I'm Too Young for This!: The Natural Hormone Solution to Enjoy Perimenopause (16 page)

The body requires seven to eight hours nightly to be healthy, so imagine what I was doing to myself by only sleeping on average four hours nightly. My immune system was shot. Simultaneously, I was doing two different TV series plus traveling on weekends to do my “nightclub” act. Yes, in many ways this was a delicious and amazing experience; but it was also one that kept me and my endorphins revved up till all hours of the morning. I was young I thought. I was in my early forties. I was invincible. But then …

Those are words you never want to hear, but sadly, one out of three of you reading this will hear those words. (According to the American Cancer Society, a woman’s lifetime risk of developing any cancer is 1 in 3, and 1 in 8 for breast cancer.) When I was diagnosed, I decided to change my life. I was going to eat as though my life depended on it. I was going to force myself to sleep eight hours nightly. I was going to balance my hormones with bioidenticals. I was not going to take either pharmaceutical or over-the-counter drugs, so my devotion to the first two promises was essential to my life and being able to survive and live.

Now, I look forward to taking care of myself. I look forward to getting into bed each night. I have shifted my thinking. I slip into those sheets every night, all clean and smelling good, and feel
grateful that I have this chance at restoring and resting my body, the machine that houses
who I am!
The best thing I ever did for myself was relearn to sleep eight hours a night.

I turned my health and life around. So can you, even without such a dire diagnosis. If you follow the above advice, you should be able to get into bed and fall into a deep and restful sleep. The combination of these things will eventually retrain your body to sleep. Soon you will be looking forward to going to bed. I rarely wake up in the middle of the night now, and it has improved my looks, mood, and weight.

Think of me like an older sister or aunt, one who is going to always talk straight to you.

Let me tell you what I know in its simplest form:

This transition will all pass once you get balanced. All will then be right.

Many women in hormonal decline become so unhappy during this passage that they end up destroying what they have worked for all their lives. Don’t let that be you. Here’s some advice, so you don’t go there.

Not sex per se, but intimate time with your partner. Set the table beautifully, put the kids to bed, and make time for your loved one. Include candlelight, a meal made with love, and dessert. How about enjoying a yummy panna cotta with fresh raspberry sauce? Indulge. You spend so much of your life denying. Have some fun. If you are real busy, and the thought of cooking horrifies you, your slow cooker is your friend. Find recipes that you
love (there are so many online) and just put ingredients in the pot early in the morning, turn to low, and eight hours later you have a meal that will elicit raves.

Take time to notice the beautiful flowers, the blooming of the trees. Take walks in the park. Call your parents and tell them you love them. Rekindle old friendships.

I know it’s not always the kindest place to be, but you have the power within you to push away the blues and the anger. You can make your life beautiful. Trust that your life is about to get back on track.

If you truly don’t think you can hold it together at this time, don’t go it alone. Find a good therapist who will help you unravel the layers of your life to allow you to see what you have and who you are more clearly. I have been going to therapy off and on since I was a teen. There’s no shame in taking care of yourself. Don’t buy into that false belief. Biochemically, your hormones are pushing you, and replacement will get you out. But emotionally you need to nurture yourself to bring you all the way home. Tell yourself over and over until you know it, until you truly believe it: you are a wonderful and worthwhile person. You just happen to be a good person who has been going through a difficult time. You’re not alone, and it’s not your fault.

I’ll say it again. We are composed of approximately sixty to ninety trillion cells. Every cell communicates with one another. Each morning (and I never miss doing this) I isolate just “one” of those cells and I tell ‘it’ how grateful I am for my life. I express how grateful I am for the love of my husband, my family, my work, my good health, and that I live in freedom in this great country. I then envision that one cell telling
all
the other cells in the body: “We’re so happy; we are grateful; we are healthy. We have love.” All cells communicate with one another so they all “hear” this daily message. It sounds simple, and maybe even a little unusual, but it is the most gratifying exercise of my day. It changes any bad mood, anxiety, panic, or stress I might be feeling. It only takes a few minutes. All you have to do is close your eyes, and do it. Stand in the morning light if you can as you do, for an added boost. Afterward, I am left for the day feeling happy and upbeat. Try it. It’s magical.

