Natural Support for Menopause: A Homeopathic Approach to Hot Flushes and Menopausal Symptoms
While homeopathy can offer gentle support during menopause, it’s a good idea to consult with your GP or healthcare provider before beginning any new treatment. This is especially important if you have existing health conditions, are taking medications, or are experiencing severe menopausal symptoms. Your doctor can tell you which alternative therapies are safe with anything you are currently doing. I believe it is good for all methods of healthcare, conventional or alternative to get along with each other and work together as a patient requests, and if the patient chooses one over the other that’s their right and choice too.
Homeopathy offers either support to conventional methods or another route to wellness that works by gently stimulating the body’s innate healing systems; to gradually resolve any illness with the least amount of suffering possible en route.
Understanding Menopause Through a Homeopathic Lens
Menopause is one of the most significant stages in a woman’s life and it typically occurs around the age of 51 for most women, although it can vary. There can on occasion be an early perimenopause too. This natural change to the body brings with it a cascade of often challenging symptoms- such as hot flushes, night sweats and mood changes, deep fatigue (emotional and physical) and sleep disturbances such as insomnia.
While hormone replacement therapy (HRT) remains a conventional option, there are many women opening up to gentler and deeper acting therapies that work with their body’s own natural resources to restore balance. This is particularly true when conventional treatments aren’t wanted (due to potential side effects) or don’t act as expected.
Homeopathy offers a personalised approach to menopausal support and natural menopause treatment. It aims to restore your body’s powerful and innate self healing mechanisms with a remedy that matches you symptom picture, taking into account your mental and physical balances with equal importance. “If it can cause, it can cure” is one of the founder’s sayings with or remedies, hence the use of highly diluted (and now safe) plants and minerals that could otherwise be toxic.
I may be a man but I have great compassion and respect for women going through this troubling period in their life. Anything to ease the process is a blessing for them. I have treated women for this condition on multiple occasions and also saw my own mother find relief with homeopathy for menopause, when I was a just young boy and all else failed. It was quite astounding at the time!
Five Key Homeopathic Remedies for Menopausal Support
Lachesis for Menopause: A seemingly quite ghastly remedy, made from the venom of a bushmaster snake. Lachesis is one of the most commonly indicated homeopathic remedies for menopausal symptoms and has a real emphasis on the severity of the hot flushes and number. They are highly frequent! Women who benefit from Lachesis typically experience severe hot flushes that often begin during sleep, causing them to wake drenched in perspiration. There can be nervous dread and anger present.
Key indicators include:
- Intense hot flushes beginning during sleep or upon waking
- Palpitations and sensation of constriction around neck and chest (anxiety related)
- Strong aversion to tight clothing, especially around the neck or waist
- Left-sided complaints predominantly
- Symptoms worsen after sleep or upon waking (poor rest!)
- Increased talkativeness, suspiciousness, or difficulty containing intense emotions
- Loquacious,angry and territorial!
- Relief when any discharge occurs
- Throat symptoms can be common too (pain, cough, croup etc)
Sepia for Menopause and Hormonal Imbalance: Another powerful and obscure remedy, which is prepared from cuttlefish ink. Sepia is an excellent, trustworthy remedy that has a strong affinity for the female reproductive system and genitalia. It is particularly valuable during menopause and perimenopause. Women needing Sepia often describe feeling utterly exhausted—physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. They often have conflict in their lives with family and friends, feeling uninterested in them and estranged. Where there is fatigue with a feeling of resignation, irritability and menopausal hormone imbalance its always worth considering.
Characteristic features include:
- Deep, overwhelming exhaustion on all levels
- Indifference toward loved ones and activities once enjoyed
- Family conflict and quarrelling
- Hot flushes often surging upward ( not always)with weakness and perspiration
- Feels as though she is being dowsed all over in hot water
- Distinctive bearing-down sensation in pelvis, as if everything might fall out
- Tendency to cross legs or sit down to relieve pelvic pressure
- Vaginal dryness
- Irregular periods—heavy one month, scanty the next
- Cravings for vinegar or sour foods
- Paradoxically, improvement with vigorous exercise or dancing despite fatigue ( due to poor circulation and oxygenation of tissues)
Nux Vomica for Stress-Related Menopausal Symptoms: Derived from the seeds of the poison nut tree, Nux Vomica is particularly suited to women with busy, stressful lifestyles experiencing menopause symptoms.
