Health & Well-Being Pre-Menopause and Beyond

Did you miss the webcast about hormone replacement therapy on Oprah.com with Dr. Christiane Northrup? Well, don’t worry – my personal opinion is that you didn’t miss much, but if you really want to view it, you can go to Oprah.com and scroll down to the bottom of the page to access the webcast.. I had submitted a few email questions when the show was first announced as well on the day of the webcast, and it was all for nothing because most of the questions featured were via telephone or Skype.

The questions posed were some of the first ones that I had when it came to deciding why I should use bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Questions that I now know the basic answers to, but wanted to see what Dr. Northrup’s answer would be – and I also thought they were very useful to women who might be just starting their research into bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

One of my questions was about the hormone testing itself – blood, saliva, or urine? How does each of these tests measure hormone levels? Which test is most accurate? Which test is most costly? When are the tests done and how often? I was surprised to learn that there are vast differences between each method.

Another thing I had asked about was the fact mentioned in Suzanne Somer’s book about still getting a menstrual period while on bioidentical hormone replacement therapy – is this because of the way she is implementing the therapy, or does everyone on bioidentical hormones continue to have a period?

Instead, irrelevant questioning and handholding questions wasted too much time for a short webcast. What I mean by “handholding” questions – women who feel great with no particularly troublesome problems, who are doing all the right things in the way of diet, exercise, supplements, etc. and wanting to know if there is anything else they should be doing. Just looking for a pat on the back if you ask me. If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it. Time was wasted giving “atta-girls” when the purpose of the webcast was to answer real questions and give real information. Or was it to promote Dr. Northrup’s book?

Then there was the call from the 27 year old with an irrelevant question about becoming pregnant – what the heck??? I am sure these questions were prescreened, so why that one got in, I’ll never know.

As women search for more natural solutions to their menopause symptoms, inquiries about bioidentical hormones have been on the rise – and so has the controversy.

HOMECoalition.org has launched a “Take Action” campaign to help the public protest the FDA’s ban on bio-identical estriol. It is an interesting read – you don’t even have to read between the lines to understand what is going on there. It is disheartening to see that once again, it’s all about money, money, money.

Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) is also referred to as human-identical HRT, or natural HRT, depending on the source. Bioidentical hormones are derived from plants and have the same molecular structure of hormones produced by the human body, so they look and act like the hormones that they were made to replace. See my page on Bioidentical Hormones for details.

Bioidentical hormones are custom-tailored to an individual’s specific needs and contain no extra chemicals to hinder their acceptance into the body. For this reason, they cannot be patented – and because they cannot be patented, pharmaceutical companies are not able to profit from them.

The only bad thing that comes from pharmaceutical companies not being able to market bioidentical hormones, is that the power they possess over the medical community (and the public) will not be put to good use. You won’t see any advertising from pharmaceutical manufacturers, no medical education seminars for your OB/GYN, and certainly no public awareness campaigns.

So, how is that a bad thing? Women who may not be very proactive about their health, or who may rely solely on the advice of their gynecologist might never know they have this option.

The Sexy Years came as a complete surprise – certainly not what I had expected when I initially sat down to read it. Suzanne Somers takes a complicated subject and humanizes it with her very personal story, accompanied by information from medical experts she has worked with in her effort to live a hormonally-balanced, vivaciously happy, second-half of life.

Her comical description of the uncomfortable symptoms of menopause – “the Seven Dwarfs of Menopause…Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Sleepy, Bloated, Forgetful and All-Dried-Up” – was an insight to how positively she handles the monkey-wrenches life can throw at you.

Her “take charge” attitude is to be admired when it comes to how she handles the limited choices that are given to women suffering the symptoms of menopause. This book is one of the reasons why there are many women who now know that the one-size-fits-all traditional hormone replacement therapy, which may be the only one recommended by their gynecologist, is not their only option.

She brings to light the fact that many doctors do not know enough about female hormones because they never received adequate training, and therefore urges women to seek out doctors who are knowledgeable on the subject, if their current doctor is not. Many of us already know the reason medications are ‘pushed’ at us (and that’s not just HRT) – it’s the booming pharmaceutical industry.

Parts of the book contains interviews she conducts with her endocrinologist, doctors and well-known specialists in the field of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), where she asks the questions we might ask. In return, there are factual and interesting answers we can understand without getting lost in the medical mumbo-jumbo. It was interesting to read the passages from various women and their choices/experiences with traditional HRT, BHRT and one that used no hormone replacement therapy at all.

As far as the men in our lives, it was not so much of a surprise as to how our changes can affect them; however it was extremely enlightening to learn about the hormonal changes they also experience as they age, which can cause a loss of energy and stamina. They too, have options available to help balance out the changes

If you are looking for a book that explains how bioidentical hormone replacement therapy works in plain English, this is an excellent introduction. If you are familiar with the concept, but are confused about where to start, what doctors to look for, etc. (as I was) – then I highly recommend reading The Sexy Years.