Stay In Your Body

June 19th, 2010

I went through a seven day process to train as a White Belt in NIA dance a couple of weeks ago. It was intense! We were moving for a large part of the day and learning some pretty esoteric stuff about music and movement as well.

It was also an intense self-learning time as we all saw our tendencies in movement come up time and again. We got our buttons pushed in ways that we protect ourselves from in our normal lives. Most humans move within a certain chosen restricted range and we spend a lot of time in our heads instead of our bodies. The more time we can spend actually feeling at home in our body the easier it will be to adjust to the ebb and flow of our lives. As my first transformational teacher said back in the ’70’s, “Our heads and minds are the last to KNOW anything”.

One thing that came up in the sharing was that three of us had been short-sighted as children and that had not been recognized by adults around us for a long time. We had all chosen to adapt in different ways to not being able to see clearly but it clearly isolated all three of us and caused us to become introverts. I also had a movement pattern of holding my chin up trying to see better which I have not lost to this day, after Rolfing, Feldenkrais training and a zillion other bodywork modalities.

After witnessing this pattern so clearly and having the cause pop up in the general sharing I am able to shift it more easily, in my dance and in my life.

We all have traumas and resistances of various kinds that affect our movement. Recognizing them and releasing them through the dance is a hugely healing part of NIA.

I find that now I am dancing for an hour a day, I am less inclined to enjoy long periods on the computer. I WANT to be in my body again. I think I lost that joy of movement after menopause and after giving up on relationship. Dancing in a group of mostly women is a safe place to explore being in my body more fully.

So this is about me, and about the rediscovery of the joy of being in my body, but it’s also about bones. My bones are so happy that I am moving vigorously every day! I am almost able to back bend to the floor again as I did as a child. When I first wanted to do that a voice in my head said, ” Be careful, what about your bones, what about fractured vertebrae.” Now I get it that my body knows what it can do and what it can’t and I just have to be quiet and listen as I move.

Not everyone has access to NIA dance in their community and hardly anyone has as wonderful a teacher as I have found in Kate, but there are videos available and there are other forms of dance like Zumba, the five rythyms and salsa that are becoming more common across the country. See what you can find.

In my whole life I have never enjoyed working out to the point of sweating, never! I really thought I couldn’t sweat. Now I lie in a soggy puddle on the floor at the end of every class and feel connected to Heaven and Earth through every happy cell in my body.

I feel so blessed that this has come into my life when I am still young enough to enjoy it, in fact, I feel twenty years younger than when I started in February.

So please, get your tushes out of your chairs and tear your eyes away from those addicting screens and join me in the dance of life.

Pam

Posted in About Me, Exercise, NIA dance, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Bone Drugs Linked to Broken Femur

May 4th, 2010

The New York Times had an article on March 24 about bisphosphonate drugs being linked to the snapping of the femur bone in relatively young women.

After 4 years of telling you about the dangers of these bone drugs I’m probably preaching to the choir and I dislike adding to the fear-mongering that is prevalent in health blogs BUT I guess it’s my job to keep you up with the latest news about this.

“The femur bone was snapping like a twig, sometimes splintering. Often there was no trauma, such as a serious fall, to bring it on. And some of the women were younger, in their 50s, with pre-osteoporosis but without the extremely fragile bones of people with the full-blown condition,” says the NYT.

The fractures are highly unusual because they are occurring in the long bone of the thigh, one of the strongest bones of the body, when ordinarily thighbone fractures occur near the hip socket. Further, because this area does not have a rich blood supply, the fractures are difficult to heal.

Bisphosphonate drugs are poison, they are being given out indescriminately to women who don’t need them and the risks are finally becoming obvious in the bodies of women. That last bit was from me, not the NYTimes. ;-) They were only tested for five years and many doctors will only prescribe them for that length of time. Since most hip fractures occur to women over 80, why are young women under 50 being put on these drugs? It doesn’t make sense. Diet, weight-bearing exercise, supplements and bio-identical hormones can all strengthen women’s bones in a way that benefits the whole body and is not poisonous to the system.

So much for the bad news. The good news is that I am totally loving the NIA dance workout that I started in February. It feels as if every cell in my body has benefitted. I am actually going to 6 classes this week, I’m getting totally addicted. It is dance with martial arts and Feldenkrais thrown in and I have an inspired teacher.

