Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones (13 page)

Take perimenopause seriously!

The good news is that bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can rectify the entire scenario of perimenopause. It’s a little tricky and will need constant tweaking from your doctor because of your surging hormones. But a good, qualified doctor will know how to handle this. Stress will change your hormone levels, and the fact that the surges come and go will change your hormone levels. This is the exciting part of this new medicine, however. When you are working with your doctor to balance your hormones during this tricky phase, you should call when you have even the smallest symptom, because every symptom is an indicator that things are not in balance … and balance is the goal.

M
ENOPAUSE

Actually, menopause should be called egglessness! You’re out of eggs! Once you hit menopause, you’re in serious hormone decline. Hormone decline is exactly that: a decline
in you
. You cease to be the vital, vibrant person you have been. It’s as though your soul gets sucked out. Women start to experience a variety of symptoms—if you have read
The Sexy Years
, then you know I call them “the seven dwarfs of menopause”: Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Sleepy, Bloated, Forgetful, and All-Dried-Up.

When all seven dwarfs (or even a few of them) come knocking on your door, it takes away your quality of life. But that’s not all. Have you ever wondered what is going on inside you as your hormones are draining out? That’s the scary part. Symptoms are only one part of this scenario—the big problem is that you don’t feel the effects of internal hormone loss and the havoc it is beginning to wreak on your heart and other bodily systems until much later. There is no way to know if a cancer is forming in your breast, or lung, or brain, or ovaries.

Every woman experiences this passage differently. Some have an easier time than others, but I have noticed—and this is my own unscientific observation—that high-powered successful women often
have a harder time of it than others, although there are always exceptions. I know of one woman, for example, who was a major player in the fashion world. Internationally known and respected, she was at the top of her game, with her designs in all the major fashion magazines. Then menopause hit. This woman “took to her bed,” as they say in the South—and I mean
literally
. She doesn’t come out of her bedroom. She doesn’t bathe. She doesn’t fix her hair or put on makeup, whereas she used to wear the most beautiful fashion makeup. She has gained a tremendous amount of weight. She is depressed and angry. She yells at her husband as though he’s the cause of all her problems. This behavior has gone on for a number of years, and now her husband is leaving her for a younger woman. I don’t believe they would have ever broken up had this not happened. I used to see them all the time, and they were in sync, happy, and creative together.

I feel so bad for her because it was all caused by a lack of understanding of the hormonal system, ignorance on the part of her doctor, and her inability to talk about her problems with someone who could have steered her to the proper doctor. Unfortunately, after a while a woman like this who doesn’t get a handle on her hormone problems becomes too difficult for others to be around. That’s the lonely part.

When I was a girl, women were routinely sent away to sanitariums “for their own good” when these violent reactions to hormonal loss occurred. Just think of all the poor women who were “put away” because of menopause and the lack of understanding. They were drugged, and most of them never came out. This is a big part of why our mothers never spoke to us about this passage. They didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that they could no longer sleep, that they were depressed, and that their insides were screaming to be heard. They remained silent, because to be vocal could mean you’d end up in the loony bin; so they “toughed it out.” Women of my mother’s era got fat and lost their shape, they accepted their sexless lives, and they all lived in a place of silent desperation … just getting through each day the best they could.

A woman who is having a violent reaction to loss of hormones can become truly suicidal, or worse—she can even kill another human being. It happens. Look at Andrea Yates. She killed her five
children. Perhaps it was schizophrenia, or another mental illness, or the tremendous hormonal drain of progesterone after five babies that created her delusions. If her doctors had been more in tune and understood hormones and their effects, they might have blood tested her; and if, in fact, it was low progesterone, they might have been able to save the lives of those children by putting this woman on hormone replacement until she normalized. I know this is an extreme example, but our bodies do respond in dramatic ways to hormonal change during and after pregnacy, perimenopause, and menopause. This is a tough passage, and women need help, but so far it hasn’t been there for them. The times, they are a-changin’, though. We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it anymore!

Yes, I realize there will always be the woman who sails through menopause and hardly notices it. I have a hard time believing that, but let’s say that woman exists here and there. They are the exceptions, and most likely these are women who have high human growth hormone levels for longer. You learned all about this remarkable hormone in the previous chapter. The rest of us have to white-knuckle this passage without assistance. Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can make menopause the best time of your life. I know because I am living it.

In my search to get to the bottom of this very difficult passage called menopause, bioidentical hormone replace therapy came like a godsend to me. For the first time in my adult life, I was truly balanced. When your body is working at optimum, the internal concert sings in tune. You can feel it, and once you have felt this way, nothing else will do. We have come to accept the aches and pains and illnesses and stiffness as part and parcel of aging. But we don’t have to.

Once you understand the benefits of restoring your body to its healthiest prime through balance, I can’t imagine you won’t want to go the bioidentical way. While you get to feel good again, BHRT also heads off disease at the pass. It’s such a blessing. So many women have accepted the decline in quality of life as unchangeable, and that is extremely sad. Their emotions and bodies are out of control, and they learn to white-knuckle each day. Life is not meant to be endured;
it is to be enjoyed. But how can you enjoy it when you feel awful all the time?

Hormone replacement is really pretty simple; unfortunately, the medical community is still having trouble grasping it. The good news is that, as outlined in this book, many, many doctors are now beginning to get an understanding, and some of them are in full grasp of the necessity to replace what has been lost in the aging process. What a difference this will make in your life! All the feelings of loss of control over your body will dissipate when you are back in balance. As Dr. C. W. Randolph Jr. points out in his book
Hormone Hell, Hormone Well:
“If you replace what is missing, your body will work better.” It’s that simple.

