Forum: Natural Health and Wellness

This is a huge subject. I started to write an article addressing menopause, but I found that it was too big for an article also. There are some excellent books on the subject. A great book for women of all ages is "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom" by Christine Northrup. She also wrote, "The Wisdom of Menopause." There are two books that address the spiritual aspects of menopause, "Reclaiming the Menstrual Matrix" by Tamara Slayton, and "A Woman's Book of Life" by Joan Borysenko. If you want the shortest answer to your question, start with "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom." Chapter 14 is 60 pages of basic facts with lots of references to other sources. Good luck. DrRon.

I've been reading "Menopause Without Medicine" by Linda Ojeda, Ph.D. She does an excellent job of explaining the entire landscape of menopause--including the importance of balancing progesterone as well as estrogen. Some ideas from the book: Progesterone protects breast health. Progesterone is also bone-protective because there is some fear of bone thinning. Make sure a progesterone cream is USP-approved progesterone. Progesterone enhances existing thyroid therapy so you may need a little less thyroid medicine if your doctor agrees. Estrogen might increase the amount of thyroid therapy that is needed. Vitamin E in liquid or suppository form is helpful for vaginal dryness. Calendula cream is also good. Replens suppositories are useful; they last three days. Vitex, Motherwort and Dong Quai also help with vaginal dryness. Nutrition-wise, zinc is needed. You can get zinc from almonds, sunflower seeds and beans. Zinc deficiency will aggravate vaginal dryness. Anti-histimines will dry out all tissues in the body including the vagina and produce zinc deficiency. The B vitamins, Niacin especially, support histimine release and the production of mucus in response to sexual activity. Niacin is available in tuna, turkey, salmon, brown rice and enriched bread.