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More than half of the women that discontinued the therapy had a recurrence of menopause symptoms.

They experienced hot flashes and or night sweats.

Not all women experience troublesome symptoms during menopause.

Researchers believe women that took It was found that those women that had the most severe symptoms to start with were more likely to have symptoms return when the therapy ended.

Research is needed to determine the most effective dosages, and if tapering off of the medicine would work.

More than one-third of women who reported symptoms after stopping the therapy were in their 60s and 70s.

That is over 10 years older than the average age of menopause.

Many of the women in the study were able tackle their symptoms with simple lifestyle changes including drinking more fluids, exercising, yoga, meditation, or breathing exercises.

Some showed success by using fans or air conditioners.

Studies have showed limited (if any at all) benefits from natural hormone and herbal therapies.

Women should consult their doctors before beginning or ending such therapies.

When natural levels of estrogen decline, women experience menopause symptoms.

Estrogen replacement therapy has been shown...

Use plummeted after the Women’s Health Initiative released its results.

The long-standing beliefs have been that symptoms subside a few years after women have their last periods and that taking hormones might help women avoid symptoms, although strong scientific evidence about the duration has been lacking, Ockene said.

Researchers, she said, "would have assumed that 5½ years, which is the average length in this study, would have been enough time to see them not return." Smith, of Fitchburg, Mass., said she started having menopausal symptoms at age 49, with hot flashes so severe that they steamed up car windows.

They disappeared during the study.

"Within a month they were back again.

Not quite so bad, but I still wake up at night with a good one," Smith, 73, said recently.

The original study involved 16,600 women ages 50 to 79 who were given Smith was among 8,405 WHI participants surveyed by mail eight to 10 months after the study was halted.

Overall, 21 percent of Ockene said those results suggest that many women on fake pills might have gone through natural menopause during the study but that for th...