Welcome to Your Surgical Menopause

Menopause is the stage where you move from childbearing years to post childbearing years. Menopause marks a difficult period in ones life. You might think of it as a return to childhood where you are experiencing body changes that you do not understand and have a difficult time coping with. Menopause denotes a loss of production of hormones that your body previously produced every month. These hormones balanced your body, but now you are no longer producing the hormones so mood swings, depression, loss of sexual drive, hot flashes, weight gain, and many other symptoms become your everyday life. So what is surgical menopause?

Surgical menopause refers to a hysterectomy. A hysterectomy is the removal of your reproductive organs. This is not the typical procedure a woman would go through if they did not want to have more children that would be having your "tubes tied." A hysterectomy removes your reproductive organs so that you can no longer have children. There are many reasons for this surgical induction of menopause.

Most women that have a hysterectomy have cancer, cysts, or unstoppable bleeding. In other words the reproductive organs have, mal functioned in some way that the doctor has recommended the organs be removed surgically. This means the women can be any age. Most of the time a hysterectomy is performed when you are already heading in to menopause, but not always.

In most cases of surgical menopause, you will be given hormone replacement therapy to help you over the menopause into post menopause. Things you need to consider when you are speaking with your doctor about hormone replacement therapy should be the information below.

First when you under go a hysterectomy the change is immediate. Your body no longer has the reproductive organs where as when you go through menopause naturally your body has a period of adjustment for the loss of function of the reproductive organs. This makes the transition from normal life into menopause that much more difficult. That is why hormone replacement therapy is so important. There are natural methods for this therapy, but most often, they are not as effective as the medical method.

Second when you under go a surgical menopause you are going to feel depressed. You have lost a part of your body, the part that gave you children. Most women feel this loss and have a more severe case of depression. You will want to tell you doctor if you are experiencing any form of depression and have your family help you through this time.

Surgical menopause is perhaps more difficult than letting your body go through menopause through a more natural method, but you may not have a choice in that.