8 Symptoms of Menopause (and what you can do about it)

November 12, 2018

Dr. Hotze discusses 8 symptoms of menopause and what you can do about it naturally.

Podcast Transcription

Stacey:  Welcome to Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution. I’m Stacey Bandfield here with Dr. Steven Hotze, Founder of the Hotze Health & Wellness Center. And as always, if you’ve not downloaded our podcast, please do so. You can find us at HotzePodcast.com. That’s H-O-T-Z-E podcast.com.

So menopause is a topic we’ve been covering recently and so Dr. Hotze, you’re going to be covering, I believe, the nine benefits of hormone replacement for women in menopause. And you know what, menopause can actually be the best part of your life, not the worst part or, “Oh gosh, my best days are behind me now.” They can actually be the best times of your life. So Dr. Hotze, explain to us how that can be.

Dr. Hotze: Well, menopause means when a woman’s menstrual periods pause or stop. It’s when a woman stops having her menstrual cycle. And that’s caused by the inevitable decline of hormones that occurs as a woman marches through her menstrual life.

I’m Dr. Steve Hotze, and I believe that you and every individual needs doctors and a staff of professionals who can coach you…who have the ability to coach you and the knowledge and know-how and wherewithal to coach you on a path to health and wellness naturally, so that as you mature, you enjoy better quality of life. You’re full of energy and vitality. You have vim and vigor. You’ve got get-up-and-go. You have enthusiasm. You wake up in the morning, and you want to get something done.

Now, if you don’t feel that way, listen up because I’m going to talk to you, particularly about you ladies, and what happens as you begin to march through your menstrual life and hit menopause. Now, most women think the only time they may ever need any hormones is at the change of life, at menopause, which in a bell-shaped curve, it occurs in that average woman at about age 50. It can happen years before. It can happen several years after. We’ll talk about the age of 50.

So as a woman goes through her menstrual life, which starts at puberty, say at 13 or 14, she begins to produce her female hormones, develop her secondary female sex characteristics and has the ability to reproduce and have children. And as she marches through her menstrual life, her hormones kick in, they balance out every month, the estrogen and the progesterone hormones, she’ll have children. Hormones will fluctuate when she hits mid-life, about 35 or 40, and she begins to get a decline in her hormones until she hits the change of life.

Some women have menopause as a result of a surgical menopause because their hormones were imbalanced earlier than they would have gone through the change of life. They’re having irregular periods. They’re having heavy periods, breakthrough bleeding, and the OB/GYN doesn’t know what to do about it. He’s trained as a surgeon. That’s what he knows to do about it, but he doesn’t know how to do it naturally so he suggests hysterectomy. And a woman will do anything to stop all the bleeding, and she knows that’ll stop. But the irregular periods were caused by an imbalance in the hormones, and if we could balance those out earlier, then she wouldn’t have to go have a hysterectomy.

If she doesn’t have a hysterectomy and goes through the change of life leading up…she gets premenstrual symptoms, and she’ll have some periods where her period, she’ll miss a month or two, she’ll get some hot flashes, she’ll have loss of romantic moods and inclinations, she’ll have difficulty with weight gain, she won’t think as clearly as she did, she’ll have problems with her sleep, joint and muscle aches and pains, she may have some bloating, belching, gas and constipation. Maybe she has irregular cycles. She just doesn’t feel well. Hair is falling out. She’s puffy, she’s pale, she has itchy skin, dry skin. Doesn’t feel well, and this is caused by the inevitable decline of hormones that occurs as a woman marches through her menstrual life and through her life.

So the real question is, what can you do about it? Well, if a woman’s hit the change of life, and she’s no longer having periods, she’s no longer making her hormones. She’s no longer producing any estrogen or progesterone from her ovaries. If she’s overweight, fat cells will produce some estrogen. And you do produce some hormones, a small amount of hormones in your adrenal glands. But, she no longer produces hormones that would enable her to continue cycling at all.

8 Symptoms of Menopause

1. Hot Flashes and Night Sweats

And the decline in the hormones can lead to significant symptoms in a woman. She’ll experience hot flashes, which is caused by the dilation of the small capillaries when she has estrogen dominance. And she’ll get night sweats, which is just hot flashes while you’re asleep.

2. Mood Swings and Depression

She’ll experience mood swings. There’ll be times that she can experience really significant depression when the hormones go down. The cells don’t work as well. Her thyroid hormones don’t work as well. Thyroid hormone enables the cells to produce and use energy. You have a lot of energy to be produced to be healthy and well and all of a sudden, you don’t have the balance in your hormones, so the thyroid hormone doesn’t work as well. It doesn’t catalyze the energy production within the power plants in your cells.

