Menopause

Perimenopause, Hot Flashes, Night Sweats and the Change of Life

Understanding the Condition

Menopause is not a disease. It is a natural passage, as natural as the first period was in girlhood. Through the childbearing years, the ovaries make two main hormones each month. Estrogen builds the lining of the uterus and keeps the skin, bones, heart, bladder and vaginal tissue supple and strong. Progesterone, made after an egg is released, steadies the lining, calms the nerves and helps with sleep. The brain watches over all of it: the hypothalamus and pituitary send a hormone called FSH to call the ovaries into action each cycle.

As a woman moves through her forties, the ovaries’ supply of eggs runs low and they begin to answer that call less and less. The brain calls louder (FSH rises), and the hormones start to swing.

Line diagram of hormone levels from age 35 to 60: estrogen swings up and down through perimenopause then falls, progesterone falls first, and FSH rises steeply, with menopause marked at about age 51. — How the hormones shift through the change. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L. (not to scale).

How It Unfolds

Perimenopause (often four to ten years, usually starting in the forties). Ovulation becomes irregular, so progesterone falls first while estrogen swings high and low. This is the time of irregular or heavy periods, breast tenderness, PMS that grows worse, trouble sleeping, mood swings, and often thinning hair.
Menopause itself is one day: the point when a woman has gone 12 months in a row without a period. In this country it comes at about age 51 on average.
After menopause, the ovaries rest. The adrenal glands and fat tissue carry on making small amounts of hormones, and the liver keeps clearing used hormones from the body. This is why tired adrenals and a sluggish liver make the change so much harder.

Why the hot flashes come. The same part of the brain that calls to the ovaries also sets the body’s thermostat, sleep and heart rhythm. As estrogen falls and FSH rises, that center is unsettled. It decides the body is too hot, opens the blood vessels in the skin and turns on the sweat: a hot flash, or at night, a night sweat. Dr. Christopher wrote that this same disturbance can unsettle sleep, stamina, heartbeat, digestion and blood pressure, and that few women go through the change without some symptoms.

The common signs are hot flashes and night sweats; trouble sleeping; a racing or pounding heart; mood swings, anxiety and low moods; foggy memory; thinning hair; dryness of the skin and vaginal tissue; urgency or leaking of the bladder; weight settling around the middle; and joint aches. Over the longer term, falling estrogen leaves the bones and the heart with less protection, so this is the time to care for both.

Dr. Christopher believed the hard symptoms are not caused by the change itself but by a body that comes to it undernourished, without the raw materials it needs to make its own hormones. He saw women “glide smoothly through the changes of life” once that food was given. Medicine offers hormone replacement, but its own labels warn of risks to the uterus, breast and blood, and when it is stopped the symptoms often return.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing. A person can follow a perfect herbal program, but if she stays in a life that keeps wearing her down, or never makes time to care for herself, the body will keep losing ground. Healing the body often means facing what is happening in the heart and spirit as well.

The Hormonal Curtain

The real hormonal shift comes at the end, when the cycle stops. Many women think they’re home free when their cycles end without much drama, only to discover it has just begun.

From puberty on, the hormones that run a woman’s cycle also turn her attention outward. It is as if a curtain drops between her and the girl she was when it all began. Her focus turns to nesting, a home and babies, and all of that is hormonally driven. Something is lost during those years, too: the creative side of herself, so alive in her early teens. Not every woman loses it, but many put their inner selves on the back burner through the family years.

In perimenopause, the curtain lifts for longer and longer stretches, and at menopause it rises, never to fall again. The nesting urges simply fade, and you find yourself looking inward more and more. This is a gift. The old tales of the wise older woman, the understanding that comes from a lifetime of living, were always there. You just weren’t looking inward; too much else had your attention. Now you will bloom. You’ll write that book or pick up those paintbrushes again, and discover other amazing parts of yourself. It is time to make friends with yourself.

But behind that curtain is the stash of emotional bills: everything you swept under the rug or tucked away to deal with “later.” Later is here. The more unfinished business waiting there, the harder and more symptomatic your menopause will be.

Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, darlings, but the curtain is gone and the rug is up. It’s time to deal with yourself, or spend the rest of your life trying to medicate it away. You’re always free to keep denying the reality of your life, but you can no longer use the hormonal curtain as a barrier against the inner woman demanding your attention. Do the hard work on you, and become the woman you always knew you were.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

Menopause problems: fear of no longer being wanted; fear of growing older; rejecting yourself; feeling you are not good enough. Turn it around: I am at peace through every change of life’s seasons, and I bless my body with love.

Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House).

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

The change involves the whole hormone family: the ovaries stepping back, the hypothalamus and pituitary in the brain that set the thermostat and call to the ovaries, the adrenal glands that take over making hormones, the thyroid (whose troubles can look much like menopause), and the liver, which clears used hormones out of the body. It shows up in the skin and blood vessels (flashes and sweats), the heart, the nerves and sleep, the bones, and the bladder and vaginal tissue.

Opening the Way: Clearing the Liver and Bowels

Keep the bowels moving with LBF, building up one capsule a day until the bowels move two or three times a day. Used hormones the liver sends out through the bile are taken back into the blood if the stool sits.
Liver flushing. Juice fasting and flushing the liver are like hitting the restart button. When the body is out of balance, a good week of liver flushing clears a layer of toxins and helps the hormones settle. After that, an ELF (Emergency Liver Flush) once or twice a week until the symptoms have cleared.
Cool the triggers. Coffee and other caffeine, sugar, alcohol, spicy foods, hot drinks and stress all set off hot flashes. Many women find their flashes come at certain times of day once they start watching.
Hot and cold showers and fresh air. A hot and cold shower in the morning wakes up the circulation and trains the blood vessels to respond. Exercise, outdoor walks and sunshine steady the mood and protect the bones.

Feeding the Female System

Female Formula: the first support. Chaste tree berry, wild yam, dong quai, damiana, licorice and hops: it gives the body the raw material to balance its own hormones and calms the nerves, and it helps stop hot flashes, night sweats and the emotional free fall of the change. The daily amount is 1½ teaspoons. For hot flashes and night sweats, split it into three ½-teaspoon portions: ½ teaspoon in the morning, and the rest taken before your problem times. If the flashes come in the late afternoon, take the larger share in the early afternoon so the herbs are in the blood when they are needed most. For night sweats, take a dose at bedtime. Without these issues, take the full 1½ teaspoons in the morning.
Changease: hormonal food. Black cohosh, sarsaparilla, ginseng, licorice, blessed thistle, squaw vine, shatavari and vitex. When symptoms still persist after the Female Formula and liver flushing, add Changease alongside it: ½ to 1 teaspoon three times a day. It gives the body the raw material to make the hormones it needs in the last stages of the change; the shatavari is cooling and moistening, a help for hot flashes, night sweats and dryness, and the vitex supports the pituitary.
Wild yam cream: a helper alongside. Some women do best using both the Female Formula and a wild yam progesterone cream. Dara used the cream herself, mainly for thinning hair and the symptoms of perimenopause. It is valuable to a degree; the Female Formula is still the foundation, and the cream is an addition, not a replacement.
Feed the adrenals. The adrenals carry the load after menopause. The licorice in both formulas feeds them; when a woman is worn thin, see Rebuilding Tired Adrenals.
Heavy, breakthrough or lingering bleeding: kick it hard. The everyday Female Formula amount is 1½ teaspoons a day. When the bleeding turns heavy, comes between cycles, or a cycle refuses to end, even if it is only spotting, don’t let it drag on. Take 1 tablespoon all at once in a cup of hot water, and for heavy flooding with clots, up to three times a day. Keep it up for a day or two after the bleeding stops, then drop back to the usual dose. The natural progesterone in the wild yam can make the breasts tender at this higher dose; it eases within a day or two of returning to the normal dose. Any bleeding after menopause needs a doctor (see the box below).