For a person who only did the rebounder in 10 minute segments because of my low boredom threshold, it is amazing to be dancing around for an hour without even noticing the time. At yoga I was always looking at the clock. Dancing NIA makes me happy and I feel more creative than I have in years also. I can honestly say I feel twenty years younger.

So find yourself a NIA class; you can do that at nianow.com and strengthen your bones the happy way.

Namaste
Pam

Posted in About Me, Bone Drugs, Exercise, NIA dance, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Older Women and Low Thyroid

February 23rd, 2010

To recap my thyroid challenges for new readers; I was first told I was hypothyroid a few years ago and put on Armour Thyroid. It worked for a while but then my body developed resistance and I researched the reason and found that if your adrenals were low then treating the thyroid would not work. So I went on adrenal meds as well.

I felt better for a time then I got reverse T3 which is an odd thing the body produces from the T4 in Armour and which takes the place of real T3 in the cells so the Armour doesn’t work any more. Your thyroid actually runs on T3, that’s the active component, but most doctors don’t like to give you that, so they give most women Synthroid, a synthetic T4, which is supposed to be converted by your body into T3.  However as you get older your body has a hard time converting T4 to T3.

Anyway I was on T3 (Cytomel) and adrenal meds (Hydrocortisone) both in very small physiological doses, taking them 3 times a day to imitate my own hormone production and it was all working quite well. This was after a lot of research on my part and a lot of resistance on the part of my doctor. Way back there was an unfounded scare that T3 might cause heart problems and they’ve never gotten over it.

Then over a year ago I went on the raw fruit and greens diet and I suddenly didn’t need my meds any more. I was really happy about that and assumed that my body was now able to make anything I needed now I was giving it the right ingredients.

After about 9 months without meds my doc said I was getting low on thyroid again and now I’ve been told that I’m getting really low and I should go back on the T3.

Well, I did realize that it was happening because my energy had plateaued and then lowered but I was still so much more energetic than anyone around me that I was ignoring it. But suddenly, after being too skinny for the last 6 years, I gained 15 lbs in 3 months since Thanksgiving. I had gone off my diet significantly at this time and thought that was the reason but I really didn’t pig out that much. I’m actually happy to have the weight gain but I don’t want too much of a good thing, enough is enough.

Since I believe that my adrenals have really recovered I will not add those meds back at this time. I’ll see how I do on the T3. But here’s the point of this story - a woman called me this week who is 50 lbs overweight, has brain fog, is out of work, and has no energy. When I said that she sounded hypothyroid to me, she said “Oh, no, I’ve been on Synthroid for years.”

Well, hello! she may have been on it for years and it may have worked for her at some point in the beginning but obviously it is not working for her now.  But the TESTS may still indicate that she is low normal and many doctors measure your thyroid by your tests, not by looking at you or by asking how your life is going.

This woman is a walking example of clinically acceptable thyroid function that doesn’t serve her in real life. There is an epidemic of this now according to alternative physicians. It is another example of how making certain numbers ok and other numbers not ok without regard to the patient involved is just crazy making. Just look at all the body types and different genetic heritages you can see out on the street in the US and tell me that they will all need exactly the same amount of anything!

So, here is this woman spending a lot of time lying on the couch remembering when she was fit and healthy and wishing she could be that way again; but she can’t get to healthy from there. She knows there is something wrong, that life isn’t supposed to feel like this. Probably the next thing she’ll be given is a prescription for anti-depressants, that’s the standard of care for post-menopausal women.

If she did the research she could figure it out for herself but with brain fog that is difficult to do. She has put her doctor in the shoes of the authority figure in her life and she’s taking his word for her health. I wanted to tell her to kick him out of those shoes and step up herself to be her own authority on what was right for her. She knows she doesn’t feel good. Well, just read a list of low thyroid symptoms and she’s a fit for most of them. But I can’t tell her that, I’m not a medical professional.

So here I am writing in this blog at midnight because I can’t sleep thinking about all the women who are being short-changed in their lives because of test results that don’t mean diddly-squat. This is the only legitimate way I have of trying to clue women in. We’ve got to take charge of our own health, we’ve got to hang together and share information and tell our stories because they might help just one other person to get free and get healthy.

Ok, I hope I can sleep now.

Namaste, Pam

PS If you want to comment then please email me. I don’t have comments activated here because of spam problems but feel free to email, click on the right side.

Posted in About Me, Adrenal/Thyroid, Lifestyle, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Think of What You WANT, Not What You Don’t Want

February 19th, 2010

I think a key to living a life of joy is to notice our thoughts, especially as we get older. There are so many cultural group-thoughts that are fired at us all day long through the media, other people and our old unexamined beliefs.

In this culture aging is not respected at all and is seen as a downhill path from which there is no escape. Yes, we will get old and die, I’m not arguing with that. What I’m arguing with is the additional piece we’ve added. Now it’s get old, DETERIORATE, and die.

To me that part is unnecessary and can be easily avoided. The trick, according to the Law of Attraction, is to focus on what we DO want and not on what we DON’T want.

In the matter of bones it is entirely clear what the medical emphasis on measuring bones is about. It’s about selling drugs, that don’t help, through fear of the numbers. I can’t tell you how many women call me with their numbers, imagining a catastrophic ending as their bones erode out from under them.

So, it’s a little hard to convince them to turn their backs on the numbers, not to live in fear, and not to push against that negative future. But the real trick, as I said, is to look forward to what we DO WANT.

So how do you want your aging to look? What vision do you have for your future? To have an exciting present we have to have an exciting future to look forward to. When I was 55 and I got sick, I know it was partly because I couldn’t see a way to an exciting future. My second marriage was over and I wasn’t feeling engaged by my work and I couldn’t see anything ahead that was bright and alluring.

Now I have earned my way back to health and I am finally as healthy as I dreamed of being, I am inventing new dreams. Not of finally meeting my soulmate or becoming a millionaire, but of fulfilling my own potential in this lifetime. I have many skills and talents, as do we all, and I want to know when I die that I have used ALL of them to the MAX - and then learned MORE!

So, when I was thinking of what I DO WANT in specifics, I asked my Inner Wisdom to bring me something exciting to do, besides my business and my grandchildren. It brought me this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgfiwVaqNSs  I watched that and I was hooked! Just look at all those powerful older women! I knew immediately that I wanted to go out of this life dancing.

So I found a local group and I went for the third time last night and it was heaven, like coming home. In May I will go for White Belt training and then I will work up through the years ahead to Black Belt. All the women in the video were Black Belts.

So, this is my path, my exciting future. What will yours be? If you are stuck in boring relationships, boring jobs and boring lives then it is time to invent a better future. Start talking with your Inner Being, your connection to Source, and ask for some suggestions. She knows you best, she’s been with you forever and totally loves, accepts and adores you. Ask her for help and then just watch your thoughts during the day. Drop negative thoughts as if they were burning coals and think of your wonderful future instead. That’s the way you can, thought by thought, reinvent yourself.

If you are interested in learning more about the Law of Attraction you can find really good information here - http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/index.php Or buy the latest book, “The Vortex” by Jerry and Esther Hicks.

I’ll keep you posted on my journey to Black Belt because it has everything to do with strong bones and a joyful life.

Posted in About Me, Exercise, Law of Attraction, NIA dance, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Try Rebounding to Improve Bones

January 20th, 2010

The health news today is that the experts have spoken and found that sitting is dangerous for your health. I actually said that in my last blog post. I’m ahead of the experts once again. :-)

They say that sitting for four hours or more tells your genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body to shut down. If you have to sit at a desk or computer for any length of time then get up and walk a little bit every hour or so.

I have long advised people to set the timer so they get up every hour to bounce on a rebounder. Even one minute will get your lymph system flowing and remind your body you are still alive. Two minutes is even better. If you rebounded for two minutes every hour you would be on the way to great health.

In a group of articles, published as a special section of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, Dr. Daniel W. Barry, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, at Denver said “There was a time, not so long ago,” when most researchers assumed “that any and all activity would be beneficial for bone health.”  He is a researcher who has studied the bones of the elderly and of athletes. He had to readjust his research when a group of unexpected findings, some showing that competitive swimmers had lower-than-anticipated bone density, competitive cyclists sometimes had fragile bones and, finally, that weight lifting did not necessarily strengthen bones much. In one representative study from a few years ago, researchers found no significant differences in the spine or neckbone densities of young women who did resistance-style exercise training and a similar group who did not.

“If you stretch bone cells” in a Petri dish, says Alexander G. Robling, an assistant professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology at Indiana University School of Medicine and the author of one of the articles in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, “you have to stretch them so far to get a response that the bone would break.”  So he and many other researchers now maintain that bone receives the message to strengthen itself in response to exercise by a different means. He says that during certain types of exercise, the bone bends, but this doesn’t stretch cells; it squeezes fluids from one part of the bone matrix to another. The extra fluid inspires the cells bathed with it to respond by adding denser bone.

Professor Robling and others say, only certain types of exercise adequately bend bones and move the fluid to the necessary bone cells. An emerging scientific consensus seems to be, he says, that “large forces released in a relatively big burst” like landing on a rebounder are probably crucial. The bone, he says, “needs a loud signal, coming fast.”   For most of us, weight lifting isn’t explosive enough to stimulate such bone bending. Neither is swimming.  Running can be, but the runner has to put up with the continuous shock of the feet hitting a hard surface which could be very damaging.  Although for unknown reasons, running doesn’t seem to stimulate bone building in some people.

Also, as I’ve said in previous posts, too much endurance exercise may reduce bone density.  There are ongoing studies to try to determine why this is but some researchers think it is losing calcium in sweat that robs the bones.

In the meantime, the current state-of-the-science message about exercise and bone building may be, as I’ve said for years, that the best exercise is to simply jump up and down on a rebounder. Rebounding increases the G-Force loading on every cell of the entire body about one hundred times a minute.  That means that every cell; skin, muscle cells, ligaments, cells of vital organs and even the bone cells have to adjust to an increased G-Force.  “Jumping is great and you probably don’t need to do a lot either.”

According to articles on the Reboundair site, where I found a lot of this information, you only have to rebound for twenty minutes a day to get the benefit to your bones. If you did that in small increments throughout the day you would also get your butt out of a chair long enough to prevent giving your body the message that you need a little more personal padding on your seat.

Also rebounding will improve your balance. Most of the time, Dr. Barry says, “fragile bones don’t matter, from a clinical standpoint, if because of better balance you don’t fall down.”

It’s raining like crazy here in California. No walks on the beach this week. If I didn’t have my rebounder I would be going stir-crazy.

Roll up, roll up, get your fresh rebounders here and now. Anyone who buys a rebounder after seeing this article will get a free bottle of pH strips as well (mention the article in the comment section of the shopping cart).

Pam

Posted in Exercise, Lifestyle, Osteo-News, Uncategorized | No Comments »

May 2010 Be Your Best Year Ever

January 1st, 2010

I’m taking stock of the year in general and health in particular and 2009 was a keeper, a very good year for me. After talking at length to a woman on the phone yesterday about bone loss and thyroid/hormone problems I really got the message about what a good place I am in right now. She has all the symptoms that I was dealing with before I got well and as she talked I remembered all the paths I tried back then. Now it is easy to forget that I was ever sick.

Also since I started investigating bone loss about 6 years ago there has been a huge turnaround in the way women think about their bones. Six years ago I was a renegade. Most women still believed that their doctors knew best and took whatever drugs were passed out. Now most women will at least do a google search before they take a new drug or get a diagnosis. They are finding out that there are alternatives to drugs and that drugs are often dangerous to our health.

It has also become common knowledge that statistics are used in a very misleading manner in order to provoke fear in women so they will accept drugs that have been tested improperly for insufficient periods of time.

Dr Susan Brown’s latest newsletter has a good article on misleading bone statistics. Here is a quote, “When it comes to hip fractures, the Surgeon General estimates that only 17% of women over 50 will fracture her hip in her lifetime — a far cry from 50%. Casting this in a more positive light, 83% of American women over 50 will NOT experience a hip fracture! In consideration of those who can see the light better from the shadows, the average age of hip fracture in the US is about 82, whereas the average life expectancy for a woman in the US is around 80 — I think we can all do the math! “

When they say 50% of women over 50 will get a fracture it is like saying that 95% of girls over 5 will get their period. Yes, but not until they are much older. What is great is that this kind of misleading, often-quoted statistic is finally being examined with scepticism, and the truth that drug companies are not really our friends is becoming obvious at last.

I just read something recently about people’s expectations that is interesting also. Most of us do not do anything new and exceptional because we so strongly believe in our own limitations. I know that is true for me! There are certain things I believe I can do and I do them well. There are others, like riding a bike, that I don’t believe I can do so I never try. So I’m thinking of stretching a bit this year, trying some new skills. I haven’t decided what yet.

