Menopause is a natural part of ageing. However, that doesn’t mean that it has to impact your day to day life. At the Marion Gluck Clinic, we use bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to ensure that while experiencing menopause and perimenopause, you remain your best and healthiest self.
What exactly is the menopause?
There’s an endless stream of information available online and otherwise regarding the menopause – so we’ll keep it simple. Menopause is clinically defined as the point in a woman’s life when she hasn’t had a period for 12 months, generally experienced between the ages of forty-five and fifty. Around one in a hundred women will also experience early menopause, before the age of forty.
Many women also experience perimenopause, which is the time during and before menopause where your ovaries gradually begin to stop functioning. Symptoms of both menopause and perimenopause can be very troubling. Perimenopause is also often referred to as the “menopausal transition”.
What are some of the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause?
There are a wide range of symptoms associated with menopause and perimenopause. It’s important to remember that some of these symptoms might also be indicative of other conditions. If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms, it’s important to talk to a medical professional about what you’re going through.
- The first sign of menopause is often a change in the normal pattern of your periods. Whether a change in the length of your cycle, or unusually heavy or light periods.
- Changes in mood, or increased irritability.
- Difficulty sleeping, which may exacerbate other symptoms.
- Discomfort during sex.
- Hair loss or thinning.
- Headaches and migraines.
- Hot flushes – either at night or during the day, sudden feelings of heat usually in the face, neck, and chest.
- Joint stiffness, aches and pains.
- Problems with memory, concentration, and brain fog.
If you’re experiencing many of these symptoms and you haven’t yet seen a medical professional, or they’re impacting your daily life in an unmanageable way, it’s important to go and talk to a specialist – there are lots of ways in which you can be helped.
How can the Marion Gluck Clinic help?
At the Marion Gluck Clinic, we offer bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (in short, BHRT treatment). You may have been offered, had experience of, or heard about hormone replacement therapy – bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is a similar treatment, but with a few key differences.
Bioidentical hormones have an identical chemical structure to the naturally occurring hormones which are produced in the body. Synthetic hormones (as used in standard HRT) have a chemical structure which is similar but not identical to the structure of your own hormones. The chemical differences can sometimes mean that synthetic hormones act differently in the body, and while they are obviously still safely and commonly used, many women report more side effects whilst undergoing HRT compared to BHRT treatment.
“Our BHRT treatment is specially manufactured for each individual patient – you’ll be getting hormones that match your own, and you should feel far fewer side effects than with traditional, synthetic HRT. Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can be used to address all manner of hormone imbalances, and reduce uncomfortable symptoms in order to help you to live your life to the fullest, and stay healthy and happy.”.
Dr Fiona MacRae, The Marion Gluck Clinic.
If you’d like some further insight into our bioidentical hormones, and how the treatment process works you can click here for more information.
If you’ve been experiencing the symptoms we’ve talked about in this blog, or you’re struggling with perimenopause and menopause and you’re not sure where to turn, we’d encourage you to get in touch with us for a consultation. You can call us our Patient Care Team on 020 7191 2378 to book your telephone or video consultation, or you can go straight through our website.