Calming the Heart, Nerves and Sleep

A racing or pounding heart. Many women report palpitations through the change. Dara’s supports: NFX and the General Nervine for the nerves, with cayenne and hawthorn extracts for the heart. In hot water at bedtime, cayenne (working up gradually to 3 droppersful) and hawthorn (6 droppersful) make a calming evening tea; when palpitations wake you, take the cayenne and hawthorn every five minutes until the heart settles.
Sleep. 2 droppersful each of the General Nervine and NFX at bedtime help with falling asleep and staying asleep. See Two Formulas for a Good Night’s Sleep for more.

Thinning Hair

The Female Formula first. Thinning hair is one of the most common signs of perimenopause, and for many women it is the most upsetting. Dara’s own hair was falling out by the handful until she began the Female Formula; then it stopped. Use the daily amount above.
Clear the liver. The liver clears used hormones out of the body. When it is sluggish, the hormone swings are harder and the hair shows it. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week, supports the hair along with everything else.
Add Changease if it persists. When hair loss keeps on after the Female Formula and liver flushing, add Changease alongside them.
Wild yam cream. Dara used wild yam cream mainly for thinning hair, and some women do best using it together with the Female Formula.
Ease the stress and check the thyroid. Stress drives hair loss, and the nerve supports above help. Thyroid trouble also thins the hair and can look just like the change, so have it checked if the hair loss is heavy.

Protecting the Bones

Calcium the body can use. Dr. Christopher’s Calcium formula (horsetail grass, comfrey root, oat straw and lobelia) with Superfood: 1 teaspoon three times a day. Dara regards ordinary calcium pills as ground-up rock; plant calcium feeds the bones without leaving mineral residue for the kidneys.
Weight-bearing exercise and sunshine keep the bones strong; walking counts. Stop the calcium robbers: soft drinks, coffee and junk food.

Using Comfrey With Care

Comfrey root is one of the four herbs in the Calcium formula, used in traditional proportions as part of a blend. Take it at the dose on this sheet, 1 teaspoon three times a day. More is not faster.

When to Get Medical Care

Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. Any bleeding after menopause (once you have gone 12 months without a period) needs to be checked by a doctor, as does bleeding that is very heavy, comes every two weeks, or lasts much longer than usual during perimenopause. Have your thyroid checked if symptoms are strong, since thyroid trouble can look just like the change. A bone density scan in the years after menopause shows how the bones are holding up. If you are taking hormone replacement, work with your doctor to come off it gradually; stopping suddenly can bring a hard rebound.

Emergencies: chest pain or pressure, a racing heart with fainting, dizziness or shortness of breath, or heavy bleeding with lightheadedness. These need emergency care right away.

Level of Commitment

Most women pass through the change well with steady, simple support. How much you need depends on how much your body and your heart are carrying into it:

Gentle support. For most women in perimenopause and the change. The Female Formula, timed before your problem times; LBF to keep the bowels moving; cutting the triggers (caffeine, sugar, alcohol); water, walking and sunshine; the sleep supports as needed.
Focused cleansing. When the symptoms are strong or don’t settle: a week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week until the symptoms clear, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in; add Changease to the Female Formula; the heart and nerve supports; the Calcium formula for the bones. Give it about three months.
Incurables Program. The change itself never calls for this. It is for a serious condition that comes along with it, such as fibroids, cysts, or cancer of the breast or uterus; see those sheets. The full Incurables Program includes cleansing the bloodstream with HEAL’s Blood Purifying formula. Blood Purifying contains chaparral, which has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use. It has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing growths, and over the years many members have used it to eliminate tumors. Use with care: take Blood Purifying in courses, not continuously: two dropperfuls 4 to 6 times a day for a week at a time, in a few ounces of grape juice, while drinking 64 to 128 oz. of liquid a day. Avoid it during pregnancy or nursing and with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked.

More Is Not Faster

These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.

People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.

