By: Nancy Escalante

It is frequent to hear about menopause and climacteric, we know that it is a critical period in women’s life in which a number of changes take place and it is regularly associated with the absence of menstruation, in many cases women feel that the best years of her life are going away and this generates a great depression. That is why it is important to know exactly what happens during this period, physical and emotional causes and consequences in this natural process of life so that this change in women’s life does not turn out into a painful and difficult process and they can live this stage in life with the joy and strength they had accumulated by life experience.

First of all it is important to establish the difference between climacteric and menopause, since they are not the same thing.

• MENOPAUSE: it refers to the last menstrual period in women’s life. Years before menopause appears, the ovary function starts to decrease and changes in frequency, amount and duration of periods vary, since these periods may be shorter or longer than usual.

• MENOPAUSE AGE APPEARANCE: there is not an exact age, it may appears between 35 and 55 years. When this happens before 40 it is considered to be premature and if it appears after 55 it is considered to be late.

• CLIMACTERIC: It refers to the previous period, during and after the last period which is the MENOPAUSE. During this period there is a decrease in the ovary production of hormones. Women can feel hot flashes, vaginal dryness, calcium deficiency in bones, emotional changes such as irritability, anxiety, depression, insomnia, mental tiredness, memory loss.

It is important that women understands and accepts this change in their life as a part of a normal process and not as an illness.

During climacteric it is advisable that women attend to the gynecologist for a general check up at least once a year which consists of:

• Hormone evaluation
• Osseous evaluation
• Cardiovascular evaluation
• Biochemical evaluation
• Oncological evaluation (cancer prevention)
• General and Nutritional evaluation

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