Menopause is a challenging transition for most women, but the team at Salem Women's Clinic in Salem, OR is here to make it much easier and smoother for their patients.
Perimenopause is the transition period between a woman's reproductive years and menopause. The perimenopause period of a woman's life often lasts for years. During this transition time, periods will be erratic and a woman may begin to experience some of the common symptoms of menopause such as night sweats.
Menopause is the time in a woman's life when she comes to the end of her fertility. Medically speaking, a woman is in menopause when she hasn't had a menstrual cycle for 12 months in a row.
Most women start menopause somewhere between their mid-40s and mid-50s. However, it can start much earlier or much later than that. The average age of menopause onset is 51 in the United States.
Many women experience unpleasant symptoms during menopause, including hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, depression, irritability, vaginal dryness, lack of sex drive, insomnia, and memory lapses.
The treatment for menopause symptoms can vary according to the individual woman and her particular symptoms. Some symptoms can be relieved with lifestyle adjustments as recommended by the doctor. For most women, the best solution for menopause symptoms is the replacement of the hormones that menopause has taken away. At Salem Women's Clinic, Bioindentical hormones are the preferred hormone replacement therapy because they are a natural plant-based treatment. The hormone replacements duplicate those that occur naturally in the body. Bioidentical hormones are superior to animal-derived hormones and synthetic hormones because they are better tolerated by the body and have fewer side effects.