A Loose Healing Plan

Week 1: Build the foundation. Start your Foundational Program (Superfood and juicing, Echinacea, and bowel cleansing with LBF). Start the Female Formula, timed before your problem times, with a bedtime dose for night sweats. Begin cutting caffeine, sugar and alcohol, and notice what sets off your flashes.
Week 2: Flush the liver. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week until the symptoms clear.
Weeks 2 onward: Calm and protect. Add the sleep and heart supports if you need them, the Calcium formula with Superfood for the bones, and daily walking and sunshine.
After a month or so: Take stock. If hot flashes, night sweats or mood swings persist, add Changease to the Female Formula. Weeks of kidney flushing can be alternated with the liver work.
About 3 months: Most women are steady. Three months is the average time to bring the hormones into balance. Keep the Female Formula going through the change, easing down as the symptoms fade, and return to the supports whenever a rough patch comes.
All along: the inner work. Make friends with yourself. Face what has been waiting behind the curtain, and give yourself the care you have given everyone else.

Stories from the Work

Dara’s Story: My Own Change

Menopause came for me in the middle of some of the most turbulent years of my life. Our move to Mountaindale, New York, had been a time of real growth, with all the drama that comes before growth. Our move to Hendersonville, North Carolina, gave us a little time to recover before our own family drama began, and perimenopause began right in the midst of it.

My hair started falling out by the handful. I had always had very thick hair, which was a good thing, because at that rate I was soon going to need a wig. My hairdresser suggested vitamins for stress. They helped a little, but nothing fixed it.

During those same years I was discovering the herbal cleansing programs and the herbs that support the female system. I began the Female Formula around 1997, when I was 37, with excellent results. My hair stopped falling out. My cycles improved, and the clots from the heavy bleeding that had been my lot for years were gone.

That was the beginning of a perimenopause that lasted about ten years. At 46 I began skipping cycles, and for several years I had one cycle every three months. In my 48th year, after 11 months without a cycle, I had one last one. It began with a feeling of emotional free fall, and my body seemed determined to make up for all 11 months: I was passing huge blood clots. I took a full tablespoon of the Female Formula three times that day and kept up that dose until the cycle ended. By midafternoon of the first day the bleeding had slowed to a normal flow, and my emotions felt steadier after that first large dose. The bleeding lasted five days and stopped. I kept taking the large dose for several more days. The last thing I wanted was to see that bleeding return.

During those twelve or thirteen years, I wrote my biography, recovered a marriage that was all but dead, and discovered who this woman really was.

The regular dose of the Female Formula is 1½ teaspoons a day. A tablespoon three times a day is the dose for controlling heavy bleeding, and the same approach handles breakthrough bleeding or a cycle that won’t end: kick it hard and get it done, then return to the regular dose. See Feeding the Female System.

A Member’s Story: Calming the Heart Through Perimenopause

A member in North Carolina shared how perimenopause brought what she called “panic attacks”: waking dizzy and lightheaded, her heart racing like a freight train, over and over. Every night she made herself a hot tea with 3 droppersful of cayenne (working up to it gradually) and 6 droppersful of hawthorn, and took 2 droppersful each of the General Nervine and NF (now NFX) formulas to fall asleep and stay asleep. When she woke with palpitations, she took the cayenne and hawthorn every five minutes until it stopped, usually just once. She used these supports at bedtime for years with great results; the only time the supports failed her was when she had overdone the caffeine or sugar.

Off the Hormones and Sleeping Through the Night (from Dr. Christopher)

A woman in Vancouver, British Columbia came to Dr. Christopher “climbing the wall” with nervous tension. Her hot flashes were driving her almost insane, she threw off the covers all night, and her husband was losing sleep and patience. She was taking estrogen but felt it was doing her more harm than good.

He put her on the three-day cleanse and the mucusless diet. She suffered for a time coming off the commercial hormones, but took the female corrective formula and the hormone formula (now Changease), each three times a day. A short time later she told him her whole life had changed: she slept all night without throwing off the covers, the nervous screaming jags were gone, and her husband fell in love with her again. She said it was worth every bit of the change in diet and the effort of taking the herbs.

More on the Female System

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.