Common questions
Is menopause a disease that needs treating?
It is a normal life stage, and most of it does not need treatment. But two things follow menopause that do: bone loss accelerates sharply in the first years afterward, and cardiovascular risk rises. Treating symptoms is a choice; monitoring bone and heart health is not.
Does HRT cause breast cancer?
The honest answer is more specific than yes or no. Estrogen-only therapy, used by women without a uterus, shows little or no increase and in the WHI arm showed a reduction. Combined therapy shows a small absolute increase that rises with duration — comparable in size to the effect of drinking two units of alcohol a day.
Is menopause over once periods stop?
Menopause is a single day — twelve months after the last period. What follows is postmenopause, which lasts the rest of your life. Hot flashes fade for most people over years, but vaginal and urinary symptoms get worse without treatment rather than better, which is the opposite of what most people are told.
Are natural remedies safer than HRT?
Not automatically, and unregulated is not the same as safe. Black cohosh has documented liver injury reports. St John's wort interferes with many prescription drugs. Bioidentical compounded hormones are not FDA-approved and their dosing is not verified batch to batch, unlike regulated body-identical products.