It's a total mess. Noone can agree what women who have symptoms should do.
One can try to subjectively evaluate how "bad" one's symptoms are I guess, and that's what I have heard from doctors, but I'm not sure we are really good at that type of evaluation, of how much we should put up with as annoyance (regular hot flashes that aren't severe say but that are annoying), how much we should grin and bear, and what we should treat. And then there is the question of how best we should treat it. And patients aren't in the best position to know that either.
I tend to think pain and discomfort should be treated, I won't say how, that is for doctors and scientists! And I genuinely wish we had better treatments than we do, I hope some day we do. But often the belief with menopause is that it's a pain that shouldn't be treated, because some treatments have some risks or downsides, or because menopause "is natural". Or that if somehow we lived in a different country, a different culture etc., our symptoms would be less. So therefore even though we can't move to an entirely new country for symptom relief, it's not remotely realistic, symptoms shouldn't be treated.
I think it's kind of inevitable if one doesn't treat with pharmaceuticals one will keep *trying* to treat with vitamins and herbs and so on. Because the innate desire to feel better is still there, it's just being human, even if one convinces oneself the hardships are bearable (and maybe one's hardships are more minor that say one's menopausal friends symptoms, and thus in some sense more bearable, and I don't see any way to even quantify the difficulty except relatively). Most of the vitamins and herbs are harmless of course, so this isn't causing harm. But as you say there isn't much data they work!
I don't think women with no symptoms need to all rush out and get an MHT prescription, but I wonder how many people that really describes (25% of women going through menopause max maybe?). I mean mostly the choice is live with symptoms or try to treat symptoms in some way. That's the choice. Not whether or not to take MHT for no reason.
It's a total mess. Noone can agree what women who have symptoms should do.
One can try to subjectively evaluate how "bad" one's symptoms are I guess, and that's what I have heard from doctors, but I'm not sure we are really good at that type of evaluation, of how much we should put up with as annoyance (regular hot flashes that aren't severe say but that are annoying), how much we should grin and bear, and what we should treat. And then there is the question of how best we should treat it. And patients aren't in the best position to know that either.
I tend to think pain and discomfort should be treated, I won't say how, that is for doctors and scientists! And I genuinely wish we had better treatments than we do, I hope some day we do. But often the belief with menopause is that it's a pain that shouldn't be treated, because some treatments have some risks or downsides, or because menopause "is natural". Or that if somehow we lived in a different country, a different culture etc., our symptoms would be less. So therefore even though we can't move to an entirely new country for symptom relief, it's not remotely realistic, symptoms shouldn't be treated.
I think it's kind of inevitable if one doesn't treat with pharmaceuticals one will keep *trying* to treat with vitamins and herbs and so on. Because the innate desire to feel better is still there, it's just being human, even if one convinces oneself the hardships are bearable (and maybe one's hardships are more minor that say one's menopausal friends symptoms, and thus in some sense more bearable, and I don't see any way to even quantify the difficulty except relatively). Most of the vitamins and herbs are harmless of course, so this isn't causing harm. But as you say there isn't much data they work!
I don't think women with no symptoms need to all rush out and get an MHT prescription, but I wonder how many people that really describes (25% of women going through menopause max maybe?). I mean mostly the choice is live with symptoms or try to treat symptoms in some way. That's the choice. Not whether or not to take MHT for no reason.