MENOPAUSE
In modern western culture menopause is often treated like a disease, and the natural changes that occur during this transition in a woman’s life are seen as symptoms that must be eliminated. In the Chinese medical paradigm, menopause is a natural physiological cycle. When the body is supported by a well-balanced life style throughout a woman’s life, the hormonal changes that occur at menopause usually go very smoothly.
However most of us don’t have such perfectly ordered lives. By the time we get to perimenopause, (the five to ten years preceding the actual cessation of a woman’s periods), we are often already pretty out of whack. Stress, overwork, worry, and bad habits have taken their toll. Deeply rooted imbalances in a woman’s system are the cause of the severe symptoms in menopause that drive many to the doctor’s office for hormone replacement.
This needn’t happen. Chinese medicine offers gentle natural methods to balance a woman’s body during the perimenopausal and menopausal years without the use of dangerous synthetic hormones. Symptoms like hot flashes, insomnia, anxiety, heart palpitations, mood swings, and night sweats, are an indication that the yin forces in a woman’s body are declining. Symptoms like weight gain, edema, indigestion, and fatigue can be a sign of the yang energy declining. Sometimes there is a complex combination of several of these patterns.
A practitioner of Chinese medicine first determines precisely how the energy is imbalanced in each individual, and what organ systems are involved. Then a treatment plan is devised to correct the imbalance. Therapies might include acupuncture treatments, herbal prescriptions, dietary adjustments, and Chi Kung exercises. The approach offered by Chinese medicine is safe, natural, drug-free, and effective. Often, just a few months of regular treatment are all that is needed to restore vitality, balance, and health.