Women’s Health Workshop #2

Women’s Health Workshop #2 Natural Approaches to Address : Menopausal Symptoms… Getting well… and… Alternative Approaches to HRT…

Menopause… In this Workshop, we will look at the symptoms of menopause and the connection of symptoms to diet, lifestyle and adrenal health. More importantly, we’ll look at how to naturally help regain balance through nutritional and herbal approaches, dietary changes, and lifestyle/activity, with the use of hormone replacement therapy as a last resort.

Areas we’ll cover today… Menopause and common symptoms… How adrenal health, diet and lifestyle affect menopausal symptoms… Natural approaches for reducing symptoms and improving health… We’ll discuss PMS and approaches in more detail in Workshop #1… We’ll discuss endometriosis, poly-cystic ovary disease, uterine fibroids, and other hormone-related health concerns in Workshop #3, while Workshop #4 focuses on reducing the risk of breast cancer…

Menopause… What is menopause ? ? ? Menopause is the timeframe after menses have ceased for approx. 9 - 12 months. This is usually preceded by peri-menopause, where irregular menses and fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone lead to menopausal symptoms, such as hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes, etc… Fatigue, stress, adrenal reserves, and a host of other health-related conditions can increase or decrease the severity of menopausal symptoms…

Menopause… What causes these symptoms ? ? ? Normally, the ovaries produce varying amounts of estrogen and progesterone as the menstrual cycle progresses. When menses cease, ovarian production of estrogen and progesterone drops. This results in a considerable reduction in these hormones. Estrogen for example keeps vascular tone, and when estrogen levels fluctuate, vascular tone also fluctuates causing the small peripheral capillaries to spasm… Blood rushes in and then the “hot flash”…

Menopause… How can I more accurately determine my present hormone health status ? In order to understand the status of your estrogen, progesterone and adrenal hormones, you can take a simple post-menopausal salivary hormone test and adrenal stress index test… These tests will give you an idea of where your sex and stress hormone levels are, and will help develop an approach to get you back in balance, naturally.

Menopause… Must I take these hormone tests to use any natural approaches to symptom relief ? These hormone tests are not necessary to try some of the natural approaches to alleviating symptoms… Many times, they work just fine, however, if you’re not getting the results you’d like, these hormone tests can pinpoint areas requiring focus to help get better, more consistent results…

Menopause… How Adrenal health, Stress and Fatigue affect menopausal symptoms… Since a normal, healthy woman produces about 20% of her circulating estrogens via the adrenal glands, any stress, fatigue and weakened adrenals will cause much lower post menopausal estrogen levels in some women. When ovarian estrogens and progesterone stops, in most of these women, this causes undue menopausal symptoms !

Menopause… What steps can I take to reduce these menopausal symptoms ? Reducing stress, improving diet/lifestyle and using targeted supplements can improve adrenal health and reduce fatigue. This process indirectly helps to improve hormone health and can help reduce menopausal symptoms. That’s why it’s important to treat these symptoms as not only normal “change of life” but as possible lack of adrenal/organ reserves…

Menopause… What can I do now to help with these symptoms while I get healthier ? ? ? The natural approach to menopausal symptoms is two-fold… Use targeted nutritional and herbal formulas that may help reduce symptoms now… Work diet, lifestyle, and supplementation to help improve over-all health and strengthen adrenal/organ reserve… Utilize exogenous hormones as a last resort…

Menopause… Targeted nutritional and herbal supplements for menopause… Wild Yam Complex 2 tablets AM and 2 tablets PM for 30 days or until symptoms diminish. Then lower the dose until symptoms begin to worsen… Tribulus 1 tablet 3X/day in addition to the Wild Yam Complex for those who are not experiencing relief. Then lower dosage as needed.

Menopause… Targeted nutritional and herbal supplements for menopause… Black Cohosh 2.5ml (1/2 metric tsp) 1 – 3X/day to help lower menopausal symptoms… Some women prefer Black Cohosh to Wild Yam…

Menopause… So… I’ve tried some of these remedies for about 60 days now, and I’m not getting enough relief ! Usually, this can mean your adrenals are not up to providing the minimal levels of estrogen and progesterone needed to minimize your symptoms. This can be due to stress, poor dietary habits, and need for targeted supplementation to help increase adrenal reserves… If you tend to be fatigued, this is a sign that you’re under adrenal stress… Now… lets discuss approaches for FATIGUE !

