Blog About Health & Medicine

Our hormones certainly have a powerful impact on the way we feel. Anyone who has suffered pre-menstrual tension, and that includes most women at one time or another, don’t need to be told that. In fact the list of so-called ‘menopausal’ symptoms bears a remarkable similarity to those associated with PMS.

•   lack of self-esteem,

•   less energy and motivation,

•   lack of self-confidence,

•   mood swings,

•   irritability,

•   forgetfulness,

•   depression,

•   anxiety,

•   feeling of losing control,

•   feeling unable to cope,

•   loss of sex drive,

•   feeling close to tears,

•   vulnerability,

•   lack of concentration.

These symptoms can be due to a hormonal imbalance, which can be experienced by women at any point in their lives from the time they have their first period. They can also be due to stress, for example, as both men and women can suffer equally from them. There is nothing specifically ‘menopausal’ about them at all. It reminds me of one patient who had suffered several of these symptoms quite severely all her life. When she was young she was told that everything would be all right once she had babies. After that she was told that things would sort themselves out once she had the menopause…

Women who suffer from PMS can find their symptoms getting much worse at the time of the menopause. Others who have not had PMS may suddenly find they have some of these symptoms. Some of the emotional changes may simply be due to broken sleep caused by night sweats. Experiencing even a few of these would be enough to turn most of us into a caricature of an emotional woman, driving her family mad with depression and mood swings. There is of course an entire industry devoted to convincing middle-aged women that they are suffering from the menopause – and that taking HRT to ‘top up’ their hormones is the best solution to the problem. Middle-aged women suffering these symptoms may also be prescribed anti-depressants and tranquillizers by their doctors, which are rarely beneficial. Most of these drugs are potentially addictive. The correct way to look at these psychological symptoms is as a continuum of hormonal imbalance, not as something directly caused by the menopause. And the correct way to cope with them is to restore the proper balance of mind as well as body through the natural measures.

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160/95. 120/80. Systolic. Diastolic. What does it all mean?

Essentially, blood pressure is the force that blood exerts against the walls of your arteries as it is being pumped by the heart to the different parts of the body. The two numbers in a blood pressure reading are recordings of two different kinds of pressure that your doctor takes using an inflatable cuff wrapped around your arm. One is taken when the heart is pushing blood out into the body through its two major arteries (the pulmonary artery and the aorta) and they are fully distended while the  heart itself contracts. This is the maximum pressure of the heartbeat (or “systolic” pressure as it is called) — the higher number in the reading.

The second reading is taken when the heart relaxes between beats. This is the minimum (or “diastolic”) pressure — the lower number in the reading. Blood pressure, in other words, is expressed as systolic pressure over diastolic pressure.

What is a normal reading? Though it is not possible to have a fixed, immutable number that’s “normal” for everybody, some kind of standard is obviously needed. For young and middle-aged persons, a reading of 120/80 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) is considered ideal. High blood pressure, requiring treatment, is generally defined as starting at 140/90. That leaves a large grey area in between that doctors call “borderline hypertension”.

The higher your blood pressure, the greater your risk. However, one high reading does not make you a hypertensive. That is because blood pressure can vary from hour to hour even in healthy people. So most doctors will not make the diagnosis of hypertension unless your blood pressure is high on at least three separate occasions.

Is your doctor’s clinic the best place to have your blood pressure measured? Possibly not. Some people’s b.p. readings go up perhaps because they’re anxious in a medical environment —a phenomenon known as “white-coat hypertension”. Today do-it-yourself kits are available, which enable you to measure your blood pressure at home. If your doctor agrees that’s a good idea in your case, ask what type of equipment to buy. And be sure that you and a family member are both taught how to take your blood pressure; a doctor or nurse is usually the best person to show you.

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When we are looking for the various causes of disease we are inclined to overlook the fact that stress and the strain resulting from it are perhaps the most important.   For most people the strain of life is essentially a mental one. The body is equipped to deal with the ordinary physical labour and, as is well known, it is not very easy to overwork the system by using the muscles. It is far easier to wear down the resistance of the whole body and mind by the stresses on the mental and emotional plane. In this way we build up tension within the system and constantly dissipate the precious nervous energy.

Of recent years it has been shown that there is a much more direct relationship between the disorders of the skin and the nervous system than many people formerly imagined, so much so that the pendulum has swung almost in the other direction, and we now hear of these cases being referred to the psychiatrist rather than to the dermatologist. This means that instead of using the old-fashioned remedies to allay the eruptions on the skin the practitioner tries to release the nervous tension from which so many of these cases are suffering. There seems to be little doubt that the results have been worth while, and it confirms the Nature Cure contention that we build our diseases through our habits and our way of living.

In trying to explain the nature of the various forms of disease including, of course, skin disease, the adherents of Nature Cure have propounded their theory of toxaemia, and if this theory is properly understood it helps us to realize the importance of the mind both in the making of disease and in the effective treatment of it. Unfortunately the Nature Cure theory has been open to a great deal of misinterpretation, and it has suffered more from its friends than from its opponents. Those who have tried to make it into a little system of diet or of a few cold packs or some such two by-four system have rendered to it a great disservice.

It may be well, therefore, if we go briefly into the Nature Cure explanation of disease, because it will help us to apply it to the subject under discussion. We have already described the “sea-water,” that great fluid medium of the body which bathes the cells in the system and governs the last and most important of the digestive processes. In this medium, too, lies the secret of elimination, because here all the waste products of cell activity are deposited. This fluid is constantly on the move, using the blood and the lymph vessels as its great carrying system. It is in this fluid that the first step towards disease is taken.

So long as the contents-the nutriments and the waste products-of this fluid are maintained, the functions of the body proceed apace; but let this balance be disturbed, and the most vital of life’s processes will be hindered. It is in this delicate and highly charged mechanism that all the stresses of the system, physical, mental and emotional, is registered.

All stress produces strain in the nervous system, no matter what its nature may be. If it is overwork it leads to fatigue, and this depletes the nervous energy. The same happens if it is mental strain in which the sedentary worker tires out his mind. Grief, worry, anxiety, shock, fright and fear will do the same. The emotional disturbances, which have been so carefully and extensively studied in recent times, reduce the nervous energy of the system more drastically than many people imagine. In short, modern living is a very strenuous affair, and the less fit to stand the strain find themselves and their ailments the concern of the public medical and health service authorities.

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