It’s bad enough being robbed of a full night’s sleep. When the daylight hours bring on mood swings, joint aches, hot flashes, headaches, and more, you don’t know whether to stick your head in the freezer, cry, or run out into the street and scream! While some of us are lucky enough to escape the slings and arrows of perimenopause and menopause, most of the 2 million women who reach menopause every year, are troubled–even tormented–by the one or more of its symptoms.
While menopause isn’t a disease that needs treatment, one or more of the distressing symptoms can be relieved in a number of ways, including hormone therapy to replace decreasing levels of estrogen and progesterone, products to cool you off when perspiration suddenly starts cascading down your face, and all-natural herbal supplements. These supplements contain estrogen-like substances, called phytoestrogens, that reportedly work in the body like a form of estrogen and are especially appealing to women who worry about the risks of taking drugs.
Femmerol is an all-natural supplement that contains a variety of herbs, working together, bayberry (for inflammation); black cohosh (to suppress the production of the hormone that causes hot flashes); capsicum (to relieve cramping and increase circulation); damiana leaf (to treat low libido and relieve depression), and sage (reduces hot flashes and excessive perspiration.)
To learn how two Femmerol capsules, taken daily, can relieve menopause symptoms , we talked with Sabina Fasano, the founder and CEO of the of the company that produces it.
How and why do natural ingredients work on the symptoms of menopause?
Herbs help the body adapt to the stressors that come with menopausal change, and also play a significant supporting role in the rejuvenation of our hormones. Taking natural plant ingredients for the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause is like putting your hormones into rehab and getting them back into shape by nourishing them with a similar chemical structure to your natural hormones.
Herbs are not estrogen per se, nor do they act like the estrogens in HRT (hormone replacement therapy), but they lend a helping hand to improve natural hormone production, aid in hormone efficiency, support their transmission with better utilization, and help spare the loss.
Which ingredients work on which symptoms and why?
Although certain herbs, such as black cohosh, have been shown in clinical studies to alleviate menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, cramping, vaginal dryness, and sleeplessness, traditional herbal medicine recognized centuries ago that combining many plants delivers far better results than relying on a single plant. This is true not only to treat hormonal imbalances, but also to support health. When specific ingredients are combined, they work together to accomplish more than they could alone.
Hormones are neurotransmitters that carry messages from the brain and endocrine system to other parts of the body. The bioactive molecules in plants share similarities with our hormones, and therefore are able to effectively connect and communicate with the hormones in our bodies. Multiple symptom relief comes from treating the whole system versus attempting to treat one symptom at a time.
I still find it amazing that plants can interact so intimately, and in such a sophisticated manner, with the hormones we make in our bodies to treat a multitude of deficiencies and imbalance, and even diseases. But if you think about it, we evolved alongside the plant world.
Given all the natural supplements available, how does one know which will work?
When reading a product label or company website, it’s not always easy to know if its supplement has quality ingredients and manufacturing procedures. If you’d like to know more about a product, I suggest that you contact the company and ask questions of someone in quality assurance.
Look at the active ingredients on the supplement facts box, and also look underneath the box where it says “other ingredients.” If you are looking for something “natural” or “plant based,” all of the ingredients should be naturally occurring, such as herbs, botanicals, vitamins and minerals.
It’s important to feel confident about a product you’re trying for the first time. And, if you have personal or cultural preferences, such as vegetarian, vegan, kosher or gluten free, you should never have to compromise.
Can natural ingredients ever replace the jobs of estrogen and progesterone?
First. I’d like to clear up the common misunderstanding that women lose all hormones during menopause ─ They do not. We still produce hormones, just less!
Estrogen and progesterone play an important role in a woman’s life: The timing of puberty; the development of our bodies and sexual maturity, and the ability to create and sustain a pregnancy. Unless we’re are still looking to have babies at 50, our goal should not be to ‘replace hormones,” but to support our bodies as they adjust to new healthy hormone levels and balances for our age.
When we supplement with hormones, we’re overriding our body’s natural intelligence, its innate ability to adjust and rejuvenate ─ and too often with unintended damaging or deadly results. The goal should be to love your age regardless of what that number is, and to develop healthy hormonal levels that create optimal health into menopause and beyond.
It is absolutely normal for every woman to have naturally lower levels of all hormones as she grows older, including estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Sexuality doesn’t end, bones don’t crumble, and we don’t become old, grumpy and wrinkle. These are self-inflicted results. Our personal lifestyle, mindset and choices make all the difference.
Learn more about Femmerol here.
We are pleased to be bringing you the valuable information in this post, which is sponsored by Solutions For Women. Thanks for supporting FabOverFifty!