3. Bone Loss

Bones begin to become fragile. You develop osteopenia. That means decline in bone strength. And then you have osteoporosis, which means just what it says. Porous bones. The bones further weaken, which leads to when a woman falls, you hear of older women they’ll fall and they’ll fracture their hips because they have osteoporosis. Now, osteoporosis, I’ve seen this in young women in their 30s and 40s, and those are women that have been on birth control pills. They’re not making natural progesterone, and the birth control pills do not strengthen your bones. I’ve seen osteoporosis and osteopenia in young women on birth control pills. Otherwise, women’s bones usually will stay strong until they hit the change of life and after that, we see a dramatic decline in bone strength. And we begin to see osteopenia and osteoporosis, and we check this by doing a bone density exam here at our center. And we see this in women. So they get a problem with bones that happen…a decline in their bone health after the change of life.

4. Heart Disease

The fourth thing that we see is an increase in cardiovascular problems and coronary artery disease. Interestingly enough, in America there are about 600-700 people that die annually from coronary vascular disease. Half of them men, half of them women. It just turns out the women are five to ten years later in developing their coronary vascular disease or cardiovascular disease than the men are.

Stacey:  But it’s still the number one killer.

Dr. Hotze: It’s still the number one killer of women. But, it happens later in life because the hormones, particularly the estrogen hormones, have a protective effect on a woman. And you think why God would have it this way. Because a woman has to have her children, and so he’s going to protect her heart with the hormones, protect her heart so she can raise her children. But then, after she gets them raised, the estrogen goes south and women begin to develop their cardiovascular problems. That’s another problem that occurs.

5. Insomnia

Another problem, which you might consider minor unless you’re plagued with the problem, is insomnia. And if you can’t sleep well, you don’t feel well. Your body doesn’t have a time to rejuvenate and recover. Insomnia’s a big problem that occurs as women’s hormones decline and stop. That’s a big problem that women have and complain of. So, that’s the fifth problem that we see.

6. Decline in Mental Sharpness

The seventh problem that we see in menopause is decline in mental sharpness, in mental acuity. Women don’t think as well. They tell me, “I’m not as sharp as I used to be. I can’t do the work I used to be able to do. I’m not as good on my math. I forget things. I’ve got brain fog.” I hear that all the time. “Maybe I’ve got what my Mom has. Maybe I’ve got early Alzheimer’s.” Well, if you go to a conventional doctor, you’re inevitably going to be put on some kind of drug, an antidepressant, antianxiety drug, sleep medication, which is going to further adversely affect your mental sharpness and your mental focus. And the next thing you’re going to go to is another doctor. He’s going to test you for “Alzheimer’s” and tell you, you have early Alzheimer’s and put you on a host of Alzheimer drugs, which will not do anything for you but make you less mentally capable. I’ve seen this over and over and over in women.

Drugs are toxins. Nobody has problems with mental sharpness, lack of mental sharpness because they have low levels of antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs or sleep medication or any of the anti-Alzheimer drugs. That’s not the cause of your problem. The cause is your hormones decline. This is not rocket science, but there’s not much money in natural hormones, not compared to the kind of money pharmaceutical companies can make by putting you on several antidepressants and antianxiety medication and sleep medication and charge you an arm and a leg.

7. Loss of Libido

Seventh problem we see in menopause is a loss of romantic moods and inclinations, loss of libido. This just doesn’t happen overnight. This has occurred over about the 10 years leading up to menopause very commonly. Women will begin to lose, because again an imbalance in their hormones, they’ll begin to lose their desires, their just natural desires ’cause their hormones aren’t there and that’s what creates those desires, particularly progesterone and testosterone, which women make when they ovulate on the 14th and 15th day of the cycle.

8. Skin Tone and Texture

And finally, the last thing that is adversely affected by a decline in hormones is skin tone and skin texture. So you’ll see a young girl, even a girl in her 30s and God, their face looks great, and their skin looks great, but now they’re in their 50s and 60s and it becomes wrinkled. They get crow’s feet, and they just look weathered. And that’s the decline in the natural estrogen that causes that.

So, eight things that are caused by or are symptoms that are associated with the change of life. And there are more. But these are some key ones. This would be hot flashes and night sweats, mood swings, decline in bone density, cardiovascular problems, depressed moods, insomnia, loss of mental sharpness and acuity, decline in libido and decline in skin tone and skin texture.

So what are you going to do? You can say, “Well, God just made me that way, I’m going to learn to live with it. Maybe I should just not take any hormones.” Well, you could do that, and you can feel terrible and look terrible the rest of your life. You can decide to do that. But I know, at least the women I know, starting very early in life, always like to look their best. And so you say, “Well, is it natural for me to take hormones if I’m going through the change of life?” Well, is it natural to put make-up on? Is make-up natural? Why do you put on make-up? Why do you put on lipstick? Why do you put on eye liner? You want to look good.

