Now that we are acquainted… Here we go with our first newsletter to all of you who came to our seminar. We also welcome those who have elected to become members through the website and we hope that you will find facts and help and interesting things hereon this Members Only Area site.
This is the first Members’ Newsletter and the idea is to welcome you to the exclusive Members’ Area so that you can gain all the benefits that we want to give you and enjoy being part of our ‘family’!
There is so much to tell you about this phase of your life and so much to enjoy when you gain control of the hormones, and the family, and the sex drive comes back and…. Well, you get the drift!
Drugs Or No Drugs?
There are still a large number of women confused about what drugs they should or should not be taking during menopause. There has been so much publicity about the ‘bad’ hormones and the ‘natural’ hormones and the effects of taking this or that, so it’s no wonder that you may be confused.
My job is to help women to understand what is going on and to help them through a difficult time with as natural an approach as possible. Sometimes your naturopath may suggest herbs to make things easier and sometimes those herbs may not be enough. So where do you go then? Is it really necessary to have to take the drugs that have been questioned for so long?
No! You Don’t Have To Take The Drugs That Have Been A Worry
I know, because when I first went through menopausal symptoms I was unaware of the natural hormone approach and my symptoms were not controlled by the herbs. So I had to resort to taking the usual prescription items that all the fuss was about. I know that every night as I put that tablet in my mouth I sent up a silent prayer that it would not do me any harm as I still had kids to raise! That kind of fear can be paralysing and destructive!
There is a set of 7 hormones that need to be watched.
- DHEA
- LH
- FSH
- Oestradiol
- Progesterone
- Testosterone
- SHBG
Two of them can be let go if they are normal at the first reading, ie LH and SHBG as it is the others that have the greatest effect on symptoms.
At my seminars I give examples of the optimal levels for these hormones but I emphasise that they should be measured every 3-6 months during the active years of menopause years as the body does continue changing, sometimes quite dramatically!
As Members, you will be able to access the parts of the seminar tapes that deal with these levels and then maybe you can come to the next seminar and hear for yourself how to manage these years.
The Amazing Orange!
Just in passing the other day I came across some research that might help you when you think about your diet and what you should be eating, drinking etc.
We know that diet contributes to intestinal malfunction and that some of the damage to your digestion is done by high fat and high carb diets, the typical fast foods. It is now shown that such damage can be avoided by drinking orange juice with the meal! I’m all for easy, natural help that we can do for ourselves, so read on…
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in March 2010 reported on a trial where a fast-food diet was administered to volunteers who later developed problems related to interference with insulin and development of endotoxins. The volunteers were given either water, glucose and water or orange juice to drink. The first two groups showed damage and inflammation after the meals but the orange juice group did not! Also the orange juice group had more stable blood sugar levels. Well, well!
5-Minutes Peace Series
As some of you will know, I have been working on a series of guided mediations for some time. The series takes only 5 minutes for each one and they are designed for various situations that we all encounter from time to time. Sometimes you just want a problem to “Go Away!” so you can get 5 minutes peace! This is especially true of menopause since it is a time when we feel we have very little energy or time left over for ourselves. So these are designed for use on the train, in the car (if you’re not driving!) or late at night before you go to bed. Of course they can be used anywhere, even if it requires a trip to the loo to get away from everyone!
This is the first release of the series and it is designed to help you understand firstly HOW to meditate for just 5 minutes a day, whenever you need that little break that keeps you sane. You should try to get away from noise and stress.
Download Audio For iPod
You can download the text or the audio and transfer it to your iPod so it can be in your ear wherever you are.
- The first is – How to Meditate for 5 Minutes
- and the second is – 5 Minutes Peace to Make a Wish Come True
There will be several others following in the series so keep a watch in the Members’ Site as you will get advance notice there of their release. Enjoy!!
Calcium and Vitamin D
Gee, there is a lot going on now with Vitamin D and calcium. We all know that calcium levels need to be kept up to avoid fractures of bones as women age. We try very hard to avoid osteoporosis and have bone density screening done every couple of years. Vitamin D is also part of the bone metabolism system and it has widely been advised that women should increase their Vitamin D levels to improve their bones. But recently it has been reported that high dose of Vitamin D can itself lead to an increased risk of falls!
Is nothing certain in this world of menopause? Surely we think we’re doing the right thing and then we are told that what we believed before is wrong and we have to start again!
The advice now on Vitamin D is to take 1000-2000 units per day if your levels are low. So that means they have to be measured (Guess what? I will soon be known as Measure-it Maura!) We should aim now for blood levels of 25 hydroxyvitamin D of 50-100 nmol/L. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Take it to your doctor and ask for your vitamin D levels to be measured please and compare.
By the way, the easy way I have been checking for osteoporosis for years has been by chest xray. And now, wait for it, wait for it…. The powers that be think that chest xray could be a cost effective way to check for osteoporosis!! Well, I’ll be darned! What a surprise. Not.
