Menopausal health regimen

There is no one-size-fits-all formula for menopausal health care. The core essence is "Don't force yourself, don't blindly take supplements, follow the body's signals, don't force "reverse growth", and go through it smoothly and comfortably is the optimal solution."

In the past two years, I have been to gynecology and traditional Chinese medicine departments several times with my family elders and my friends’ mothers, and I have seen too many people who go to extremes: either they feel that “menopause is just pretentious, and it will pass if you endure it”, and you suffer from insomnia for more than half a year, and finally have blood pressure and thyroid problems.； Either after reading a few popular science articles, I went crazy and stocked up on soy isoflavones and royal jelly. After taking supplements for three months, I found that the breast nodules had increased by 3mm, which scared me half to death.

Let’s talk about hot flashes and night sweats, which is the most troublesome thing for everyone. There is a lot of quarrel on the Internet right now. One group says that hormone supplements are necessary, and the other group says that hormones can cause cancer and should not be used even if they kill you. In fact, both sides are not comprehensive. The current mainstream clinical view in Western medicine is that if symptoms such as hot flashes and insomnia have seriously affected normal life, first go for a comprehensive gynecological, breast, and coagulation function test. If there are no contraindications, follow the doctor's advice and use low-dose hormone supplementation therapy (MHT). The benefits far outweigh the risks, and there is no need to talk about hormone discoloration. ； If the symptoms are mild or you don’t want to use hormones, you can also try the traditional Chinese medicine treatment method, but don’t blindly copy the “universal prescriptions for menopause” on the Internet. My best friend’s mother always suffered from sweating before. I read on the Internet that she drank Ophiopogon japonicus and chrysanthemum to clear fire. After drinking it for half a month, her stomach hurt every day. Later, when I took a pulse, I found out that she had hot flashes of Yang deficiency type, not heat at all. The doctor asked her to drink 10g of astragalus and 3g of floating wheat in boiled water every day. In less than half a month, most of the sweating was relieved.

In fact, compared with the physical discomfort, many menopausal sisters are more aggrieved by the uncontrollable emotions. They are fine one second, but suddenly want to cry the next second, or get angry at the smallest thing. Their family members always say that you are "looking for trouble". Suggestions on different areas of emotion regulation vary greatly: Psychiatrists will say that if you have been unable to get excited or sleep for more than two weeks, don't hold on, do an emotional screening, and use some mood-regulating drugs if necessary rather than suffering from psychological problems. ； Social workers who work in geriatric psychology recommend finding some "purposeless leisure activities" to do. You don't have to learn any skills or get any prizes, just join in the fun, such as going to the park to dance in the square for half an hour, or signing up for a handicraft class to knead clay. When your attention is distracted, you won't always focus on the trivial things at home. Aunt Zhang, who lives downstairs in my house, always quarreled with her husband. After listening to the advice of the community doctor, she signed up for a Hulusi class. There was no need to take a grade, and she just went to play with the aunts for two hours every week. When I met her last week, she said that now she takes out a few lines of "Azalea" and plays "Azalea" when she feels angry, and she feels better quickly. My wife also said that the house is no longer filled with "smoke of gunpowder" every day.

As for what everyone asks about every day, what to eat and what to do, there really aren’t that many rules. Don’t believe in the saying that “three cups of soy milk a day can delay menopause”. For people with uterine fibroids, breast nodules, and gallbladder diseases, just a moderate amount of soy milk and soy products is sufficient. One cup a day is too much. Drinking too much will increase the burden on the body. Oh, by the way, many people on the Internet now say that you need to take a lot of calcium supplements during menopause to prevent osteoporosis. This is true but not entirely correct. Excessive calcium supplements can easily increase the risk of kidney stones. There is really no need to take calcium tablets as a meal as soon as you reach menopause. Check your bone density every year. If you are really deficient, replenish it. Drink a cup of warm milk every day and bask in the sun for 15 minutes. It is much more effective than eating several bottles of calcium tablets. Don’t follow the trend of taking 10,000 steps in exercise. If you have bad knees, practice Baduanjin and squat against the wall. Even if you go downstairs and walk slowly for 20 minutes every day after meals, just moving is better than lying down. My mother has synovitis in her knees. She used to walk 8,000 steps a day with others and it was so painful that she couldn’t even go downstairs. Now she practices Baduanjin at home for 20 minutes every day. Her knees are much more comfortable and her sleep is much better.

To put it simply, menopause is a transitional signal from your body, telling you that after all the late nights and hard work you put in for family and work in the past few decades, it’s time to calm down and take good care of yourself. You don’t have to worry about others saying you have a “bad temper during menopause”, and you don’t have to force yourself to compare with your energy and status compared to when you were young. You can be as comfortable as you want. If you spend these few years smoothly, you will still have good days to come.