Yes, it's possible. I used to work for an OB/GYN group. It's amazing the difference in women. Some will have no problems, others have big problems. My main and only problem was that I had trouble concentrating on anything. I could read the same page in a book several times without knowing it. Once I got on hormone replacement therapy (which isn't always good for everyone) I did just fine! Good luck, see your doctor and take it easy.

Unfortunately, I agree w/auntjen. My family has doctors in it back several generations (including one ancestor who treated people in both the Union and Confederate armies, believing that people are people no matter what), but they'd all be spinning in their graves/urns to see what's become of "medicine" and associated industries today. Big pharma doesn't feel it really has to "prove anything with science", either, as evidenced by the rampant cheating, misreporting, ignoring side effect reporting, balancing how many lives they can lose before the damages payments become overwhelming, before they have to do a recall, etc. Or maybe they feel the right to prove anything they want with 'science', is another way to look at it. Basically, as auntjen said, profit conquers all. Kind of funny to be warning against alternatives when some big pharma products have *just above* been revealed to be horrendous and decptively advertised. If I had waited for conventional medicine to address my hormonal issues adequately, I'd probably be in a mental hospital by now. Geting a friend's mom's reference to Emerita pro-gest when I was about 40 was the best medical thing to happen to me next to having cancerous moles taken off and a heart attack stopped with incredibly high levels of nitroglycerine. OH, and last month my pharmacy which has known me for about 5 years once again messed up my prescription for something I take every day, giving me a yet-cheaper generic rather than the somewhat-less-cheap generic they had been giving me before, even though I've told them every single month to order the somewhat-less-cheap one for me because the yet-cheaper one just *doesn't work*. Did I check this last month? NO, because I was harried and I guess I trusted them. I know them all by first name, one mom's daughter is on my daughter's XC team...but I was miserable for a MONTH because of human error in mainstream medicine, and because the so called generic "identical" meds, with loads of "science" stats behind them, are anything but. I don't trust any of it anymore.

Bumping up another oldie. (-post, I mean!) :-) Taunia, the OP, contacted me by phone last p.m. and her monitor is fried, so she may not be back for a while. But I wanted to respond to her post here anyway. It's a shame we might appear "crazy" to others when we have our outbursts or mood swings, and it does seem like our sanity is affected, but it's not insanity! What I mean is, I think these are common symptoms. However, I was researching hypothyroidism (and I'm beginning to wonder if there's some connection between that and menopause), and the foggy thinking is listed as a symptom. Maybe it's a symptom of both. I sure do suffer from it! Seems these days I often have to grope for the right word and other times I use a totally wrong word for what I'm trying to say. Embarrassing! I read that depression is not supposed to be a symptom of menopause, although I don't know if I believe that's true; it IS supposed to be a symptom of hypothyroidism. I hope to get tested for that soon. And I'm going to urge Taunia to do the same. The thing about the black cohosh that concerns me is: how do we know how much is the right amount to take for our own particular needs? Also, it's difficult to tell what kind of standards a company uses when selling these herbal remedies... I believe in natural as much as anybody, but I have to be leery about some of these companies. They're trying to make a buck, too, just like pharmaceuticals. As for soy, I'm hearing more and more that soy powders etc. can't really claim to help; that the only benefit is from eating the actual beans (and a fairly large serving, I believe). I find the toasted ones in the produce dept. of my Walmart. They're good fiber if nothing else! :-) Best wishes Taunia, when you read this, and all our fellow sufferers!! :-)

I just went to local Walmart and they have plenty of Remifemin. It's made in Germany but distributed by GlaxoSmithKline out of Pittsburg, PA.