Changing bodies
At menopause, many women feel their body has become
unpredictable and unreliable. This is disconcerting, particularly for
women with a regular and non-problematic menstrual cycle in the past.
It is difficult to feel on top of the job, whether it is paid work or
the family, when beset by hot flushes and worrying about unpredictable
heavy bleeding. There is a wide variety of possible remedies and helpers
(see Finding and Using Help) but first it helps
to understand what is going on.
Menopause is the time when women cease to menstruate and be able to bear
children. During the childbearing years, a woman’s ovaries produce
two hormones, oestrogen and progesterone, in varying amounts depending
on the stage of her menstrual cycle. These hormones control the process
of ovulation and the thickening of the womb lining which is shed at menstruation.
As menopause approaches, the amount of hormones produced changes, and
becomes less predictable. Hormone production eventually becomes stable,
but at a lower level; post-menopausal women still produce some oestrogen,
this time from the adrenal gland. This does not necessarily happen smoothly,
however, and the body’s processes of readjustment can take a long
time.
There are different ways to look at this. Some medical textbooks present
‘the change’ as a process of decay and degeneration, but
Emily Martin suggests that it is also possible
to see menopause as a kindness to the middle-aged body. It will no longer
have to cope with tidal surges of contrasting hormones, and instead, something
closer to stability can be expected.
There is a lot of variation built in to menopause, both between women
and for individual women at different times. This is one of the reasons
why estimates of how long menopause takes and at what age it starts are
vague. Women are likely to experience menopause between the ages of 45
and 55, but some start earlier and some go on bleeding later. It has been
suggested that the body can take about ten years  to
adjust fully to the changes, but this does not mean ten years of distressing
symptoms! All the above refers to ‘natural’ menopause. For
some women, this is not an option; surgical or drug treatment affecting
the ovaries may speed the process up and is likely to make the experience
more dramatic.
A lot of unpleasant experiences have been blamed on the menopause over
the years. However, many of them may not be menopause-related; the World
Health Organisation has been very cautious in identifying specifically
menopausal symptoms. Many discomforts and distresses can be seen as symptoms
of stress, others as the result of ageing. Self-help
with hormone changes covers the discomforts with the clearest links
to hormone changes, together with strategies for making life easier while
your body adjusts. Menopause tends to be easier to handle if you can rest
more than usual; however, this may be very difficult to do! If you want
more than self-help, professionals can offer:
· Hormone replacement (the conventional
medicine approach)
· Smoothing out imbalances (more common in complementary
medicine, eg herbalism, nutrition or homeopathy)
· Reducing tension, for example by exercise,
relaxation, or massage and aromatherapy.
Resources
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