How are you today? Today, I’m going to talk about perimenopausal syndrome. Many women in their late 40s or 50s experience perimenopausal symptoms. Also many women knock on the clinic door to relieve their symptoms. Let’s look at the dialogue and learn about perimenopausal symptoms in English. Remember, someday English speaking women may visit your clinic.

Dr.Lee: Good morning! How are you?

Mary: Good morning, Doctor Lee! It’s a nice day but I’m not doing very well.

Dr.Lee: What’s the matter?

Mary: My face turns red randomly during the day with bouts* of hot flashes. When I’m in bed, my back feels very hot and soon I start sweating. I can’t fall asleep, so usually it takes me 1~2 hours to fall asleep. God! It ruins me.
*Bouts of: 일정시간동안 몇차례의

Dr.Lee: Excuse me but how old are you, Mary?

Mary: I’m 49. Jesus! I’m turning 50 next year. Can’t believe it. Anyway, do you have a solution?

Dr.Lee: Sure I do. Let me check your health state. (문진후) You’re suffering from typical phenomenon due to lack of yin essense.

Mary: Well... I don’t get it.

Dr.Lee: This is so-called ‘陰虛火動- An excess of internal heat arising from Yin-deficiency condition. When you were a new born baby, your body had plenty of yang energy and yin essence but they taper off as you grow older. Speaking of which, yang is like fire or like an engine of a car that vitalizes your body. On the other hand yin essense is like water or a car body that constitutes your body. It takes energy to heat up water but if there’s too much heat, water vaporizes and finally depletes. Just as it is, your yin essense rapidly decreases before menopause. It results in a sudden surplus of yang energy so you start experiencing perimenopausal syndrome. The symptoms are usually a form of ‘upper heat- hot flashes(=flushes), night sweats, headaches, disordered sleep patterns, heart palpitations, mood swings, etc and lower coldness- incontinence*, weight gain (especially around the waist), digestive problems’ or dryness- itchy skin, brittle** nails, vaginal dryness, hair thinning, etc.
*Incontinence: (요)실금
**brittle: 바스러지는

Mary: I see. So I’m getting old. I heard that hormone therapy eases the symptoms.

Dr.Lee: You’re right. Because there’s evidence that reduced level of estrogen causes perimenopausal symptoms but not vice versa. I mean, not all the symptoms can be explained by decreases in estrogen levels. Moreover, hormone therapy has been said to have side effects such as strokes, breast cancer, or ovarian cancer, even though latest researches reveal that low-dose hormone therapy causes less side effects. I don’t think you have to risk your life to ease the symptoms that only cause inconvenience in daily life. Simple acupuncture and herbal medicine treatment can solve your problem.

Mary: Ok. Thank you, doctor.

궁금하신 점이나 건의사항 있으시면 lsi99@hanmail.net 로 컨택해주세요.
Published by Lee, Sang-il
Edited by Anna Joy Toombs &
Troy Flowers