Well, why wouldn’t you want to feel good? The aging process is the decline of hormones. If you want to fight the aging process, you replenish your hormones. It’s called anti-aging. This is not rocket science. You have two choices. You can either get old and decrepit and have no energy and be overweight and not think clearly and not be able to sleep and hurt all over, have upset bowels and recurrent and chronic infections, and in the hospital, you have heart disease, and diabetes and high blood pressure, kidney problems and strokes and Alzheimer’s and dementia. You can have all that. And I know people that have chosen that, and it’s pathetic.

I believe this. God put us here to experience life. Now, I know that we’re all going to die. It’s appointed for all of us to die once and then comes judgment. That’s just the way it is. But while I’m here and alive, I have a purpose. And if I’m here and alive, I want to feel alive, and I think you do, too. That’s why it’s important for you to replenish your natural occurring hormones. Here’s a simple plan for you. Why don’t I just make it real simple for you.

First thing you can do is change your eating lifestyle. Eliminate your simple carbohydrates, pizza, pasta, bread, potatoes, rice, rolls, cookies, cakes, all the things that are simple carbohydrates that are simply starches, which are sugar molecules hooked together. When they break down in your body, they turn into sugar, and what does sugar do? It floods your system. Your body produces insulin. It tries to drive it into the cells. If it can’t drive it into the cells because you have insulin resistance, it drives it and makes fat out of it. And you get big and fat and then you get all these other problems.

Sugar burns up fast, so you’re going to be hungry all the time. You’ll never be satisfied if you eat a high simple carbohydrate diet. You want to change that. You want to eat a good healthy ketogenic diet, good healthy oils and fats in your diet. Eggs, butter, you can have bacon, you can have olive oil, you can have olives, fish, fish oil, you can have coconut oil, avocados, cheeses. Eat good oils and good fats. Put those in your body.

If you eat fat, you’ll burn fat. And you’ll get rid of fat, and you’ll get thin. If you eat sugar, which is exactly what the government wants you to do and the pharmaceutical industry and even the Diabetic Council, they want you to eat a high-grain diet. A lot of grain products, a lot of grain products. And grains are just simple carbohydrates, which are starches, which are sugar molecules hooked together. Why do they want you to do that? Because you’ll stay sick, and you’ll be on their drugs. You’ll get heart disease, you’ll get diabetes, you’ll get high blood pressure, you’ll get a host of health problems, out of which they can benefit.

Why do you think they do this? You can say, “Doc, I think you’re carrying it too far.” Just look at the facts. Ever since they came out with this whole idea of eliminatimg fats and eating a lot of carbohydrates, guess what? We have gone from being a population of 16% overweight to 70% overweight, a population of 8% obese now to 35% obese. We have a dramatic decrease of diabetes…

Stacey:  It’s an epidemic.

Dr. Hotze: It’s an epidemic. All because eating wrong, so we want to have a healthy eating lifestyle, you want to replenish your hormones as you mature, balance them out. It’s like a glass of water. Okay. Say I’m sitting in a restaurant, and my glass is like this. Well, and I say to the waiter, “Could I get some more water?” And he goes, “No, you’ve still got water in your glass.” “But I want a full glass of water.”

It’s kind of like when you go to your doctor and you’ve got all these symptoms of low hormones, they go, “Well we checked your hormones. They’re on the low level but not low enough to treat.” Well, fill them up. I want to have a full cup, I want to have a full glass of water or a full glass of iced tea when I’m at the restaurant. I don’t want them to give me a little bitty glass. I want to have a full glass. Same thing with hormones. I want to have my hormones at the optimal level when I was in my 20s. That’s where I keep them. That’s where you ought to keep your hormones, where you were in your 20s, when you really felt the best in your life. Keep your hormones at that level, and you’ll do well.

Third thing you want to do is take vitamin and mineral supplementation to get rid of all the toxins that are in our system from all foods we eat, what we drink, all the chemicals that are in the foods, in our libations, in our lotions that we slather on our body, in the air that we breathe, you’ve got all these petrochemicals, and they cause a host of health problems. You have to be detoxified. So we can detoxify. Best detoxifier is…Vitamin C’s wonderful for that. I recommend 1,000 milligrams per 25 lbs. of body weight.

