One answer to the problem may be the drug gabapentin, a nonhormonal therapy. It was approved by the FDA to fight seizures, but other uses are becoming common. Gabapentin is widely prescribed to reduce pain.

In a study reported on at the National Cancer Institute website, patients taking gabapentin experienced either a 49% or 33% reduction in severity of hot flash symptoms depending on dosage (900 mg or 300 mg). The drug was also very well tolerated.

Researchers note the need for further studies comparing the effectiveness of nonhormonal drug treatments for hot flashes. Another drug commonly used with minimal side effects is the antidepressant venlafaxine.

Do you take a drug for hot flashes?

(Image via MorgueFile)

Post from: Blisstree

Help for Hot Flashes

But other than knowing that ovarian cancer is difficult to diagnose and it’s survival rate is not good because of the difficulty diagnosing it in the early stages, how much do you know about it?

Ovarian cancer, one of the gynecological cancers, along with uterine, endometrial, cervical and vaginal cancers, affects mostly women over the age of 50, or post menopause. Younger women do develop ovarian cancer but it’s not as common. While doctors don’t know what causes ovarian cancer, they do know that fertility and menopause play a role, showed by the rising number of older women who develop it.

Why is it hard to diagnose?

The symptoms of ovarian cancer are very vague and could easily be mistaken for other, much less serious health problems. And, although they may be uncomfortable, many women end up managing to live with them. The symptoms may include:

• Bloating in the abdomen
• Cramping
• Gas
• A feeling of pressure in the abdomen
• Unexplained changes in bowel habits, such as constipation
• Changes in bladder habits, including a frequent need to urinate
• Pain during intercourse (dyspareunia)
• Low back pain
• Changes in menstruation

Some women are diagnosed when they visit their doctor for a regular check up. Unfortunately, many women stop going for gynecological check ups once they’ve finished menopause because they feel that they no longer need this type of care. Since ovarian cancer strikes later in life, it shows that these examinations are important, no matter what age you are.

Testing

In order to diagnose ovarian cancer, your doctor would send you for various tests from blood tests to imaging (ultrasounds, magnetic resonance imaging). If your doctor continues to suspect ovarian cancer, then you may have to undergo a biopsy to have sample of the ovary tissue sent for testing.

Treatment

If caught early enough, removal of the ovaries, called an oopherectomy, can get rid of all the cancer. Some women also require removal of the uterus, a hysterectomy. Chemotherapy may also be needed.

Survival rate

Survival rate for early ovarian cancer is good. The American Cancer Society reports early ovarian cancer to have a survival rate of 93%. Unfortunately, only about 20% of ovarian cancer is diagnosed early. For late, more advanced ovarian cancer, the survival rate hovers around 30%.

Risks and prevention

Although doctors don’t know what causes ovarian cancer or how to prevent it, they do know that some women have a higher risk of devloping it. These include women who:

• have a family history of ovarian cancer
• are older
• have never had a child
• take some types of hormone replacement therapy

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Part of the Let’s Talk About… Series

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Photo: StockXchnge.com

Post from: Blisstree

Let’s Talk About…Ovarian Cancer

I was driving home from my friend Linda’s house (by the way, she is older than me) in this 90-degree heat with my air on 70 (because I don’t like to freeze, especially in summer), when I felt my seat warmer come on. What was so strange about it is that my seat only warms from the seat area, not the back, and that’s where I was feeling the heat. I checked the dial on the dashboard but the knob read 0. Strange. I reached around and felt the seat and it wasn’t hot to the touch. Then I realized the heat I feeling was radiating from the inside of my body, starting from my back and wrapping around my torso, causing me to shake and sweat – and I’m not talking a damp brow, but a sweat that drenched my scalp and clothes before I even pulled into my driveway.

I’ve been blogging about menopause and the risks of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for the law firm long enough to know that my symptoms were frightfully similar to that of a hot flash. But I can’t imagine that I’m old enough to be going through “the change.” A little symptom Googling and I surmised that it could likely have been a low blood sugar issue. My nurse practitioner friend Kathy said it was possible, but more likely I experienced a hot flash. I described a text book case. She said if my mother went through perimenopause at an early age, I likely could as well.

I can’t ask my mother because she’s dead. And thanks to my regular blogging with the law firm, I now am convinced her HRT killed her.

One most often hears of the connection between HRT and breast cancer. In 1991, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute launched the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), a 15-year research program to address the most common causes of death, disability and poor quality of life in postmenopausal women – cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis. WHI consisted of a hormone trial and that is where researchers began to see an alarming trend –women on HRT were at an increased risk of serious health complications, most notably, breast cancer. The link between HRT and breast cancer has spurred numerous lawsuits against the makers of the one-time wildly popular Premarin and Prempro. People don’t hear so much about the uterine cancer risk because it’s a little different.

You can look up the connection between HRT and uterine cancer (also known as endometrial cancer) at the American Cancer Society or the National Institutes of Health and they’ll tell you the same thing – that the risk for endometrial cancer (this affects women who still have their uterus) is more than five times higher in women who take estrogen-only therapy (ERT) compared to estrogen plus progestin (HRT). Thus, women who no longer have a uterus are often prescribed ERT and women with a uterus are given HRT, which does not carry the same risk of endometrial cancer.

Years ago when my mother sat down with her general practitioner and requested help overcoming her symptoms of menopause, her GP gave her a choice – one pill would keep her menstruating, the other would not. She made the obvious choice. Perhaps the GP was unaware of the increased risk of uterine cancer with ERT. Maybe researchers were still combing the data. But the fact remains, my mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. The next three years involved painful surgeries and procedures. The last six months were of excruciating pain.

My OB/GYN dismisses this connection. He says estrogen-receptor positive cancers are usually less aggressive and easier to treat. Sure, some studies show uterine cancer has an 84.4 percent survival rate. That hardly matters when you fall in the 15.6 range.

If it was a hot flash I experienced and I am embarking on my path down the shady road of perimenopause, I will not choose to take HRT. The risks are just not worth it to me. If the symptoms get worse – and I hear they often do – I will seek out holistic methods, acupuncture, yoga or whatever. And I will pray never to suffer like my mother had to.

Photo, Flikr, erix

Post from: Blisstree

If It Is ‘The Change,’ I’m Not Touching HRT

Now, a new British study associates HRT to increased risk of ovarian cancer: women on HRT for more than five years are more than 20 per cent more likely to develop ovarian cancer.

But some experts think that the finding is an overstatement:

“If women take hormone therapy for more than five years there’s a risk of one per 2,500 women that they’ll get ovarian cancer so what that means is the risk is in fact very low,” said obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Rod Baber.

While women are not generally advised to get off HRT just because of this finding, the current advice for women using HRT is to take it for the shortest possible time at the lowest possible dose.

The study’s findings have been published in The Lancet.

Read the full report.

Post from: Blisstree

Hormone Replacement Therapy Increases Risk of Ovarian Cancer?