Fatigue… Our definition of fatigue is more of a persistent lack of energy or inability to perform daily tasks without undue effort… It is not an occasional over-tired feeling from lack of sleep… Our definition stems from consistent physical, mental or emotional stresses and other factors preventing recovery and health…

Fatigue… Lifestyle and diet are major contributors to fatigue. Many of us are faced with the stresses of work, traffic, school, family, and and a host of demands others or we place on ourselves on a consistent basis… Poor dietary choices add to this stress and don’t provide the basic healing nutrients needed to allow rest and recovery… These choices actually add physical stress to the emotional stresses and wear us down. We keep running on “empty”.

Fatigue… Most Americans would say that they deal with stress daily… You’re not alone… Most Americans, including our children, deal with stresses on a daily basis. Proper sleep, at least 2 - 3 healthy meals per day, consistent activity/exercise and key nutritional supplementation can reduce the negative effects of stress…

Fatigue… How do dietary choices play a role ? ? ? Skipping Breakfast is one habit many of us have. Right when your body needs nourishment to get the day started, we grab a cup of coffee, maybe some HIGH carb junk food and hit the road. Our bodies need protein and whole-foods that can provide energy and nutrition we need for the day… Not getting this in the AM already sets our day up for failure ! This is why we seem to run out of gas late in the morning, or have food cravings before lunch time…

Fatigue… How do dietary choices play a role ? ? ? The foods we consume have a lot to do with energy and fatigue… When our diets consist of a lot of simple carbs, sugars and starches, these provide nearly instant energy, since they cause a rapid rise in blood sugar… However, the body tries to keep blood sugar in balance, by increasing insulin production to force the sugar into the tissues. We can’t use up all the sugar, so much of it is converted to fat and stored. Blood sugar goes down rapidly and we are tired and hungry again… A vicious cycle !

Fatigue… How do dietary choices play a role ? ? ? So what happens ? ? ? Well, cortisol, our stress hormone also stimulates increasing our blood sugar and with a high simple carb diet, insulin and cortisol chase each other around our metabolism… We end up feeling stressed and fatigued. We have little energy reserves and our ability to recover and replenish diminishes… We’re fatigued most of the time… If we continue on this path of catabolism or constant breakdown, we can’t heal…

Fatigue… So, now what can I do ? ? ? There are three things that should be done to get back on the path to recovering energy and health. 1. Reduce stress or find ways to properly deal with it… 2. Improve diet, and lifestyle choices… 3. Use targeted nutritional supplements to help replenish organ/gland reserves and energy…

Fatigue… What are some smart dietary choices ? ? ? Increase the amount of fresh vegetable intake daily. While fruit is great, eat 4 – 5 pieces of vegetables to every piece of fruit to keep simple sugar intake down. Make sure you’re getting enough protein with each meal… Don’t skip Breakfast ! For snack food, use nuts instead of chips or candies. Keep “white” foods (pastas, breads, rice, potatoes, corn, cereals, etc…) to a MINIMUM or eliminate entirely !

Fatigue… What are some smart dietary choices ? ? ? When grocery shopping, keep to the outer perimeter of the store… Stay away from going inside aisles for food items ! Frozen foods are a distant 2nd choice over fresh, and canned foods are basically void of nutrients…

Fatigue… What lifestyle choices should I consider ? ? ? Proper food choices are part of lifestyle choices that can affect health to a great degree ! Getting the whole family to change their diet over time will result in everyone being healthier ! Regular activity/exercise is an important part of getting healthy. As you begin to heal and regain energy, exercise will help build stamina, improve metabolism, and build endurance reserves. It will also help deal with stress. Walking is a great way to start an exercise regimen. Exercise also will stimulate and help maintain healthy bone status !

