Three Things You Might Not Know About Menopause Medication

There are a wide variety of treatments out there to help you handle the various side effects of menopause, but what are they really doing to your body? What are menopause medications really about? Here are three things you might not already know about menopause medications.

Menopause Isn’t Treatable

Once your ovaries have run out of eggs, you’re done; there is no way to prevent, slow down, or reduce menopause. Treatments that are marketed as menopause medications are used to treat the various side effects of menopause. There are treatments that address the symptoms directly, such as special vitamins balanced for menopausal women, treatments for high blood pressure, cholesterol, hot flashes, and bone loss, while other treatments attempt to rebalance the hormones found in the body in order to prevent the symptoms from taking hold. However, none of these treatments can actually negate the underlying cause, because menopause is not a disease; it is a natural condition of the body that has no reversal or cure.

Hormone Replacement Therapy is Risky

While recently popular, the way hormone replacement therapy is performed by doctors has been changing in recent years due in part by a Womens’ Health Initiative study that indicates that hormone replacement therapy, which is used to raise estrogen closer to pre-menopausal levels, actually increases the risk of heart disease, blood clots, and strokes in some patients. Used in the long term, hormone replacement therapy was also linked to a higher incidence of breast cancer. Because of these findings, hormone replacement therapy in the long term, with high doses, is becoming less and less popular. Short-term hormone replacement therapy used to smooth the transition after hysterectomy or oophorectomy is considered safe, however.

Some Drugs Are Made From Urine

One prominent hormone replacement drug, Premarin, is made of estrogens isolated from pregnant mare’s urine, from which it takes its name: PREgnant MARe’s urINe. There is a great deal of controversy surrounding this drug, which is available as in oral or topical forms. At the peak of its popularity, Premarin production led to the death of thousands of mares and foals, due to the conditions the mares were kept in during urine collection periods and the amount of unwanted foals produced. Since hormone replacement therapies have become less intensive, the industry has returned to using urine collected from mares bearing more desirable offspring, and the death tolls for Premarin production have dropped substantially.

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