As there has been lots of interest in and support for a thread about alternatives to HRT and personal experiences so I decided to start one! Many women are unable to take HRT for a variety of reasons and my heart goes out to anyone who is suffering from unpleasant symptoms and cannot use HRT. If I was in this position I would be looking around for any alternatives that I could lay my hands on! I don't consider it to be my thread but just thought I'd start the ball rolling.......
The best place to start to find out about alternative remedies and treatments is on this website:
http://www.menopausematters.co.uk/remedies.phphttp://www.menopausematters.co.uk/phytoestrogens.phphttp://www.menopausematters.co.uk/otherpreps.phpThere is a warning at the start of the page which says this:
Some women choose to avoid HRT and prefer to use more "Natural "methods to deal with menopausal symptoms. Although this may be effective it is not an entirely risk free approach and little information is available about the effectiveness of preparations.And this:
The use of alternative therapies is a hugely expanding market. Try to ensure that the products you take are actually doing you some good and their planned effects are not overlapping - thus wasting money.There is a really good NHS information leaflet on this site too, produced by Dumfries and Galloway Menopause Clinic entitled "Alternatives to HRT"
(updated link below)
https://www.womens-health-concern.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/03-WHC-FACTSHEET-Complementary-And-Alternative-Therapies-FEB2021.pdfAs for my own experiences - well I knew very little about menopause. I thought it would be a few hot flushes, a few missed periods, then - they would stop and magically all my symptoms would disappear and I could continue as before - but with no periods!! Hurrah!
When the hot flushes started to appear I ate huge amounts of food high in phyto-oestrogens soya and various seeds, which I sprinkled on my muesli, onto salads, and made delicious phyto-oestrogen cake - recipe courtesy of a friend of mine. This was an attempt to boost my flagging oestrogen levels. It certainly improved my diet but had interesting effects on my digestion - since someone told me that linseed is not digested, so I ground them up! All these seeds contain all sorts of concentrated beneficial nutrients so I knew it would be doing me good anyway. I don't eat quite so many seeds now but still include some nuts of different kinds and some seeds in my diet regularly
.
Another friend swore by Black Cohosh so I invested in 6 months supply and off I went. It seemed that they worked - and if you had asked me at the time I would have said they did - so maybe they did? However what I didn't realise either (because I hadn't read about it then) was that my hormone levels were going up and down and when the flushes stopped I had another period or two - so who knows whether it was my own hormones coming into play? There are mixed results (from trials) as to its effectiveness and little information on long term safety - and that especially worried me. It was a natural product - which I liked, but I was concerned about using a herbal product like this over a long period of time. I don't think I used it for longer than 6 months.
After a while and my periods stopped for much longer (5 months) I was working in a job where I had lots of meetings and including with younger men
and it became embarrassing to keep flinging off cardigans as well as going absolutely beetroot in the process of having a hot flush. Added to that I was getting no sleep and couldn't function properly - also still had two boys in early secondary school - so reluctantly at the time (I
so wanted to do it naturally) I went onto HRT (the most natural type that I could find ie bio-identical preparations) and have been on it ever since. However I still eat a good diet and follow many of the recommendations in the leaflet on this site (link above).
I realised after the event that maybe whatever I had tried during peri-menopause might or might not have worked depending on what my hormones were doing, but perhaps wish I had read a bit more at the time so that I knew what was happening to me.
That's my story and some information. Hope some of you find it helpful - especially newbies!
. Have you had tried remedies like this and what have your experiences been?
Hurdity x