Fatigue… What lifestyle choices should I consider ? ? ? Find ways that work for you to relieve stress… Hobbies…Exercise…Meditation…Reading… There are countless things you can do to help relieve stress… If work-related stresses really take a toll on you on a daily basis, then you may want to consider changing your job or company ! Nothing is more important to you and your family than your health and well being !

Fatigue… What lifestyle choices should I consider ? ? ? What exercises are good ? ? ? Any activity/exercise that you enjoy, that doesn’t cause physical pain/harm and that you will do on a consistent basis is good… Remember to take it slowly at first if you have health conditions or haven’t exercised in a while. If you’re over 40 or have a health condition, seek the advice of your doctor before entering into an exercise program…

Fatigue… What nutritional supplements can help ? ? ? There are a number of nutritional supplements and herbs that can help regain energy, organ and gland reserve, and improve stamina and endurance. The Symptom Survey Questionnaire and your present health conditions will help your healthcare practitioner determine the best supplements and/or herbs to help improve your health…

Fatigue… What nutritional supplements can help ? ? ? Drenamin is a supplement that works well for nearly everyone with fatigue. 3 tablets 2X/day 60 days Licorice High Grade 2.5ml. in the AM Caution : do not use if hypertensive or on hypertension medications ! Withania Complex1 tablet AM and 1 tablet at noon Use same caution as above with Licorice…

Fatigue… What nutritional supplements can help ? ? ? Rehmannia Complex 1 – 3 tablets daily for those who are hypertensive and can’t take licorice… Cataplex B or G 2 tablets 2 X/day with meals. These products provide B-complex in whole-food form. B-vitamins are important in energy production. Your healthcare practitioner will determine which of the two is best for you.

Fatigue… Final Notes on Fatigue… While everyone is different, you should begin to feel the effects of improved energy within a 2-week period… Some folks take longer. One important thing to remember is that just because you’re feeling more energetic, that doesn’t mean that you can discontinue the supplements. It takes months to recover organ/gland reserves…

Menopause… What about Hormone Replacement Therapy for these symptoms ? ? ? HRT is normally recommended as the first medical choice for menopause. Unfortunately, this doesn’t take into consideration improving over-all health, especially the health of the Adrenal Glands, which play a major role in hormone health. This is especially true in peri and post menopause…

Menopause… Why the natural approach instead of HRT ? Helping the body heal and allow it to do it’s job should be the first and foremost position to take. The use of HRT should be the last resort, not the first step… This includes the use of Progesterone creams (HRT) ! ! ! In essence, it’s much better to improve over-all health than to force symptom reduction through the use of drugs if at all possible… The long-term outcome is so much better !

Menopause… What about Wild Yam Creams or “natural” progesterone for my symptoms ? Wild Yam cannot be used topically. It doesn’t work. If you are feeling relief from using it, there most likely will be actual USP progesterone in it ! So, you’re really getting HRT ! Wild Yam can be used orally to help with menopausal symptoms…

Summarizing… Now, we’ll review the steps to help you get symptom relief and get back on the path to optimal health and vitality ! 1. Complete the Symptom Survey Questionnaire… This will give you a good idea of your present health and areas of focus to begin your total health improvement and hormone health.

Summarizing… 2. Perform the salivary hormone tests…(optional) While this step is not necessary, it is recommended particularly if you have tried remedies and have had poor results. It can help hone in on more targeted approaches for faster results… 3. Begin using the recommended products for symptom relief, while working on other areas of focus… Working on your adrenal health and any other area needing attention will help you gain the best results…

Summarizing… 4. Make the necessary dietary and lifestyle changes… Improving your diet and adding physical activity/exercise can really help improve your over all health and energy… I believe diet and activity are at least ½ of the picture in getting to optimal health and vitality !

Summarizing… 5. Work closely with your healthcare practitioner… Your healthcare practitioner can help you answer questions and provide the holistic care you need as you transition from your present state of health to optimal health and vitality… Discuss any changes to you health with them immediately !

Thank You for your time ! Questions ? ? ? Comments ? ? ?

Women’s Health Workshop #2