Help for Your Menopause Symptoms

Your menopausal years are a time of significant change. Your estrogen levels go down, your fertility comes to an end, and you stop having periods. Although some women get through menopause and perimenopause (the years before periods stop for good) without problems, certain frustrating symptoms can occur.

Unfortunately, menopausal symptoms can interfere with your quality of life.

Here at Women’s Healthcare of Princeton, our expert OB/GYN, Dr. Maria Sophocles, has extensive experience helping women cope with menopause symptoms. We want to share some of the more common issues that can arise, along with the treatments that may offer relief.

Common menopause symptoms

During perimenopause and menopause, which officially begins after you’ve gone 12 months without a period, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

Brain fog
Discomfort or pain during sex
Hot flashes
Lower energy levels
Mood changes
Night sweats
Sleep problems
Urinary problems, such as incontinence
Urinary tract infections
Vaginal dryness
Weight gain

Treatment options for menopause symptoms

To determine whether you might benefit from menopause symptom treatment, we perform a physical exam and ask you questions about your health and your symptoms. If needed, we may recommend tests.

After evaluating your situation, we may suggest treatment to relieve your menopause symptoms.

Treatment options may include lifestyle changes, hormone replacement therapy, or vaginal laser treatment. Let’s look at each of these in a little more depth.

Lifestyle changes

In some cases, making changes to your diet, nutrient intake, activity level, weight, sleep habits, stressors, or other lifestyle factors can reduce symptoms.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT)

HRT adds back to your body some of the hormones that it no longer makes. For example, low-dose estrogen, which you can use in the form of pills, skin patches, pellets, gels, creams, or sprays, may help with symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, poor sleep, or brain fog.

MonaLisa TouchⓇ laser treatment

If your menopause symptoms include vaginal dryness or vaginal laxity, we may talk with you about treatment with MonaLisa Touch. This is an innovative laser treatment for certain gynecological conditions.

MonaLisa Touch is a minimally invasive medical procedure that regenerates vaginal tissue and forms new blood vessels and collagen, the protein that gives your vaginal tissue its strength and elasticity. It offers an alternative to hormone-based medication and helps relieve a number of symptoms, including vaginal dryness and pain during sex.