Menopause: Questions and Answers for Improving Homeopathic Clinical Practice

Abstract

Background Medical attention for menopausal women is frequently delivered by health care providers (general practitioners, gynecologists or homeopathic physicians) who are not specialized in post-reproductive care. Homeopathy has been used for treating menopausal complaints for more than two centuries. Therefore, it is important to improve clinical knowledge in this field among homeopathic physicians. Nowadays, there is a special interest in the study of menopause-related chronic conditions due to the impact on women's quality of life. The aim of this review is to address the important key points of the menopause, clinical assessment, and available tests for evaluating menopausal women, as well as some general topics regarding homeopathic clinical practice for menopause. Methods and Results A literature search regarding menopause and current guidelines and recommendations was performed. To be practical and concise, the information is presented in the form of questions and answers. Currently, there is an international classification of woman's reproductive aging that can be useful for clinical and research purposes in homeopathy. A comprehensive homeopathic approach is mandatory for evaluating women with a healthy menopause, but also for those experiencing co-morbidities. In an integrative health care system, several assessment resources can be incorporated into the homeopathic consultations. Clinical and laboratory examinations for detecting metabolic disorders (dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, diabetes and hypertension, among others), mood disorders, cognitive impairment and osteoporosis are available in many clinical settings. Screening for gynecological cancers is an international recommendation at this stage. All data obtained from homeopathic consultations would help to integrate well-documented case reports. This would give the possibility to generate hypotheses to design high-quality clinical research. Conclusion Improving homeopathic clinical practice for menopause is useful for both clinical and research purposes. The international recommendations for evaluating menopausal women should be incorporated in homeopathic clinical practice, mainly in clinical settings where homeopathy is integrated in outpatient services.

Understanding Why Homeopathic Medicines are Used for Menopause: Searching for Insights into Neuroendocrine Features

“…Medicines are prepared by serial dilution and shaking, which proponents claim imprints information into water.” 3 The importance of a comprehensive and individualized homeopathic evaluation for improving homeopathic prescription in daily clinical practice has been described. 4 Sepia officinalis , Lachesis mutus , Sanguinaria canadensis , Sulphur and Cimicifuga racemosa are among the well-known homeopathic medicines (HMs) prescribed for menopause. Both observational studies and case reports have reported encouraging results when prescribing these HMs for menopause, 5 6 7 but few randomized controlled trials in this area have shown positive results.…”

Homeopathy for Symptoms both Common and Rare

“…In her review article on menopausal syndrome, Dr Emma Macías-Cortés emphasises that knowing the biology of the neuroendocrine changes associated with the menopause can help to inform the rationale for specific homeopathic prescribing, suggesting also how and where in the body those medicines might act. 1 The fact that 5% of the world's population is projected to have pre-diabetes by the year 2030 prompted Dr Nilanjana Guha and colleagues to undertake a randomised controlled trial (RCT) on the topic: compared with placebo, individually prescribed homeopathic medicines showed some improvement in fasting blood sugar levels, though not in glucose tolerance, indicating that homeopathy might offer modest benefit. 2 For the animal kingdom, mastitis-metritis-agalactia (MMA) is a commonly seen syndrome in post-partum sows: in an RCT of homeopathic prophylaxis, however, Dr Kathrin Büttner et al did not detect any improvement in occurrence of MMA in sows that received a combination of two specialised complex homeopathic remedies.…”