Hi, my name is Kindreth Hamilton and I'm a licensed acupuncturist and Chinese medicine herbalist, at Hamilton Natural Medicine in South Hadley, Massachusetts. And I'm going to be sharing with you today how to use Chinese herbal medicine and other herbal therapies to help alleviate the symptoms of menopause. In Chinese medicine, menopause is the decline of kidney essence or kidney yin and kidney yang. In Western terms this means that estrogen levels are decreasing in the body. So there are many formulas that you can use. I'm just going to share one example of a formula with the primary ingredients. The first one is Shu Di Huang and this is Rehmannia. It's used to nourish the yin and the blood. It's for the liver and the kidney. And it's sweet and very nourishing. And it helps in combination with Shan Shu Yu, which is the sour mountain herb. It's the literal translation of it. And this helps for low back pain, weakness, dizziness, ringing in the ears, and sweating. And the third herb in this formula is Shan Yao. And it's the Yam Rhizome and it's also used to nourish the kidney yin. So in Chinese medicine, when kidney yin is declining, you end up having night sweats, you might have insomnia, you can have palpitations, a feeling of restlessness. And so these three herbs in the formula together with this last herb called Alismatis Root, is to help, this helps to clear kind of that fiery feeling, feeling of heat in your hands, heat in your chest, hot flashes during the day. So if you're interested in using Chinese herbs, please consult with a Chinese medicine herbalist to make sure that it's the nose appropriate formula for your symptoms. another very commonly used herb, mostly in I think in Western terms is Black Cohosh. And it's thought that Black Cohosh helps to restore the hormonal balance; it has an estrogen like property to it, often used in a tincture form. So these are just examples of Chinese herbs and some herbs that are used in Western herbology to treat the signs and symptoms of menopause.
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