"The change" doesn't have to be confusing. Find out what you can do to take charge of your menopausal experience.
August 14, 2023 • By Mayo Clinic Press Editors
Menopause means you’re no longer able to get pregnant because it’s been a year since you’ve had your last period — and you’re not using birth control or a medication that stops your period.
Menopause applies to all women at or after a certain age. Yet many women have limited knowledge of menopause, and many misconceptions persist. Some women assume that menopause is awful, sweat-filled, sexless and sleepless. But most people have mild to moderate symptoms.
Let’s bust some common myths about menopause:
Up to 80% of women experience hot flashes during menopause. But there are many other symptoms you might experience, including:
These symptoms can start before you are officially menopausal, during perimenopause. A primary symptom of perimenopause is irregular periods that change in duration and frequency before you stop menstruating altogether. When you aren’t expecting or considering menopause, these symptoms can be confusing and surprising.
There are a few paths to menopause, including when your reproductive hormones naturally decline with age, known as natural menopause. Other people experience surgical menopause after having their ovaries removed.
In the U.S., 51 is the average age people go through menopause. But just as the age you start having your period can vary, the same is true for when it will stop.
Some people become menopausal between ages 40 and 45, which is considered early menopause. Premature menopause is when you become menopausal before you turn 40. Premature and early menopause can happen following a surgery, inexplicably, or if you smoke, have a family history of early menopause, have had cancer treatment, or have an autoimmune disease.
Menopause itself is a natural condition that doesn’t necessarily require medical treatment. However, perimenopause and menopause symptoms can give some — but not all — people trouble. But there are treatments that can provide some relief.
“Women don’t have to suffer,” says Stephanie S. Faubion, M.D., M.B.A., a women’s health expert at Mayo Clinic and medical director of The Menopause Society. “There are solutions out there and doing nothing doesn’t have to be the answer.”
A conversation with your healthcare team can help determine the best options to treat your individual experience with menopause. Medical treatment might include medications such as hormone therapy to treat hot flashes and other symptoms.
Menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) includes taking estrogen or a combination of estrogen and progesterone, which are hormones that your body essentially stops making after menopause. If you are younger than 60 or within 10 years of menopause and are healthy, taking hormone therapy might help with hot flashes and vaginal discomfort.
So where does this myth come from? In 2002, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) released study results that linked the use of combination (estrogen and progestin) hormone therapy with increased risk of breast cancer and heart disease. The study findings have been reconsidered and debated in the years since — sometimes even reported out of context. The WHI study had many flaws, including studying women who had not recently gone through menopause and were older, as well as using a form of estrogen less typically used with modern regimens.
The truth is that menopausal hormone therapy is very effective for some symptoms of menopause and a good choice for many women. Today, several hormone therapy products are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat the symptoms of menopause. However, the FDA discourages some women from taking hormone therapy for menopause, including those who have or have had certain kinds of cancers, had a stroke or heart attack, or have liver disease or a history of blood clots.
If you’re interested in hormone therapy to treat your menopausal symptoms, talk with your healthcare professional about your personal benefits and risks. If your health care team doesn’t know, seek a certified menopause specialist.
You might hear that dietary supplements help treat menopause symptoms. Dietary supplements like vitamins, minerals, herbs and amino acids might help improve or maintain your well-being, but they can present potential health risks, like interacting with other medications you already take.
It is essential that you speak with your healthcare professional about supplements. Some commonly discussed options include:
If hormone therapy or supplements are not a good fit for you, fezolinetant is a Food and Drug Administration-approved medication to treat menopause symptoms.
Additionally, your overall well-being can benefit from these approaches:
It is true that the lower estrogen levels that come with menopause can impact your sexual responsiveness and change your genital tissues. The good news is that there are things you can do to help your sexual health during this time, including:
It is also true that you might not notice any change to your sex life, or that you feel even more comfortable with your sexuality.
So whether you’re worried about sweat, sleep or sex, or have questions about how your life might change as menopause approaches and runs its course — there is help available that starts by talking about these topics.
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