How Perimenopause Can Be Treated Naturally

Perimenopause is the normal transition period between when we have regular menstrual cycles and the cessation in menstrual cycles. Another way of saying this is that perimenopause is the time period between fully functional ovaries and when our ovaries are no longer functional and are no longer putting out hormones. Typically, this is going to happen for a woman in her mid to late forties. It can happen when she’s younger and it can happen when she’s older but that’s a pretty typical timeline, mid-forties to late-forties. Our ovaries are responsible for the production of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Our adrenals do make a little bit of hormone. They do make some progesterone and some testosterone and we’ll also get a little bit of estrogen production from the fat cells in our body but our ovaries are the primary producers of our sex hormones. As ovarian function declines, the primary thing that’s dramatically going to standout in perimenopause is the decline in progesterone. A lot of the symptoms that women have during the perimenopause period really have to do with the bottoming-out of progesterone. Any time progesterone is low in relationship to estrogen, we call this estrogen dominance. Estrogen dominance can set up many symptoms for women. A woman might start to have a lot of anxiety. She might start to have a lot of irritability or mood swings. She might notice that she’s no longer sleeping well and that she actually has insomnia. She might have low libido. She might have symptoms that resemble PMS. She might have things that look like breast tenderness or her periods may actually become too frequent or her bleeding could become very heavy. When a woman has these symptoms, she may go visit her doctor and her doctor may end up giving her separate drugs for each of these different symptoms. For example, she may be given a drug like Ambien for the insomnia. She may be given Xanax for the anxiety. She might be given Prozac for the depression. The problem is none of these drugs are actually addressing the root cause which is that she has a hormone deficiency or an imbalance. In addition to not addressing the root cause of the problem, she may actually experience side effects from the medications she’s now been put on. Some doctors recognize that these symptoms are related to low hormone levels or imbalanced hormone levels and they’ll choose to prescribe synthetic hormones like oral contraceptives Premarin and Provera. Oral contraceptives are often used to help regulate irregular cycles. Premarin is often used to help bring up low estrogen levels whereas Provera is used to help bring up low progesterone levels. There’s another way of doing hormone replacement and that’s with bioidentical hormones. Bioidentical hormones are plant-derived and under the microscope, it looks identical to human hormones. The advantage of using bioidentical hormones is that all of perimenopausal symptoms and any symptoms associated with hormone deficiency or imbalance will be alleviated without the side effects or symptoms of synthetic hormones. If a woman is experiencing the symptoms I mentioned earlier or thinks she’s in perimenopause, I recommend that she seek out a naturopathic doctor. A naturopathic doctor can take a thorough history, perform a physical exam and order appropriate labs. Labs would include blood, saliva and urine. Based on all that information, a naturopathic doctor can put together an individualized treatment plan. A typical treatment plan that I would prescribe contains a section on diet, lifestyle, supplements and bioidentical hormones. In the diet section, I make recommendations that a woman decrease her alcohol, caffeine, sugar and refined foods. I also advice that she increase the amount of whole organic food she’s eating and that she increase her consumption of vegetables. I also advice that she increase the amount of fiber she’s taking in and that she increase the amount of water she’s taking in to half of her body weight in ounces per day. Under the lifestyle section, I recommend 30 to 45 minutes of some type of movement occur daily. This is really important to help improve circulation of blood and lymph. In the supplement section, I’ll prescribe B vitamins. I’ll prescribe essential fatty acids like fish oil and evening primrose oil. I’ll prescribe magnesium and I’ll also prescribe vitamin E. These are essential nutrients for hormone regulation. If the woman has a lot of stress in her life, I’ll also put her on an adrenal support formula and if there’s any indication that her liver needs support, I’ll also put her on a liver support formula. Finally, I’ll prescribe a custom formulation of bioidentical hormones. The bioidentical hormones are compounded into a cream base that my patients apply to their skin everyday. After just a few short months, my patients experience a complete resolution of their perimenopause symptoms.