If you are one of the women who has noticed an increase in digestive problems associated with the onset of menopause, you might be surprised to know that are not alone. Nearly half of all peri and post menopausal women suffer from this under-recognized and rarely discussed condition.
I’m Dr. Stephen Wangen, the founder and medical director of the IBS Treatment Center. Over the years we have noticed that women often begin experiencing more gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, or even abdominal pain at this time of life, and many women have come to us because of digestive problems that started or got much worse with the arrival of menopause.
As you may have already noticed, this profound change in your hormones and body’s biochemistry can have an equally significant impact on your digestion.
There are many reasons for this. One of the most significant impacts is in the microbiome within your digestive tract. The digestive tract is a very complex ecosystem, full of things important to the proper digestion of your food.
Changes in your hormones impact that ecosystem in significant ways, and can throw off your ability to properly break down the foods that you eat, leading to all kinds of digestive systems
These changes can also lead to food reactions that you never noticed before, or that got much worse with the onset of menopause.
Fortunately, what we’ve seen at the IBS Treatment Center is that digestive problems triggered during perimenopause and post menopause can be significantly improved, and that it takes a careful assessment of exactly how your microbiome has been impacted and figuring out why you are reacting to foods and not digesting them properly.
Once that process is complete, then a proper treatment program can be put together specifically for your microbiome. And when the treatment is customized to you and not just a canned answer based on your age, then the outcome is so much better.
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Dr. Wangen is the founder and medical director of the IBS Treatment Center, the award winning author of two books, and a nationally recognized speaker on digestive disorders. He has been on ABC, NBC, and Fox as well as public radio, and was named one of Seattle’s Top Doctors by Seattle Magazine.