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“There’s a lot of herbal supplements that “”claim”” to treat menopausal symptoms, of hot flashes and night sweats, damiana and ginseng and Gingko and St. John’s Wort and other things. That said, there are two supplements that I prescribe to my patients. And the reason that I like these is that they have been studied in extensive double blind placebo controlled clinical trials. It’s by a company called Bonafide. This one is called Serenol, which is relief for PMS and the active ingredients in it are a pollen. It’s a Swedish flower pollen, and this one also has royal jelly in it. So it’s a bee jelly that has, royal jelly has estrogenic like effects. So for women that are at risk of breast cancer, or that have breast cancer, this supplement would not be indicated. It would be contra-indicated. And I will say that this is a good point to tell you that just because something is a supplement or a vitamin or natural doesn’t mean it’s safe.
So it’s really important that you like, for example, here, it’s really important that you look at the ingredients, but this supplement with the Swedish flower and the royal jelly is really effective for PMS and perimenopausal mood changes. The other one, same company for hot flashes and night sweats, this doesn’t have the royal jelly, it just has the pollen and pollen extract, this is super effective for hot flashes and night sweats. Also been studied in double-blind controlled trials. So, the only issue with this, and I recommend this for patients that don’t want to take hormone replacement therapy, or can’t take it or have mild symptoms, is that you do have to take it for a period of weeks to months, sometimes upwards of two to three months, to get the beneficial or therapeutic effect. But there are natural products, natural supplements that can help with menopausal symptoms.
There are also non-hormonal and non estrogen prescriptions that can help with hot flashes and night sweats. There are also prescription medications that are not estrogen that can help with vaginal dryness. Osphena is a once a day oral pill that helps alleviate vaginal dryness in menopausal women. It’s actually a SERM, a serum estrogen receptor modulator, which is protective in the breast. So it has anti-cancer like effects in the breast. That’s great for vaginal dryness. And then there are also medications in the SSRI or serotonin re-uptake inhibitor category that are effective, which is a prescription that are effective for hot flashes and night sweats. So estrogen and estrogen replacement therapy or hormone replacement therapy are not the only treatments for menopause and perimenopause. Complementary adjunct therapies that I like to recommend to my menopausal patients to decrease or minimize the amount of hormones that I need to prescribe are acupuncture, which is really effective for optimizing hormone balance, stress reduction techniques, meditation, anything that you can do to quiet the mind and be in the moment which helps to alleviate stress, helps to alleviate menopausal symptoms.”
