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

Let’s start with a general definition. Menopause is defined as the absence of menstrual periods for 12 months. It starts when a woman’s menstrual cycle starts to vary in length and duration and ends when it is clear that the function of the ovaries have ceased — twelve months after the last menstrual period.

So, a woman with regular periods is considered premenopausal. Once her periods start to become irregular, she’s perimenopausal. Twelve months after her last period, she’s post menopausal.

In natural menopause, the ovaries naturally decrease their production of the sex hormones estrogen and progesterone.

I think most people understand what chemical menopause is: menopause induced by chemotherapy or other chemicals or medications.

Induced menopause is menopause induced by an unusual event, such as ovary removal (a bilaterial oophorectomy) or ovary damage (by radiation). Chemical menopause is a form of induced menopause.

Here’s where breast cancer factors into the equation and why all this is important information for survivors:

• Menopause is the end of a woman’s fertile years, her childbearing years. So a young woman looking at induced menopause has to consider her feelings on her fertility. (It is also important to note that while she’s perimenopausal, she could technically still become pregnant, and chemotherapy drugs and hormone therapies and radiation could all harm a fetus if she conceives during her treatment.) These issues need to be discussed with a medical professional prior to beginning treatment.
• With induced menopause there is an abrupt cutoff of ovarian hormones. This can cause the sudden onset of hot flashes and other menopause-related symptoms such as a dry vagina and a decline in sex drive. It’s important that women know where to turn for help with these symptoms and side effects (more to come on this, for sure).
• Early menopause carries a greater risk for heart disease and osteoporosis since there are more years spent beyond the protective cover of estrogen. But now that Hormone Replacement Therapy is linked to a higher breast cancer incidence, all women need to take these complications into consideration and do their best to care for themselves and their health (more to come on this as well).

I’ve got some great resources to share with ya’ll to help you manage your menopausal symptoms — and a fun giveaway as well. Stay tuned!

(Much of the information here I gleaned from medicinenet.com.)

Post from: Blisstree

A Menopause Primer: Natural, Chemical and Induced Menopause Explained