FAQ and Welcome Message 4/11/07

Posted today by FurPaw

Welcome to alt.support.menopause (a.s.m.), the newsgroup for
discussion of issues relating to a woman's midlife passage.

If perimenopause (a term meaning "around the menopause," or more
generally the period of time and collection of changes in our
bodies leading up to the end of menstruation and our reproductive
years) is new to you, you're likely to have a lot of questions.
Over the months we've gathered a collection of links to online
resources that we find helpful as we come to understand
these changes and how to accommodate them. (We call this Land o'
Links.) This list of links is accessible from this web site and from

http://menopause.tripod.com

Be sure to explore the "general menopause" sites, many of which
have sections on hormone therapy, hot flashes, heavy bleeding,
and other specific topics -- in the interests of brevity, the
URLs are sometimes not repeated in the lists on specific topics.
We encourage you to take special note of the Menopause & Beyond site

http://www.geocities.com/menobeyond

which includes classic postings from many current and past a.s.m.
regulars in addition to excerpts from and links to important
medical sites. Check the "general menopause" section for links to
reading lists, too, if you'd prefer a book to a web site.

If you are surgically menopausal, or considering hysterectomy,
you might wish to visit this site:

http://www.hystersisters.com/

a site devoted to the special concerns of "surgipausal" women.

If you're under the age of 40 and have ceased to have periods,
you may want to look further into Premature Ovarian Failure as
some of the causes require medical supervision.

http://www.pofsupport.org/

New participants will see frequent references to the WHI (Women's
Health Initiative).

You can read about it here:

http://www.whi.org/findings

The update of the CEE (Conjugated Equine Estrogens) arm of the
study for women who'd had a hysterectomy, which ended March of
2004, can be found here:

http://www.whi.org/updates/update_hrt2004.php

The "fact sheet" on postmenopausal hormone therapy can be read here:

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/women/pht_facts.htm

NIH consensus and state-of-the-science statement regarding
management of menopausal symptoms:

http://consensus.nih.gov/ta/025/meno...nal_052505.htm

Newsgroups whose names begin with "alt." occasionally suffer from
postings not being distributed to all servers. If you think
you've come in at the middle of a conversation, you may be
missing some postings. The Usenet archives have been acquired by
Google, the search engine people. You can search
alt.support.menopause by topics, keywords, date and other fields
using the advanced search tool at

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search

This is a handy tool for researching a good number of topics
discussed on the newsgroup, as well. You also need to be aware of
privacy issues on the Internet. One of our former regulars wrote
an excellent cautionary introduction, which can be found at

http://menopause.tripod.com/robert/privacy.htm

(If you're not familiar with newsgroups generally, please visit
the collection of "netiquette" links on site

http://members.tripod.com/menopause/#netiquette

and be sure to learn about groups.google.com , in which all of
your posts will be archived and publicly accessible unless you
include special information to the contrary in the header.)

And lest anyone think that creativity diminishes when menopause
hits, here is a link to the Menopausal Woman Art Gallery:

http://www.menopause-metamorphosis.c...rt_Gallery.htm

Many of us feel strongly about menopausal issues and related
topics such as marketing meno remedies on this newsgroup. Like
most newsgroups, a.s.m. occasionally has some very heated
arguments. But don't worry: the regulars are always ready to
answer your specific questions, based on what we've read
in the literature or on the newsgroup, or on our own personal
experiences.

We do not tolerate ads and posts promoting items for sale - if
the sale of such is likely to benefit the person posting. If you
feel strongly about a product that has been helpful to you,
please include a disclaimer in your post stating that you have no
financial interest in the product. If you don't include such a
disclaimer, you may find that you have been reported to your ISP
with a request to close your account. It is only by being
vigilant that we have managed to keep asm relatively free of
advertising over the years.

So, please don't be shy -- jump in and ask questions. We may
refer you to a book or web site if we know the information is
there, or we may ask you to share additional information. Most of
us aren't medical professionals, so you should take our advice
exactly as seriously as you'd take the advice of a helpful
stranger sitting next to you on a bus. You'll still need to
investigate our opinions and make up your own mind -- but we can
at least offer suggestions and points of view.

Most of us also enjoy discussing topics relating to the broader
issues of being middle-aged women, such as taking a good look at
our self-image and deciding whether perhaps we're too hard on
ourselves. (We do, however, try to remember to change Subject:
lines when a discussion drifts too far off its original topic.)
We also encourage a degree of banter and chitchat which, as one
regular put it, "is supportive, to me, seeing other women
walking bravely, even zestfully, towards what can be a very
uncertain, scary future."

On behalf of other regulars at a.s.m., we hope that -- one way or
another -- you find the information, support, and encouragement
you're looking for.


And... alt.support.menopause has a Frappr group! Go see what we
look like:

http://www.frappr.com/altsupportmenopause

Newcomers are welcome to join the rogue's gallery!


[Posted every few weeks -- more often when the signal to noise
ratio is especially bad.]

--
To reply, unleash the dog.