Very often these types of women are workaholics, busy bee’s or simply highly string and driven types, that can’t catch a break. They can be high achievers and multitaskers. Additionally, they are often to reliant on stimulants like caffeine (or even drugs/prescription drugs) and use alcohol for relaxation to often. Quarrelsome, obstinate but driven and often with a good morale compass underneath it all, they also have irregular eating habits, digestive system and liver issues alongside their menopausal flushing.
Key symptoms include:
- Marked irritability, impatience, and oversensitivity that can lead to chronic anxiety
- Heightened sensitivity to noise, light, and odours
- Hot flushes alternating with chilliness
- Digestive complaints: bloating, heartburn, constipation
- Symptoms worse in the morning, after eating, or with mental exertion
- Improvement with rest and warmth
- Tendency toward perfectionism and overwork
- Addictive nature- enjoys stimulants and alcohol, drugs of recreational variety or prescribed
- Craves spice sand rich food ( stimulating)
- Family and work quarrelling, ailments from
Crotalus Cascavella (Crot-C) for Menopausal Bleeding and Anxiety: This homeopathic remedy, prepared from the Brazilian rattlesnake venom, is particularly valuable for menopausal women experiencing especially pronounced mental and emotional symptoms alongside physical complaints. Whilst Lachesis and Crotalus Horridus have more suspicion, hatred and jealousy on their sphere of action, this remedy does have some of this too and a stronger lean towards anxiety and dread.
Distinctive features include:
- Lancinating (sharp, shooting) pains in various parts of the body
- Metrorrhagia (irregular uterine bleeding) or dysmenorrhoea
- Mental symptoms generally more pronounced than physical ones
- Anxiety, restlessness, and emotional instability
- Symptoms worse at night – repeating flushing ( like hot iron) with dread ( similar to lach but worse)
- Sensation of constriction in the throat, lump in throat
- Headaches that feel like hot iron, constriction of skull
- May experience heightened sensitivity or unusual perceptions, clairvoyance ( most snake remedies have this)
- Trembling and weakness in body, exhaustion
- Like all snake remedies the patient feels like their sense of space ( home, work etc) is often under threat
Pulsatilla for Emotional Menopausal Symptoms Prepared from the windflower, Pulsatilla suits gentle, mild-natured women who tend to be emotionally sensitive and weepy during menopause. The key note here is just how changeable the patients state is both mentally and physically. Moods may shift very dramatically; weepy and sensitive one minute, angry and hurt the next. Even the hot flushes can seem to vary I how they effect the patient and feel. Se may describe them going up the body one moment, then down the next for example.
Characteristic symptoms include:
- Changeable symptoms—no two episodes feel identical
- Rapidly shifting moods from tears to laughter to anger
- Variable hot flushes with feelings of oppressiveness across airways from heat
- Intolerance to warm stuffy rooms, must escape
- Strong desire for fresh air and open windows – yet dislikes strong breezes or direct sun. Very sensitive.
- Irregular, unpredictable periods during perimenopause. They could be heavy, or scant
- Emotional nature: seeks comfort and reassurance all the time
- Feeling better when consoled – actively seeks consolation to get her through (sepia often the opposite)
- Symptoms worsen with warmth
- Improvement in cool, fresh air and with gentle movement
- Cravings for rich, sweet and buttery foods. Poor blood sugar management
- Can have past traumas of miscarriage
Other great remedies menopausal remedies include sulphur, belladonna and sanguinaria. These are often regular prescribed by myself and globally.
A few helpful studies
We do not have a great number of high quality studies at the moment for homeopathy and menopause, but there are a few encouraging ones including this one which is purely observational:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18194760/
And one based around malageuta pepper as a remedy which was well conducted.
https://thehealingnarrative.com/hot-flashes-in-menopausal-women/
Finding the Right Homeopathic Remedy for Your Menopause Symptoms
While these descriptions provide guidance for choosing homeopathic remedies for menopause, homeopathic treatment is most effective when tailored to your individual symptom picture. You will ideally need a qualified homeopath to guide you as these are a small selection of potential remedies. Potency would also need to be selected safely and repetition, to bring lasting change to your menopausal symptoms and hopefully and end to those hot flushes!
Many women are finding that the right homeopathic remedy can significantly ease their menopausal transition, helping them to move forward with their life and focus on the things that bring them joy and meaning again. Remember, this process takes time and there is no instant fix. Patience is required.
Homeopathy works best as part of a holistic approach to menopause that may include proper nutrition, regular exercise, stress management, and, when necessary, conventional medical treatment if desired.