Women’s Health: What is the Best Treatment for Menopause?

In all the phases of women’s health—officially called Pre-Kids, Tornado of Raising Kids, My Kids are Older But Now What Is This Fresh Hell Called Menopause?, and Whew! I Made It to Postmenopause!—menopause may be one of the most confusing. This is at least in part because so few women talk about it. I mean, when was the last time you heard someone shout on Facebook about the joys or miseries of menopause? Or post a pic on Instagram of what a hot flash looks like? Never, amiright? And if you google “menopause,” you may quickly end up in information overload.

So let me boil it down for you, and assure you that you are most definitely NOT ALONE. That means that 1) you are not crazy, you’re just menopausal, and 2) many methods of treating menopausal symptoms have been tested, studied, and tried by other women in menopause. The good news about that is that you don’t have to cross your fingers and blindly hope you’ll find something to ease your fears. So, let’s dive in and discuss everything from menopause’s many symptoms to the equally many treatments for them.

Common Menopause Symptoms

Although menopause can show up in ways as varied as joint pain, a feeling like your tongue’s on fire, and even changes in body odor, it tends to manifest itself most commonly with these symptoms:

• Hot flashes (because the thermostat has to be at least at 150⁰ F)
• Irregular periods (because the only thing better than periods is not knowing when they’ll come)
• Vaginal dryness (because being too tired for sex isn’t enough)
• Mood swings (sometimes called the menopausal “see saw”)
• Reduced libido (between the sweats, moodiness, and fatigue, it’s no wonder a tumble between the sheets may not top your “to do” list)
• Sleep pattern changes (because not getting enough sleep is “super fun”)
• Dry skin (maybe you should bill your insurance company for the billions of bottles of moisturizers you’re buying, since they’re now “medically necessary”)
• Hair loss (so you can look the part of a perimenopausal person)
• Joint stiffness or pain (in case you’re tempted to skip your way through menopause)
• Brain fog (because maybe your brain’s trying to “protect” you from being fully aware of all your symptoms)
• Blood pressure changes (because maybe a few meditation tunes are also “medically necessary?)

Never fear, though. Like, really, don’t, because you’ve got lots of ways to alleviate your particular symptoms, depending on your individual preferences and needs. It’s like you’re on your own personal road trip, and these are the “friends” that can join you!

Women’s Health: What Is the Best Treatment for Menopause?

You may have noticed that there isn’t one best treatment for menopause that helps every single person going through it in the same way. That may be the bad news. The good news is that many options are available, and they can be used together, individually, or successively to help support you through your menopausal transition.

Medical Treatments

Because of their stringent testing and FDA approval, medical treatments for menopause are intended to cure, treat, or prevent illnesses and ailments. They typically fall into two categories: basic and other. Basic medical treatments doctors often prescribe for menopause-related symptoms include things like birth control, hormone therapy, anti-anxiety meds, and antidepressants. Other treatments include non-hormonal and symptom-specific meds (prescription and non-prescription medications). Consider the medical-treatment route as an opportunity to put together a team of healthcare professionals whose knowledge you respect and support you can count on. They will be vital in helping you evaluate the pros and cons of each individual option and can prescribe treatment. Just know that, in general, the basic medical treatments tend to treat a wider variety of menopause symptoms than the symptom-specific ones. At the same time, they have the potential for more general side effects.

Take a deeper dive into the specific options for medical treatments with their pros and cons.

Supplements

Supplements encompass anything you take in some kind of pill form to supplement what you’re not getting enough of through your diet. This means herbs, vitamins, minerals, etc. Supplements for menopause tend to treat the most common symptoms. If you’re experiencing particularly bothersome ailments that are less-common, supplements can help notch down the common symptoms so they’re one less thing you have to worry about. 

Explore our list of top 10 supplements for menopause for each one’s specific benefits and side effects. Remember, just because it’s “natural” doesn’t mean it’s risk-free!

Minerals

If there could be one word that could describe menopause, then it might be “depletion.” And if there’s one thing that could most directly replace what’s being depleted, then it might be minerals. Like vitamins, minerals supplement what you’re already hopefully getting through your food. Taking mineral supplements, though, make up for what you’re not getting. Because who wants to drink 5 gallons of milk a day?

Vitamins

Vitamins yield benefits based on what they do for the body. Vitamin A, for instance, helps strengthen your pelvic floor (which you may not have known was a thing) and your bones. The only downsides of vitamins are that your body only needs a certain amount of each, even in menopause, so taking more than the recommended daily allowance doesn’t do you any good. Your body just lets it go! I recommend vitamins A, B₆, B₁₂, B complex, C, E, and K, for these reasons.

Get the skinny on all things related to vitamins for menopause.

Phytoestrogens

Phytoestrogens (also known as dietary estrogen), which you get from food, come from plant compounds. They act like estrogen produced by the human body with a chemical structure similar to estrogen. As such, they may mimic its hormonal actions. Our friends over at Healthline shared that “While some researchers have raised concerns that a high intake of phytoestrogens may cause hormonal imbalance, most evidence has linked them to positive health effects. In fact, multiple studies have associated phytoestrogen intake with decreased cholesterol levels, improved menopausal symptoms, and a lower risk of osteoporosis and certain types of cancer, including breast cancer.”

Learn more about this dietary alternative and get a list of the foods that fall within the phytoestrogen family.

Essential Oils

Many people swear by essential oils’ abilities to calm, center, and soothe, which can be especially helpful during the turbulent years of menopause. Studies do, in fact, show that the oils distilled from the “essences” of certain plants can support your body’s efforts to calm itself. These are our top 15 preferred essential oils because studies have shown not only those calming benefits but others as well. Take note, though, that not all essential oils are created equal, and too much of a good thing can be…well, a bad thing.

Check out our top recommended 15 essential oils for menopause with their pros, cons, and the studies the information is based on.

Self-Care

No discussion of the ways you can treat your menopause symptoms is complete without talking about self-care. Taking pills and smelling essential oils will help, but unless you’re also showing yourself some plain-old love, they can only do so much. 

Get started today with these 16 self-care tips. 

It’s a Wrap!

Though it might feel confusing trying to tune into your own symptoms and overwhelming to put together the exact right treatment plan for you, doing so might in fact be the best way you can give yourself what you need to get through this difficult transition. And, while patience may be hard to come by during this time, especially the patience needed to track your symptoms and put together the exact right team of healthcare professionals to support you, it may ultimately be your saving grace.

Finding that team may take some digging and time, as you sort out and meet with general practitioners, functional medicine doctors, integrated medicine doctors, herbalists, acupuncturists, masseuses, or even menopause specialists to determine how willing they are to listen to you and how knowledgeable they are in menopause-specific treatments. But knowing you’ve got people in your corner and the smarts to track your symptoms can make all the difference.

Sources

For more comprehensive information on each of the various medical treatments, click on the links below:

• Medical treatments for menopause
• Supplements
• Minerals
• Vitamins
• Phytoestrogens
• Essential Oils
• Self-Care

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