Think about it: Menopause is the other parenthesis around our fertility, the first being puberty. We should find a way to mark the occasion for ourselves and our friends. It’s a biological and developmental rite of passage, so let’s get creative about how to celebrate September. You could:

• Have a “Take a Meno- Pause” party, pausing in your hectic life with some of your women friends. Go out after work, have an afternoon party at your home, or invite fellow "flashers" to sit around the back yard with your feet up, sharing menopause remedies.
• Get together with women who are past menopause and with some who are not yet there. Share what fertility means to you, or what you like (hate?) about menopause and this time of life.
• Go to a museum, art gallery or movie that celebrates something about being a woman.
• Write a letter to your daughter about what you hope she will experience when she goes through menopause and then tuck it away where you can give it to her later. (Or send it.)
• Sit down with your partner or spouse and make a “beyond menopause” plan for the next 10 years – hopes, dreams, and how to get there.
• Get tickets for Menopause the Musical and plan on an evening of pure hilarity
• Schedule a spa day – alone or with female buddies

Whatever you do, pause this month to mark your transition to the next phase of your life. Share your ideas about the best thing about menopause in the forum. Do you have more ideas about how to celebrate? Share them here.

Menopause is a perfect time to think about what's ahead and make it exactly what you want it to be. Use September to mark the transition. Cheers!

(Photo: Barry Austin Photography/Getty Images)

During and after menopause women (and their partners) complain that libido seems to be the collateral damage of slumpng hormone levels. Sorting out the “why” and “what to do” is a confusing ride through the research. Most recently we’ve learned that low libido is significantly associated with depression, night sweats, and sleep disturbance. But “associated” does not equal a cause/effect relationship. So while sleep disturbance or night sweats may not cause depression or low libido, women do seem to suffer from them simultaneously.

Teasing out the details of love and libido during menopause and beyond will contribute significantly to the quality of women’s lives and relationships. Whether low hormones turn out to be the common culprit, or whether one symptom provokes or intensifies others, it can only help us if we understand the connections -- treatment could be individualized once we have discovered how one symptom relates to the others. Even knowing that flashes, depression and insomnia travel in the same pack as low libido may lead us to some relief. If you are experiencing this little triad – with or without a drop in libido -- check with your doc. Successfully treating one worrisome symptom may lighten the others.

Photo: Stockbyte/Getty Images

One of the most distressing menopause symptoms that women report is anxiety (you can check the forum if you want the gory details). A study comparing neroli aromatherapy and Xanax to a no-treatment control group showed that both the aromatherapy group and the Xanax group showed significantly less anxiety than the controls. Unfortunately the test subjects were not menopausal women but gerbils, so how far the results can be applied to your own symptoms is still up in the air. Let’s hope they repeat the experiment – well maybe not that forced swimming task – with menopausal women.

Neroli oil is made from the blossoms of the bitter orange tree, and is used in many perfumes. It is available as an essential oil and 3 or 4 drops can be mixed with a cup of sweet almond or wheat germ oil to make an aromatherapy treatment. (The mixture should be diluted by half for a child or pregnant woman.) Or, as recommended by Cathy Wong, the About.com guide to alternative medicine, you can make a room spray by mixing neroli and lavender and spritzing it in the air. Not a bad idea for your cubicle at work, either.

The great thing about this research is that it is happening at all. Collecting evidence on the natural coping supports available to us makes it possible to manage symptoms without prescription medications or hormones. What harm in trying something as lovely and sensual as aromatherapy? Heck, it’s even recommended for canine types, so put your feet up, invite the pup, and take a deep, deep breath.

Adding to the speculation about the benefit of estrogen therapy, a study published in the British Medical Journal this week tells us that even when started well after menopause, combined hormone therapy can improve the quality of life for women with certain symptoms. The most improvement was in hot flashes, sleep quality and sexual function. Women also noticed less body pain after starting the hormones.

This is not exactly news for women who have found relief with hormone therapy. I know women who would break the arm of any doctor who tried to talk them out of using estrogen. I also know women who stopped taking it immediately when the Women's Health Initiative study showed an increased risk of stroke and breast cancer for women taking combined hormone therapy. The question has never been, "Does it help?" but rather, "Is it worth the risk?"

This new study out of Australia is yet another piece of the puzzle, and probably will not change any of the current recommendations. What it does underline is the need to consider each woman individually and plan treatment based on her unique set of symptoms and risk factors. If hot flashes, insomnia and vaginal dryness are making her life miserable, and if she is not at particular risk for a blood clot or breast cancer, hormone therapy may be worth a try.

Some of the side effects suffered by women in the Australian study, such as breast tenderness and vaginal discharge, are common with estrogen therapy. Since the dose used in the study was on the high side, and was not adjusted for each participant, it is possible that side effects could be minimized by adjusting the dose and type of hormone therapy depending on each woman's response.

The study also makes it obvious that we need good research on various dosages, various ages, and various types of hormone therapy. It would be nice to know about low dose therapy for women at each stage of the menopause transition. And what are the risks of the patch as compared to oral estrogens? Are bioidenticals as risky as conjugated estrogens? I'd like to see a dollar of research funding for every hot flash suffered. Now there's a proposal for the NIH.