Perimenopause the Natural Way (Women's Natural Health S.) - Softcover

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Deborah Gordon, M.D., completed her medical training, including her family practice residency, at the University of California at San Francisco. She is the founding partner of Complementary Medicine Associates, a complementary practice in Ashland, Oregon. Her practice incorporates therapies drawn from conventional medicine, herbal medicine, homeopathy, nutritional therapies, and mind-body medicine. She regularly lectures across the country.Keralyn Brenner is the author of Alternative Medicine's Guide to Sleep Disorders and a consulting editor on Alternative Medicine's Guide to Women's Health, Volumes 1 and 2. Ms. Brenner's articles appear regularly in Natural Health magazine and Yoga Journal.

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The Wiley Women’s Natural Health Series brings together mainstream, complementary, and alternative medical approaches. These unique books offer advice and support on a wide range of topics of concern to women, including getting pregnant, breast health, and menopause. Are you experiencing perimenopause?

You’re in your thirties or forties at your most vital time of life. Menopause is the furthest thing from your mind. But lately you’re experiencing uncomfortable changes in your body tenderness, tiredness, irregular periods, weight gain, unexplainable irritability. And you’re not the only one; many of your friends have similar complaints.Perimenopause is the transitional time before menopause your body’s response to decreasing hormone levels. It’s perfectly natural. Written by an authority in complementary medicine, Perimenopause the Natural Way is a compassionate guide that combines mainstream and alternative medical approaches into a simple six–step program you can use to feel your best. You’ll learn about:

• Nutritional and herbal medicines that can balance your body and reverse symptoms
• Natural progesterone what it is, how it works, and why it’s good for you
• Using mind–body medicine and movement to heal your body
• Foods that boost health and vitality and cleanse your liver
• Ways to reduce your risk of menopause–related health conditions such as heart disease and osteoporosis

Uniquely created from a woman’s perspective, Perimenopause the Natural Way offers support, wisdom, and hope for every woman during this transitional time of life.

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Introduction

You're only in your mid-30s and you absolutely do not want to hear the word menopause applied to you, even with the "peri" before it. You're not there yet. You're still young, you're barely where you want to be in life, and you haven't even had the chance to have those kids you've been dreaming about. But you know something just isn't right with your body. You're tired all the time, as well as irritable and anxious. Your breasts are sore and tender, and you've started to have irregular periods. Some of your friends and colleagues feel this way too.

You wonder what's going on. You're experiencing peri-menopause, the transitional years before menopause, when you will stop menstruating completely. Perimenopause can last for 10 years. It doesn't mean you've lost your fertility, your youth, or your health. Yet if you're experiencing uncomfortable symptoms, your hormones are out of balance. This book will teach you how to regain the balance in both your physical health and emotional well-being.

In recent years, more and more people have been turning to alternative or complementary medicine for answers to their health problems. Although a small percentage of Americans have long sought out holistic practitioners, recent years have witnessed a phenomenal explosion in the use of herbal remedies, acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic medicine, mind/body medicine, and a host of other alternative therapies. These approaches are no longer experimental options to conventional medicine but rather they are well-respected and well-researched treatment modalities that enhance health. Complementary medicine is now widely used for everything from colds and flus to chronic fatigue syndrome to hypertension.

If you are experiencing uncomfortable or troubling perimenopausal symptoms, there are many compelling reasons to explore alternative healing. First and foremost, based on the clinical experience of hundreds of practitioners in the United States, these techniques can help you reverse your symptoms. This is not to say that alternative health care offers miracles, but your symptoms are caused by a multitude of chronic factors, and many of these respond to natural remedies. For example, hormonal imbalance is one of the main culprits in your discomfort. By altering diet, taking nutritional supplements, using herbs, and practicing relaxation exercises, many women are able to restore hormonal balance.

In addition to reversing your symptoms, alternative treatments will also enhance your overall health. Indeed, these two outcomes are closely linked - that is, in general, the better your health, the less likely you are to experience perimenopausal symptoms. By exercising regularly, eating healthy, and using natural remedies, you will enjoy a higher level of physical vitality.

As we'll discuss later in this book, alternative therapies can also give you more control over this often difficult time of life. While health care practitioners play an essential role in natural medicine, self-care is just as important. By forming a positive partnership with your practitioner based on mutual respect and responsibility, you can face the challenges of perimenopause with greater confidence and less anxiety.

This book offers an individualized approach for making it through perimenopause. If you're serious about improving your health, the program described here will provide an excel- lent start. You can follow it, or you can pick and choose the methods of healing to which you're most drawn, and chart your progress. You'll find that natural methods for reversing symptoms will give you the widest range for experimenting, as well as many opportunities to improve your health.

As a family physician practicing both conventional and complementary forms of medicine, I have seen patients make incredible improvements in their health through holistic therapies. By changing their diet, exercising regularly, using herbs and nutritional supplements, and decreasing stress, they have regained their vitality, which in turn has allowed them to glide through perimenopause with case.

Perimenopause is an ideal time to look inward and to take the steps necessary to enhance your physical and emotional well-being. You will also be laying the foundation for continued good health and a new understanding of yourself and your body.