Womens Health and the NHS

I realise that I have failed in my attempt to blog more frequently, but hey ho... some you win... some you . . . win just later.

Over the last few weeks a handful of my clients have been experiencing "odd" symptoms. mainly feeling ungrounded, heady, lightheaded, emotional, overwhelmed and frankly fairly confused about life. I got a sense of it being a chemical imbalance - more hormonal but I wanted to be sure.

So I started some research to see what the cause could be. Two things became glaringly obvious:
1) All these women live exceedingly full lives thereby not really having time for regular R&R
2) They were all in their early/mid-forties.

Now the symptoms of restlessness, lack of sleep was affecting all of these women and me. I realised most have not experienced a full nights refreshing sleep for at least a few months now if not years. I noticed a pattern between symptoms and experiences of these ladies.

Narrowing down information from research the outcome highlighted that the symptoms were akin to "adrenal fatigue" and could be cases of hormonal imbalances.

Now my conclusion is that most of these women may be experiencing the early symptoms of Perimenopause/menopause. I decided that the best way for me to get clarity on this is to approach a GP for a hormonal/adrenaline test to verify where my client was on the scale of overall hormonal level balance. The head GP at our vetoed this test as it is not a "standard" test that the NHS will happily pay for.

That same evening I happened to flick on to the Oprah show and guess what? They were discussing perimenopause/menopause and it's impact on women. check out http://www.oprah.com/article/health/womenshealth/health_life_body for the indepth info.

What this confirmed to me is that I was on the right track with regards my hunch and research that the imbalance in hormones were at the root cause of the issues confronting my clients and me.

My point is - we in the western world have sort of become mules following advice from mainstream medics to always consult a doctor before making any lifestyle changes just in case you may think you have one thing when the appropriate tests could highlight your diagnosis as being incorrect and your condition may need a different approach. We are constanlty being advised by medic and the public awareness groups in line with:
"Remember: many of the symptoms can also be related to serious health conditions, so it's always best to consult your doctor."

According to the article on Oprah's website the symptoms associated with menopause are:
Heart palpitations
Migraine headaches
Night sweats
Insomnia
Hot flashes
Fibroids
Weight gain
Aching and sore joints
Increase in allergies
Cold hands and feet
Tingling in hands and feet
Dizziness
Disorientation
Fatigue
Itchy, "crawly" skin
Change in libido
Breast swelling and tenderness
Heavy menstrual periods
Irregular or erratic periods
Vaginal dryness and/or painful intercourse
Urinary symptoms
Skin problems
Bone loss
Depression

The advice generally is "See Your Doctor". Unfortunately in my personal experience since the NHS does not fund hormone tests as standard where does that leave us? Not all of us in the UK can afford private medical care, does that mean that you simply continue to suffer or find alternate ways out in a hit and miss experiment.

In an ideal world I would love to work alongside a GP who was deeply involved in women's health and open to discussing ways in which a complementary therapist be that a nutritionist or a herbalist or homeopath can work with a patient, whatever choice works for the client themselves, so that the outcome was a healthier happier individual able to continue a more balanced happier life.

Are there any doctors out there who put helping women first and wish to work with giving women a choice on their personal health care? If so I would love to talk to you.

You should never hesitate to talk with your doctor about treating a suspected hormone imbalance. hormonal imbalance, stress, menopause,