Premenopause Treatments

From the beginning of their reproductive lives, women have to deal with the effects of changing hormone levels in their bodies. Over this period of approximately 30 years, some women present what is known as premenstrual syndrome (PMS), a characteristic symptom of premenopause. While most women don't need much to cope with premenopause symptoms, others need to change their lifestyle, use herbal remedies, or even prescription medication to find relief.

To make an informed choice about how to alleviate premenopause symptoms, it's important to be aware of the different treatment options, as well as their risks and benefits.

Three Approaches to Treating Premenopause Symptoms

Women are encouraged to start with the safest approach to treating premenopause symptoms: lifestyle adjustments. While these are often effective at reducing premenopause symptoms, they don't directly target the underlying cause, which is hormonal imbalance. Fortunately, alternative medicine and natural remedies can be combined with lifestyle changes to provide safe and effective treatment.

While prescription medication and surgery are not necessary to deal with premenopause symptoms, some women may wish to consider such options if they are unable to find relief. For women considering these, it is important to understand and carefully weigh the risks associated with each treatment.

1. Lifestyle Changes

Since the symptoms many women experience during premenopause are not as severe as those they experience during menopause, incorporating key lifestyle changes could be the only action necessary. These lifestyle changes are also the safest treatment method for women who are particularly concerned with health risks and side effects of prescription drugs. Lifestyle changes women can make to help treat premenopause symptoms include the following.

Diet and exercise

Ensuring proper nutrition and physical activity is essential to creating an overall feeling of well-being. For women experiencing premenopause symptoms, certain foods, such as those high in plant estrogen, can help alleviate problems naturally. Exercise is also known to improve health and mood, as well as reduce the effects of hormonal imbalance.

Stress reduction

Stress can aggravate a woman's premenopause symptoms and negatively affect her daily life. Finding effective ways to battle stress can improve unpleasant premenopause symptoms and encourage overall well-being. Tips to reduce stress include:

• Freeing up time in an over-booked schedule
• Enjoying a relaxing hobby (e.g., painting, reading, playing music)
• Visiting a therapist or counselor
• Exercising regularly (e.g., yoga, Pilates)

2. Alternative Treatments

Often, women find that pairing lifestyle changes with gentle alternative treatments is exactly what they need to lessen premenopause symptoms. Alternative treatments include herbal supplements that can help balance erratic hormone levels. There are two major types of herbs that can be used to treat these symptoms.

Phytoestrogenic herbs

These herbs - such as ginseng, dong quai, and black cohosh - can effectively combat premenopause symptoms by helping to balance the levels of estrogen in a woman's body. As their name suggests, they contain phytoestrogens, a type of estrogen produced by plants that mimics the estrogen women naturally produce.

The drawback of phytoestrogenic herbs is that they can lose their effectiveness over time. A woman's body can also lose the ability to produce its own estrogen after extended use of these herbs.

Hormone-regulating herbs

Like phytoestrogenic herbs, hormone-regulating herbs (e.g., Macafem) also work to help restore balance to a woman's fluctuating hormones, but they do so without introducing external estrogen to the body. Instead, they work by stimulating a woman's glands to naturally produce more of the hormones they are lacking.

A combination of approaches is often the most effective route to take. Lifestyle changes combined with alternative medicine is generally the best way to naturally alleviate premenopause symptoms. There are women, however, for whom these approaches will not be sufficient. These women may seek further or more invasive treatments for severe symptoms.

3. Prescription Medication and Surgery

Conventional treatment approaches might be necessary for women who don't achieve the results they had hoped for through lifestyle changes and alternative treatments or those that continue struggling with severe symptoms.

The initial options may include birth control pills, pain relievers, or mood-regulating drugs, while more aggressive treatment approaches may rarely involve other forms of hormonal therapy.

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These three levels of approaches are not mutually exclusive. A woman may use different treatments at different times or any combination of them, depending on the duration and severity of her premenopause symptoms. Today, more and more women find that dealing with premenopause symptoms is best accomplished with a combination of healthy lifestyle and alternative treatments.