Can Menopause Cause Nausea?

While many women know that menopause comes with uncomfortable symptoms, the extent and frequency of these symptoms can still be shocking. 

And while symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings are more well-known, ones like nausea are not, leaving many women feeling concerned. The good news is that while nausea during menopause isn’t all that common, it isn’t unheard of, either, and there are simple solutions that can help you feel a lot better. 

But to understand why these solutions work, we need to understand why menopause can cause nausea in the first place. 

Understanding Nausea in Menopause

Of course, we have all felt nausea before, right? It’s that uncomfortable feeling in your stomach that can involve the urge to vomit. 

For some women, menopause can trigger this uncomfortable, nauseous feeling. As for how many women experience nausea during menopause, it’s hard to say. Both studies and patient reports vary in terms of how frequently it’s experienced and the intensity with which it’s experienced. If you do feel like menopause is triggering nausea, though, know that you aren’t imagining things, and you definitely aren’t alone!  

The Role of Decreasing Hormone Levels

Like most symptoms of menopause, the onset of nausea is often due to decreasing hormone levels. While many people think that hormones like estrogen and progesterone just affect the reproductive system, the truth is that hormones can affect many systems within your body, including your vestibular system, which helps you maintain your balance, and your gastrointestinal or GI tract. 

The reduction of estrogen and progesterone during menopause can cause your GI system to slow, and slower digestion, especially of certain foods, can make you feel nauseous. On top of that, they can even affect the balance system within your inner ear, making you dizzy and, therefore, nauseous. 

Hot Flashes and Nausea

For some women, the feeling of nausea during menopause is more constant throughout the day or associated with eating, but for others, hot flashes can trigger a feeling of nausea. This is because sudden changes in body temperature — like a hot flash — have been shown to trigger the autonomic nervous system that controls blood pressure, heart rate, and digestion. This can trigger nausea, though this nausea often subsides as the hot flash subsides.  

The Connection Between Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and Nausea

For many women, the symptoms of menopause can disrupt their day-to-day living. In these cases, hormone replacement therapy or HRT can be a great option to mitigate these disruptive symptoms,, and help them get back to feeling like themselves. 

But HRT is not without any side effects of its own. For some women, HRT can lead to gastrointestinal side effects, which can include diarrhea and (you guessed it!) nausea. When it comes to nausea and HRT, it often comes down to the way estrogen supplements can upset the stomach and even affect your liver enzymes. 

Managing Nausea During Menopause

Whether you think your nausea is connected to a decrease in hormones, hot flashes, or HRT therapy, you probably have the same question, “How do I stop feeling so sick?!”

Luckily, the advice around this is simple and practical, involving common-sense practices like eating smaller, more frequent meals and focusing on hydration. Though most people think about food when it comes to the digestive system, water also plays a very important role¹. 

And when it does come to food, eating a wide variety of foods is good for the microbiome of your gut and your vagina², and a healthy gut microbiome is better able to regulate digestion and prevent nausea. Focus on eating as many whole foods as possible, particularly ones high in probiotics, like yogurt, kefir, sourdough, and kimchi³. Foods high in prebiotics, like leeks, asparagus, soybeans, and oats, provide food for probiotics⁴, making it more likely that they will populate within your gut.

If this advice sounds kind of familiar, that’s because it is! Though menopause is a unique experience, the foods that help manage menopause symptoms are often the same as the foods that help maintain vaginal wellness, and classic natural nausea treatments like ginger, peppermint, and vitamin B6 can be helpful, too. 

Dietary Changes to Alleviate Nausea

Along with increasing your intake of water and whole, probiotic-rich foods, there are certain foods you should avoid if you are struggling with nausea, particularly foods that are overly sugary, greasy, or spicy. Especially as decreasing hormone levels may cause food to move through your GI tract more slowly, these foods can be particularly irritating and more likely to cause nausea than they did pre-menopause. Diets high in sugar can also make you more prone to vaginal infections, especially during menopause. 

If you need help making these dietary changes, talk to your doctor. They likely have a dietitian, nutritionist, or other resource they can direct you to. 

Lifestyle Changes to Manage Hot Flashes and Nausea

If your nausea is directly linked to your hot flashes, you will want to look into how you can reduce the frequency of these hot flashes. You can do this by maintaining a cool environment, especially in the bedroom at night, and dressing in layers that can be easily removed in the event of a sudden temperature change. 

Stress management is also critical when it comes to reducing hot flashes and the nausea that may accompany them. Most people think about how stress affects your brain, but it can also affect your immune system and GI tract. Proven stress management strategies include everything from Tai Chi to yoga to meditation to traditional therapy⁵. 

The Role of Prescription Medications in Managing Nausea

Hopefully, the dietary and lifestyle changes we suggested will help curb your nausea and get you feeling a lot more comfortable. But if they don’t, know that medications are available to help control and manage nausea during menopause, so if you are still struggling, please talk to your doctor to see if these medications are right for you. Though a certain amount of discomfort is normal during menopause, it should never be to the point where it disrupts your life. 

When to Seek Medical Help for Menopause-Related Nausea

Again, while menopause isn’t exactly life’s most enjoyable experience, it should not be a daily struggle. If you feel like you are experiencing persistent or severe nausea that is disrupting your life, or you are frequently vomiting to the point of dehydration, please reach out to your healthcare provider. They will dig a little deeper to see what’s going on, if something else at play, and how to get you feeling better, either through natural remedies or medications. 

Linking Nausea in Menopause to Other Menopausal Symptoms

When talking to your doctor about your nausea, make sure to mention other menopause symptoms you are experiencing, even if you don’t find them particularly disruptive. Menopause symptoms are often interconnected. Dizziness and headaches, for example, can increase your feelings of nausea, and sleep disturbances and anxiety can affect your GI tract, which can bring on nausea. 

Make sure you are giving your doctor the full picture so they can provide more comprehensive care!

Introducing Happy V’s Menopause Relief

While HRT and medications are necessary for many women during menopause, there are effective natural treatments, too, that can help reduce symptoms, including Happy V’s Menopause Relief. Like all Happy V products, our Menopause Relief supplement is doctor-formulated and rooted in science, with every ingredient purposely chosen and clinically proven to support hormonal balance and alleviate menopausal discomforts, including nausea. 

Benefits of Using Happy V’s Menopause Relief

Happy V’s Menopause Relief gets to the root cause of nearly every menopause symptom: hormone imbalance. Ingredients like DIM, Black Cohosh, and our patented Spruce Norway have all been studied for their ability to support estrogen production and metabolism. With hormones back in balance, uncomfortable symptoms like hot flashes, weight gain, mood swings, and nausea begin to subside, leaving you feeling like, well, you again!

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How common is nausea during menopause? 

Nausea is not one of the more common symptoms of menopause, but it is not uncommon either. Both studies and patient reports have widely different figures reagarding the frequency and intensity of nausea during menopause, but your doctor should be familiar enough with it to help you manage it. 

2. Can dietary changes really help with menopausal nausea?

Yes! Changes in hormone levels can affect your gut microbiome and your overall digestion. Foods rich in prebiotics and probiotics can bolster this microbiome and get digestion back on track, which can reduce nausea.