December 15, 2005

After months of feeling sick, missing work and barely having enough energy to function, Diane Layton was fed up.

At 48, Layton knew she had gone through menopause, but never expected that the symptoms would actually be strong enough to affect her work and personal life.

"I never get sick and suddenly I felt sick all the time. I had severe inflammation, my feet swelled, I had wrist pain. My body was very weak," says Layton, a financial planner from Naples, Florida who missed nearly one year of work because of her symptoms. "Doctor had all sorts of theories about what was wrong with me. One doctor thought I had Lupus."

Fed up after months of tests and dealing with doctors whose only solution was ?to prescribe pills,? Layton started doing her own research about hormonal imbalance and menopause.

Layton isn't alone in her battle against menopause. Seventy-four percent of women said at least one symptom of menopause, mostly hot flashes and night sweats, were disruptive to their work lives, according to a survey conducted by the National Association of Female Executives, Almost half of the women (45 percent) noted that menopause symptoms were worse than they expected.

Donna Cook, a conference services manager, said she panicked when she started experiencing hot flashes in the boardroom.

"While presenting to our senior management team I felt a hot flash coming on. I was so concerned about turning red and sweating that I lost track of what I was saying. When I lost my train of thought, I became more stressed, which in turn, made my symptoms worse," said Cook.

Menopause can have side effects that are extremely disruptive to women's professional and personal lives, says. Dr. Jeffrey Thackrey, a physician for BodyLogicMD Ft. Lauderdale, a network of anti-aging physicians who specialize in treating male and female menopause with natural bioidentical hormones.

"Hot flashes, weight gain, night sweats, low libido, mood swings and chronic fatigue can all happen at inappropriate times, making it difficult for a woman to carry on with her daily routine," says Thackrey.

Like Cook and Layton, millions of working women are looking for alternative ways to reduce menopausal symptoms, but studies show that the information women are receiving on hormone therapy is confusing and hard to follow.

"Women are being bombarded with a host of conflicting messages in regards to hormone therapy and menopause and it can be very confusing," says Thackrey. "Many women are concerned that hormone therapy may cause cancer and other diseases, because of information released by the Women's Health Initiative."

The most important thing for women to understand is that there is a big difference between synthetic hormones and bioidentical hormones, according to medical experts.