Menopause - Natural vs Drugs and Hormone Therapy

To learn more about natural menopause, we recommend "A Woman's Guide to a Trouble-Free Menopause" by Dr. Nan Lu.

This site has used this book as a guide and you will find it one of the most insightful on menopause.

More and more women are looking for a natural, effective way to relieve menopausal symptoms and a safe alternative to hormone replacement therapy. Some have been on ERT or HRT for years and are among the 20 percent who have experienced its side effects. However this is not the only path, and while many have come to TCM as a last resort, what they learned has changed their life.

TCM works according to a completely different philosophy and system than Western medicine. While both can treat menopausal symptoms and reduce or eliminate a woman’s suffering, the true result is not the same. During a woman’s transition, TCM has the ability to help her adjust her body’s Qi, or vital energy, in as little as a few months, or sometimes even weeks.

Since TCM believes that everyone has the ability to self heal and the key to understanding how to heal naturally is to understand Qi.

Understanding Qi is essential to menopause, as virtually all menopausal problems are caused by a Qi imbalance. Generally speaking, this imbalance can be traced to the same source: kidney Qi deficiency and liver Qi stagnation. The kidney has become too weak to perform its regular functions and communicate its messages to its fellow organs; this condition is coupled with the problem of the liver’s Qi being stuck in either an organ or a meridian.

TCM works from the premise that as long as your Qi remains strong and flows freely, and your body’s organs work in harmony, disease or illness cannot enter.

Hormone Therapy

Consequently, the principal Western treatments prescribed for menopause have become drugs: estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) or hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which includes a form of progesterone in addition to estrogen. If we examine this approach a little closer, you can see that it raises some serious questions. Just because something is lacking doesn’t necessarily mean that replacing it will restore normal function to a complex organism like the body.

Only now is science beginning to realize this, and the potentially dangerous side-effects that can occur.

According to Cancer Statistical Review referenced in the Harvard Women’s Health Watch,women who have been on HRT or ERT for five years or more, have an overall 30 percent greater risk of breast cancer than those who have not. This translates into a real rise in risk from 10 percent to 13 percent.

CHART SHOWING RISK OF HRT/ERT
AND BREAST CANCER

AGE WITHOUT HRT 5 Years of HRT
50-54 1 in 450 1 in 320
55-59 1 in 356 1 in 276
60-64 1 in 292 1 in 209
65-69 1 in 244 1 in 144


When used alone, as in ERT therapy, estrogen has been shown to increase the risk of endometrial cancer (cancer of the lining of the uterus) by 400-800 percent.

Testimonial

“Thank you for your web site. I have searched and searched looking for some place that understood what I was going through. All I came across were sites trying to sell me miracles and promises. Your site, gave me lots think about and the book you recommended by Dr. Lu was insightful and gave me a new way to approach my symptoms. I am now a devotee of your products.”

Elaine - NJ

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