As time goes by, you will be able to understand your own hormonal needs, and your doctor will encourage you to dose up your estrogen a little or lower your progesterone or other variants. You will figure out what your body needs through trial and error. I know that I need massive amounts of estrogen to feel good and be in a happy mood. My body doesn’t like a lot of progesterone. It has taken me quite a while to figure out my “needs,” but now that I have, I am not so reliant on my doctor. This is a good thing.

The more self-reliant you become, the easier it is to take care of yourself. Once I found the right balance for me, it was bliss. It still needs adjusting from time to time, depending upon my stress levels. That’s just the way it is. Hormones fluctuate all the time. That is why the “one pill fits all” theory of synthetic hormones was such a joke. No woman’s needs are the same as another’s, and no woman takes the same amount all the time. Even when you find your blissful dosage, a world event like 9/11 will upset your balance, and you will have to be readjusted. A near miss in a car will change your needs, as will an argument with your partner. Usually in a daily routine, when one of these crises dissipates, your hormones will settle down; but something like the death of a loved one will change your needs significantly.

No matter what is going on in their day-to-day lives, women are desperate for answers and solutions. For the first time, their doctors
have lost a little of their luster. Whereas we used to listen to and respect everything told us by our family physician, now we stand back and question, or at least we should. Too many of us have been patted on the back and told to be good girls and take our pharmaceuticals. When we complain of depression and weepiness, we are given a prescription for an antidepressant. It shuts us up and gives our doctors a solution. They are, after all, very good people who want to help us. But antidepressants are not the answer for menopause. Once doctors understand this, we will all be better off. The answer is hormone balance, and it is worth it for you, the patient, to be patient and do the work to get the balance just right for your needs. Once you are in balance, you won’t be depressed.

Those doctors who “get it” know that the answer lies in bioidentical hormones. Yet despite the fact that there is sound scientific research and clinical data to support the safety and efficacy of bioidenticals, this option for hormone replacement is still not widely acknowledged as a safe and effective alternative treatment. Fortunately, there are several studies ongoing at the moment.

The Women’s Health Initiative cost the medical community the faith of many women. Gone is the absolute trust we once had in our doctors. As with all negatives, maybe this ultimately will be a good thing. By losing faith in our doctors, women have been forced to be proactive about their health. We have been forced to find new cutting-edge doctors. We have been forced to understand that different doctors have different areas of specialization, and just as the “one pill fits all” therapy no longer flies, the one-stop doctor is no longer viable. For hormones, you want a doctor who has chosen to specialize in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Ask the doctor whether he or she prescribes BHRT; if the answer is no, move on. This is your life. This is your quality of life. The longer you wait, the more trouble you will be in. It’s not a game; these are not passages to “tough out.” By not replacing the lost hormones, you are signaling your body to wind down and age faster. Even if that doesn’t bother you, understand that the “winding down” is going to be uncomfortable, painful, and lonely, and ultimately you will probably be very sick. But if you choose bioidentical hormones, plus a healthy lifestyle to support your quality
of life, you’ll be bursting with youthful energy and a great quality of life.

COMPOUNDING PHARMACIES

Compounding pharmacies are the best source for finding a doctor who specializes in bioidentical hormones. So many women write to me that there is not a doctor in their area who understands this way of treating BHRT. Your compounding pharmacy is where a doctor in your area will call to fill prescriptions. Usually your local pharmacist will be able to assist you in finding a doctor who understands real bioidentical hormone replacement.

As with so many things in life, it is important to understand that there are “cooks” and then there are “chefs.” Likewise, some compounding pharmacists are better than others. To find a certified pharmacist near your home, access the following website:
www.iacprx.org
. Or contact the Menopause Institute at (877) 5menopause or
www.menopauseinstitute.com
.

CHAPTER 4
E
FFECTS OF
A
GING

The nice thing about being senile is that you can hide your own Easter eggs.

W
e weren’t expected to live this long. Seventy-five years ago, we did not have access to the technology we have today. Seventy-five years ago, sewage was a problem and antibiotics were not available. Surgery had not advanced to the point it has today. Seventy-five years ago, women routinely died at age forty and forty-five. Why? Because our purpose (biologically) as part of the human species is to reproduce.

Up until recently, women lived through their reproductive years and bore their children; then, as the internal hormonal faucets turned off after their childbearing years, so too did the internal protection that the hormones provided. That factor alone began to allow the diseases to take hold that are now taken for granted as diseases of aging: high blood pressure, angina, diabetes, heart problems and heart disease, arthritis, allergies, joint pain, senility that was a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease, and, of course, cancer. Senility in particular was always seen as a part of aging. We all had our senile old aunts and uncles, and we accepted it, because we never realized that replacing estrogen and human growth hormone just might be the answer to keep our memories intact—and perhaps, as some researchers now suspect, the best way to ward off Alzheimer’s disease. The bottom
line is that all these diseases were simply not as prevalent then as they are today for the simple reason that we are living longer.

From the age of twenty-five, we all begin to experience gradual declines in our hormone production, causing a slowing down or decline in many of our normal bodily functions. If your hormones are not functioning properly, are unbalanced, or have been affected in any way, you may suffer some form of illness associated with aging. In fact, one of the diseases that can come from hormonal imbalance is breast cancer, which is now considered an epidemic. Many doctors and researchers feel that it has much to do with the chemicalization of women of our generation. We are the sickest women on the planet in this country, probably because of the amount of chemicals we knowingly and unknowingly ingest and the poor diets consumed by most Americans.