There is so much misinformation put out about hormones. One day headlines in the newspapers praise synthetic hormone replacement therapy (HRT). They proclaim the effectiveness of synthetic HRT in treating heart disease, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s. The next day headlines are screaming that synthetic HRT may not benefit the above conditions and in fact will give you cancer!

The truth is, all hormones are not equal; also, not all hormones are used effectively by doctors to address the many diseases and
conditions people suffer from. Most doctors are not skilled in hormone replacement and fewer still specialize in the use of bioidentical hormones to address the many diseases we face. (This is why the
ForeverHealth.com
network was created so women could have a site to find a qualified, vetted doctor who specializes in BHRT in an area nearest to them.)

First, let’s clear up the confusion regarding synthetic hormones and bioidentical hormones.

The first synthetic hormone, called DES (diethylstilbestrol), was invented in 1938. This pill was a carcinogenic monster of a hormone approved by the FDA in 1941 and given to millions of women from 1940 until it was banned in 1975, when it was proven to cause cervical cancer. From about 1940 to 1970, DES was given to pregnant women in the mistaken belief that it would reduce the risk of pregnancy complications and losses. In 1971, DES was shown to cause a rare vaginal tumor in girls and women who had been exposed to this drug in utero. The FDA subsequently withdrew DES from use in pregnant women. Follow-up studies have indicated DES also has the potential to cause a variety of significant adverse medical complications during the lifetimes of those exposed.

Next, the drug industry invented Premarin, a horse estrogen isolated from the urine of pregnant horses. Its name was derived from “pre” (for pregnant) “mare” (horse). The problem is a horse has at least ten different estrogens, most of which are not common to the human female. But that’s just a minor detail. At least that’s how Pharma seemed to see it and handle it.

Premarin was approved by the FDA in 1942 and became available
to women that year. Premarin has caused an estimated fifteen thousand cases of endometrial cancer during the five-year period between 1971 and 1975 alone. This represents a huge epidemic of serious disease caused as a side effect of a prescription drug (
see
Jick
). You’d think this would put an end to this nasty drug but no. Pharmaceutical companies brought us Prempro as a fix. This time the “prem” was for Premarin and the “pro” for progestin.

The drug industry’s researchers decided that adding to the mix a “fake” progesterone, a synthetic
progestin
, medroxyprogesterone acetate, would rehabilitate Premarin. So instead of a drug that contained only horse estrogen, we now had access to another fake hormone. This was meant to make it more effective and safer, and this combo was meant to prevent endometrial cancer. Again, the FDA approved Prempro, and it was handed out to millions of women.

But uh-oh! Unsurprisingly, there were problems again. Four large-scale studies showed an increase in breast cancer and heart disease from taking this combo pill. Follow-up data from The Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration Project, published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association
in 2000, showed an eightfold increase in breast cancer for estrogen-progestin users (
see
Schairer
)! That was the tip of the iceberg; other studies cited the following:

Prior to the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), it was believed by many in the medical establishment that these hormones would decrease incidences of breast cancer, stroke, pulmonary embolism, colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer, hip fracture, and death due to any cause.

But the results and the actual outcome were astonishing! Researchers saw a

Now what could a woman do?

The findings of the WHI were not news to some in the medical community. In fact, many other studies (including some listed above) had already suggested the negative influences synthetic hormones (commonly called HRT for hormone replacement therapy) had on cardiovascular disease, strokes, blood clots, and cancer.

The information exposed by this study made international headlines. It made such an impact that it had physicians and patients questioning the safety and efficacy of these medications and rushing to get off them.

No wonder women decided to throw away their hormones!

Women felt betrayed, like we drank the Kool-Aid. We trusted,
because after all, Premarin and Prempro had become such a prominent treatment for menopause and osteoporosis in our society. And to make matters worse, many unsuspecting doctors freely gave these drugs to us.

After WHI, women who had taken the synthetic hormones did something unprecedented; realizing that the FDA was not protecting them, they hired lawyers. Over thirteen thousand women have filed cases in court claiming synthetic hormones caused their breast cancer. These cases are slowly working their way through the court system.

What did the drug companies do after this? They kept selling, but attached new warning labels, like this one. This only added to women’s confusion and fear, when looking for a solution to their symptoms: