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Early Menopause After a Total Thyroidectomy

Menopause is the completion of the fertility cycle. This is accompanied by a whole host of symptoms that can include hot flashes and mood swings. Early menopause can be even more stressful since it can strike women who are relatively young.

  1. Early Menopause

    • While menopause is associated with older women, typically in their fifties, some younger women have been known to enter menopause early. These women fall into two groups, the premature menopausal, who are younger than 40 and women who are 41-45 enter early menopause.

    Thyroidectomy

    • A total thyroidectomy is often the result of an aggressive or advanced thyroid cancer. This is the total removal of the thyroid gland. The result is that often individuals are required to take hormone replacement medication to compensate for the hormones that the thyroid did release.

    Thyroidectomy and Menopause

    • The thyroid does control some of the reproductive hormones in a woman. The total removal of the thyroid can then cause a woman to enter into early menopause, although this is rare. Most women who experience an early menopause were already entering into the menopausal state, according to Premenopausesymtoms.com.

    Prevention

    • Preventing early menopause due to thyroidectomy is not realistic. While there is a chance that the early menopause can be handled by use of proper thyroid hormone dosage, the studies done by the Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism community indicates that most women who are of the early menopause age range become early menopausal.

    Treatments

    • Treating early menopause is similar to treating menopause. Most early menopausal women are given estrogen and other hormone replacement therapies. However, there is no way to reverse early menopause.

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