Changes through menopause

By Lee Sung-hun

A lady in her 50s recently visited my clinic regarding flushing cheeks. She complained that the red hue or flushes worsened each time she came from outside to indoors and the flush lasting too long. This is a typical symptom of menopause commonly known as hot flash (sometimes also called ‘hot flush’).

A woman with hot flash may experience uncomfortable heat starting around her face, neck, head or chest areas that radiates to various directions, sometimes all over the body while the face flushes and sweats.

According to a Korean survey, approximately 89% of all women in menopause experience one type of symptom of another, and 61% among them have experienced hot flashes. Most patients say that the symptoms last 1 to 2 years and 25% of them last over 5 years.

On average, each flash can last about 3 minutes during which time the women feel heat on their faces along with sweating, which is their body’s attempt to cool down its core temperature.

Whille hot flashes alone are not harmful to the body, the patient can feel embarrassed about it that hinders their normal social activities. Severe hot flashes may pose difficulties in conducting daily activities. Hot flash is one of the acute symptoms of menopause and other acute symptoms include such mental states as depression, anxiety, irritation, insomnia, hyper sensitivity or loss of confidence. This is because the change in bodily hormones leads to emotional fluctuations.

Commonly, the time when a woman goes through her menopause around the age of 50 is when her children have grown up and "leave the next" of parental care and when her husband can typically experience some type of social changes such as early retirement, etc.

On top of such external changes, the stoppage of her periods can add a sense of loss to the actual hormonal changes, which can lead to mood swings such as depression and anxiety. Also some women can also experience loss of memory and concentration after menopause, which are all known to be related to the close relationship between estrogen levels and cognitive abilities.

Subacute symptoms of menopause include shrinking of the urogenital system, vaginal dryness, dyspareunia, and female urethral syndrome that can be accompanied by repetitive bacterial infection, increasing urination or dysuria.

Unlike the acute ones, these subacute symptoms can increase their frequency as time passes by and a woman will experience at least one of the symptoms within the 15 to 20 years after the menopause.

According to the Internal Classic, the oldest Oriental medical text, a woman’s body goes through changes every 7 years. According to it, at the age of 49, the channels of qi and blood responsible for pregnancy becomes weak and period stops resulting the woman not being able to bear child. The reason for the 7 year cycle is because of the fluctuation in the qi of the kidneys.

Kidneys are where the essence of our internal organs gather, and when the kidney qi is full of vitality, the woman begins her period, and when the qi of other organs are spent as she ages, so is the kidney qi, which leads to the stopping of periods.

As such, Oriental treatment for menopause syndrome principally attempts to facilitate the spent kidney qi. For hot flashes, treatments are administered to bring down the heat inordinately concentrated around the face by complimenting the insufficient blood and water qi in the heart, liver and kidneys. Night sweats with rapid heart rates hindering proper sleep is considered to be related to heart qi and treatments fix the circulation of qi between heart and liver.

Mood swings that include anxiety, irascibility, and depression is said to be the result of congested liver qi, and treatments attempt to relieve such liver qi.

Another bodily change associated with menopause is the increase of visceral fat. Fall in estrogen for women also mean that they lose the muscle content that lowers basal metabolic rate.

Prior to menopause, a woman is prone to gain fat in the hips and thighs while the post-menopause woman is more likely to gain fat in the abdomen area, especially the visceral fat. Visceral fat is a good indicator for predicting metabolic syndrome which is associated with higher likelihood for cardiovascular illnesses.

Therefore, a woman in her menopause must be aware of increase in the abdominal fat as it may be related to more severe illnesses. Properly understanding what your body goes through each stage of our life is vital to our overall well-being. I hope the female readers can gain a bit of insight about menopause so that they may look forward to better years ahead.

The writer practices Oriental medicine at the UN

Oriental Medical Clinic in Hannam-dong, Seoul