My Friend Anna And Her Osteoporosis
I have known Anna for a long time. She was well over 60 when I first met her and she had on-going hormonal symptoms as she was one of the unlucky ones with a prolonged menopause. As it happened, I first saw her after a fall and we thought she had broken ribs. So I did an Xray of her chest and although there were no broken ribs, she did have a “compression fracture” of one of her thoracic vertebras. This was not a new break and I felt she had early osteoporosis, which can cause the vertebras to ‘collapse’ on themselves and become wedge shaped. On top of that she told me her mother had been a very bent over old lady in her later years and she did not want to end up the same way.
She was taking calcium already so I did two more things:
- I told her to be sure to get the calcium tablets that had magnesium as well, since calcium alone is not absorbed properly; and
- I had her hormone levels done.
At the age of 60+ I did not expect her to have much in the way of circulating hormones, and of course she had hardly any, which is normal at that age. But I then started her on cream containing progesterone to help her build new bone.
Fast forward to 3 years ago and I had by then moved to Queensland and apart from an occasional email I have not heard from Anna, until she was travelling and dropped in to see me. She told me she had been for a bone density assessment recently and was told that she had “great bones”!! Hooray! But I am certain that she would have gone downhill if she had not had the progesterone.
It has been the received wisdom from the medical profession that oestrogen has an effect to preserve bone. And indeed it does reduce the re-absorption of old bone by osteoCLASTS so that the bone cells stay in place for longer. But oestrogen does nothing for the laying down of new bone, which is a function of cells called osteoBLASTS. These cells are increased by progesterone! But blow me down if you can get some of the clinical practitioners to agree.
The important thing is, take the calcium, and the Fosamax or Actonel etc, but also try and find someone who can give you some progesterone, and then you can feel you are doing all you can to help yourself.
Low libido
Wow! The recent edition of the medical newspaper Medical Observer reports that “low sexual desire is common among women”.
And This Is NEWS?? Where Have They Been?
The planet is full of women who have been complaining about their low sex drive for DECADES! I am staggered at the fact that newssheets only now are prepared to report this sort of fact. Of course one of the problems is that women have not had a voice until the female revolution and the Pill came along. Now at least we have a name for it (libido) whereas my poor mother’s generation had to use euphemisms like “that side of marriage” and “ my husband’s needs”, as if they didn’t have some of their own! It was really frowned on for a girl to want to have a normal sexual appetite during the 50s and 60s and a girl was thought to be really fast if she came on to her husband, never mind her boyfriend. Thankfully those days are gone and women are keen to show their appreciation of a good sexual relationship, long into their 70s and 80s if possible.
Problem:
The old style response to a woman who did not appear to have much sexual appetite in the menopausal years was to slap her on some testosterone and hope for the best. No measuring, no monitoring, just “how is it going” when she went back to the doctor. Need some more? Cool, just another script, or maybe even a long-lasting injection. I know one 30+ married woman with 4 kids who was given Depot Synacthen to improve her sex drive. This is an injection of male hormone which is designed to last a month and which is usually given to older men with low testosterone (I bet they measured the men’s levels) or young men with little testicular function. The poor girl that had the injection was ripping the clothes off her husband (wonderful) but developed a deep voice and hairs on her nipples (not so great).
Testosterone in women has its place. A little goes a long way. The serum total testosterone level can sit around 2-3 without a problem and most women are better off with those levels instead of the 0.5-1.5 that is more common. But if the precursor DHEA is low, I find it better to give that than testosterone as the body can refine how much its needs from time to time. Once the real testosterone is in there, the body can do little about it if the dose is too high.
Hormone Profiling
Those of you who came to my seminar know that I am very keen on getting the hormone levels done every 3-6 months during the early menopause so that we can monitor the levels as they change naturally, often from month to month.
I will be setting out the levels of some interesting patients (with their permission) to show you how the levels vary from time to time and how they can be brought back into line easily.
Health Tracking Device
On the open website you can download a Health Tracking Device. This is a form designed to be printed off and kept in the front of your calendar each year so that you can add to it the dates of any of the relevant tests.
There are really 4 organs that you have to keep track of: uterus and cervix, ovaries, and breasts . If you keep with you the dates that each of these are checked, then you can go happily forward knowing that you have done your best.
Patients often ask me what will they do if they find…so-and- so. I tell them “Don’t meet the devil half way”! Trouble has no problem in finding us, so don’t make it easy by going there when you don’t have to! Take reasonable care, do what is required, and leave it to the Universe to fix it!
Reading List Addition
The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton Ph D
This book is really interesting. It takes the reader through some of the cell chemistry and shows how the chemistry of cells is altered by the metabolism of thought and therefore the response of cells to thoughts is really different, depending on the thought! What we have always believed is true! Thoughts DO have a reality that allows us to create our own world.
The book is well written and tries to be easy to read, even though the amount of technical detail is inescapable (and far too long ago for me to recall here in detail) but still the book communicates the excitement of the author and the subject, making it very digestible. I highly recommend it, for information and to stimulate the challenging of thinking patterns that we have used as the basis of our previous beliefs. I particularly like the idea that the brains of the cell are actually in the cell wall whereas the nucleus, which holds the DNA for future generations is really only the gonads!
More ‘digests’ of interesting books coming soon to a website near you… why, Right here!
