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Menopause symptoms - hot flushes and night sweats
Can you suggest anything to help me cope with the symptoms of menopause. I have only just started experiencing hot flushes and nightsweats, and while I'm very interested in using natural remedies, I just don't know where to start.
Hot flushes are often among the first signs a woman has that her ovaries, which are starting to effectively shut down, are producing less oestrogen. Conventional hormone replacement therapy (HRT) works by rebuilding levels of the female hormones, but since it can also increase the risk of breast cancer, more and more women aged 50 and over are asking about alternatives.
If you have no other symptoms, start your natural treatment programme by taking the equivalent of 120mg of sage. In clinical trials in Italy, this common garden herb was shown to help reduce not only the number of hot flushes women were having, but also the time each flush lasted. In fact women who used this herb for three months reported a decrease from 10 to just two hot flushes a day.
Althought the average age for onset of the menopause in the UK is 51, many women will start to experience hormonal changes up to 15 years before being diagnosed as menopausal. In these earlier perimenopausal years, (from around the age of 35), the changes may not be so dramatic but they can still affect how a woman looks and feels.
There are two more excellent remedies that you can take together to help you through both stages - perimenopause and menopause. The first is an impressive herbal formulation called Meno Herb that combines a range of natural plant oestrogens to work as a kind of natural HRT. These herbs include red clover, dong quai, black cohosh, wild yam (which is a natural progesterone), raspberry leaf, squaw vine, and nettles - in short, every herb you would have on your wish-list when trying to control the symptoms of both perimenopause and menopause.
The second remedy, which you take at the same time, is one of the powerful Australian Bush Flower Essences called Woman Essence. This is a herbal tincture including She Oak, which works to regulate the ovaries, and Mulla Mulla - which, like sage, can help control hot flushes. As with all flower remedies, these essences address the underlying emotional and psychological changes that accompany a powerful rite of passage such as menopause. To use, take seven drops under the tongue when you get up in the morning and another seven drops when you go to bed at night.
*Meno Herb is available from Victoria Health on 0800-413 596. Woman essence is available from Ancient Roots (020 8421 9877).