Now, additionally, get some exercise. I don’t want you to have to run a marathon. I don’t. I hate running, as a matter of fact. I don’t like it. But, you need to get out, walk a mile or two every day. Jump rope. Do some push-ups. Maybe go to the gym. Go to Orange Theory. You can get as serious about that as you want to. Just know this, you do that for your body tone and cardiovascular strengthening of your cardiovascular system, plus it enables your power plants to produce energy when you exercise. So it’s good. You’re not going to lose weight exercising. You know how many miles you have to run to lose one pound of real fat? You know how many? I’ve told you this.

Stacey:  I know, it’s a lot. It’s depressing.

Dr. Hotze: It’s 30 miles.

Stacey:  It’s a lot.

Dr. Hotze: You have to walk or run 30 miles to lose one pound of body weight. I don’t have enough time to do that. The best way to get down to an ideal body weight is to eat healthy. So that’s a ketogenic eating program, a lot of good green vegetables. Check your carbs. Don’t eat any more than 25 grams of carbs a day. And then eat a little bit of meat. If you’re on a Paleo diet and you eat too much meat, your body will turn that protein into sugar, into glucose. It’s called glycation. I’m sorry, it’s called gluconeogenesis, creating new glucose. And that’s not good. If you go and eat a pound of steak or something, trust me you’re going to convert a lot of that into sugar, so that doesn’t solve your problem. Three or four ounces a day is more than adequate.

And once you start eating ketogenically, you’ll find out you can hardly eat any more than that. When I sit down to eat, I can hardly eat more than three ounces. I feel full with that. But eat a good green salad. I use kale, I use broccoli, I use spinach, I use Brussels sprouts, mustard greens. These are all very nutritional grains. And then I eat…I make sure that I have good oil in my diet. I make sure I do that. I even take a tablespoon of cod liver oil every day.

So those are four things that you can do. But it’s important to remember the symptoms that you’re experiencing in menopause, and we’ll go through those again. The hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, loss of bone density, cardiovascular problems, depressed moods, insomnia, decreased brain sharpness and acuity, loss of romantic moods and inclinations and deteriorating skin are all caused by the inevitable decline in your natural occurring hormones. That’s the aging process. If you want to fight the aging process, then do anti-aging and take your natural bioidentical hormones.

Natural progesterone. Don’t ever take estrogen without taking progesterone. Always take progesterone. That stimulates the bone formation. It balances out your estrogen, helps you with your sleep. It’s a natural diuretic. It’s wonderful. It’ll help you with your romantic moods and inclinations. So you ought to take -only take enough estrogen to counteract your hot flashes and your night sweats. Just a little bit of estrogen. Progesterone also protects against breast cancer. So that’s very important. A little bit of thyroid can go a long way. And you may need a little bit of cortisol. That’ll be determined by your physician when they evaluate you.

Do those things and you’re going to have, you are going to feel great as you go through the change of life. You’ve got a wonderful life experience. Now your kids are growing up. You’ve got grandkids. My wife and I right now have 23 grandkids, Janie and I do.

Stacey:  And you have the energy to keep up with them, too.

Dr. Hotze: Yes. Janie does. It’s amazing.

Stacey:  All 23.

Dr. Hotze: Of course, she’s been on the program for 20 some odd years, and she does great and looks great.

Stacey:  She does. She absolutely does. And Dr. Hotze, isn’t it in the book of Josiah that God says, “My people perish for a lack of knowledge.”?

Dr. Hotze: Lack of knowledge.

Stacey:  And so this is the type of knowledge that will help you live your best life. And we do believe that God created us for a specific purpose, and that we are supposed to live as fully as possible so we can serve each other to the best of our abilities. And that’s really the way to do that. To get healthy and well naturally, not be dependent on pharmaceutical drugs or the conventional medical system. Definitely, if you want more information, we can certainly send you a copy of Dr. Hotze’s book, Hormones, Health, and Happiness at absolutely no charge. You can call us at (281) 698-8698. That’s (281) 698-8698. We’d also love to have a conversation with you, a complimentary consultation, to see how we can help you get on a path of health and wellness, too.

Dr. Hotze: To get some encouragement, you may say “It sounds good for other people, but will it work for me?” Why don’t you just go to HowIGotMyLifeBack.com. Go look at the testimonies of some of the people. And then go to HotzeHWC.com. We have hundreds of testimonies online. But the ones on HowIGotMyLife.com were in a contest, in a recent contest, and you’ll really enjoy what those guests of ours have to say and how well they’ve done. It can happen to you and it should. What you need to do is do a 180 and take charge of your health.

Stacey:  Thank you Dr. Hotze. It was great information and thank you for joining us here today at Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution.

Categories: Blog, Blog English, Hot Flashes, Hysterectomy, Menopause, Women(s) Health

Tags: bioidentical hormones, menopause, menopause solutions, Menopause Symptoms

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