing osteoporosis, atherosclerosis and diseases of the cardiovascular system.
Remember that only a doctor should prescribe any medications, you cannot take medications on your own according to the principle “like a friend’s.”
Before starting hormone replacement therapy, you need to pass an FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) test and a pap test for the presence of uterine cancer cells. And once a year to do an ultrasound of the pelvic organs and mammography.
If for some reason hormones are contraindicated for you, the doctor may prescribe herbal preparations. The effect of these drugs is much lower, but still there.
Recently, an alternative to hormone therapy has appeared – injectable drugs with polypeptides with a pronounced anti-aging effect. They are applied in courses. For example, 10 days of intramuscular injection. The positive effect lasts for more than 6 months. It has been clinically proven that drugs with polypeptides perfectly cope with all the symptoms of menopause: hot flashes, sweating, insomnia, depression, irritability, and more.
Women who take medications tolerate menopause more easily.
So, we found out that the body of a woman in menopause is rebelling against age-related changes. You can, of course, indulge – feel sorry for yourself, seize anger, irritation and lack of sleep with candies. And, making excuses, everyone is proud to declare: “I have a menopause. You will be like that too! “
There are other measures as well. Yes, yes, they are all spelled out in a book called healthy lifestyle. Gynecologists recommend women to eat foods with natural phytohormones: avocado, hummus, lentils, garlic, sesame seeds and others. Reduce the use of sweet, fatty, salty, fried, and it is better to refuse altogether. Try to eat less meat, but more fish and vegetables.
Exercise, walking in the park, swimming and fitness – these are the must-haves in your life. Find a new hobby – paint, dance, run. Let it take all your free time. By the way, scientists have proven that menopause is easier for women who led an active lifestyle before the beginning of this period and ate properly. So to speak, we prepared for a meeting with him.