I truly do believe that we have a lot of negative stereotypes about aging in our culture and we have to let them go and move beyond them into the infinite realm of possibility. If you are a youtube addict there are so many examples of stretching the human envelope there that just blow me away. The latest one is a young guy who taught himself to do incredible tricks with his bike. Within a year there will be dozens of kids all over the world doing the same tricks! It just takes one person to show us the possibilities.

Our human bodies are a miracle and we certainly haven’t reached the limits of their possibilities yet, not by a long shot. So this year I challenge you to look toward what you do want in your life instead of fearing what you don’t want. Whenever fear comes up, distract yourself back into hope. Leave your inner wisdom to figure out the details.

That’s been part of my success story this year. I have learned that struggle is not necessary, nor even helpful. I trusted my inner wisdom to work on my desires for me and bring them into my reality. If that sounds wahwah, I sympathize but it really did work for me.

Blessings on 2010 for anyone reading. I really do intend to have my best year ever this year and I’d love it if you do too.

Pam

Posted in About Me, Bone Drugs, Current Affairs, Lifestyle, Osteo-News, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Drink Water, Breathe and Stay Alkaline

December 17th, 2009

I am doing so well healthwise but I realized that I am not drinking as much water now because it is winter.  A lot of warm or hot drinks like black tea or coffee don’t count for hydration so water is still necessary to keep you healthy. You can have hot water with a squeeze of lemon and then you are getting a little pH correction at the same time.

It’s great how many people are putting out the news about keeping your pH balanced with baking soda now. Dr Mercola had a whole article on it in his newsletter recently. Apparently you can use it to stave off colds or flu by taking half a teaspoon of baking soda in water up to 6 times a day.  Especially the days you go to holiday parties or are around kids who have colds.

Don’t take that quantity for too long, less than a week is best. I have been recommending up to a tablespoon with lemon juice at night before bed to protect your bones for five years now. It seems to work for most people and it is such an easy solution.

One thing that Dr Mercola said is that Arm and Hammer baking soda has aluminum added so buy a brand from the health food store. When I googled this I found a lot of disagreement and the word from the makers of Arm and Hammer is that there is NO aluminum added. However they say that they have not tested their product for aluminum. It seems to me that they would have tested it, don’tcha think!! I would like to find some actual lab tests but there don’t seem to be any. I think that some of the baking soda sources are from aluminum smelters so there may be residual aluminum from that. I will probably continue to use the A and H myself because I hardly ever need to alkalize with my diet but you can buy the aluminum-free baking soda from the health food store.

So, the other thing that would be good to keep in mind at this time of the year is to keep breathing. If you are sitting around on a comfy chair and breathing shallowly most of the day then you will surely get old before your time. That reminds me of my mum saying that if I kept scowling my face would stay like that forever! 

People ask me often if the weight vest compresses the spine but Moshe Feldenkrais said that the spine is in more severe compression while sitting than in any other position. So, no, walking with your spine in it’s natural curve with a vest will not compress your spine but slouching around on a chair will.

Can you tell I’m working up to some good New Year’s Resolutions already? I will have my end of the year report soon as well and I’m doing GREAT!

So have the best holiday season ever and start thinking of what will really bring you JOY in 2010. Whatever it is, you can make it happen.

Blessings,

Pam

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Rant about Allopathic Medicine

September 29th, 2009

Susan Brown’s last newsletter had an article about a woman who followed a doctor’s advice and took every drug in the allopathic arsenal and none of them worked at all. Her bones got worse and worse until her teeth started falling out.

Now I have a woman calling me who has been told by a doctor that on a breast biopsy she has PRE-CANCEROUS cells. She is in her late forties. The doc wants to cut her breast and also the lymph cells under her arm and she has told her it is very urgent and she should not even think of looking into alternatives because there is NO time. This is on PRE-cancerous cells!!

Now the woman can’t sleep with worry, which of course makes everything worse. She is imagining this stuff growing in her breast and creating it with her imagination, instead of creating radiant health.

Cancer is not my interest, I don’t know much about it. I comforted her and told her how to do research to find an alternative, integrative or naturopathic doctor where she lives and she just called me back later and said it was too confusing.

It is confusing! Just try putting ‘cancer cures’ in google and you’d go crazy.  Most have worked on SOME people but many of them are just scams. People put out money for this and that cure until they are picked clean.

I know because I did that for the diabetes and Chronic fatigue. It finally worked because I am feeling better now than I did since before menopause, but it was a long and expensive road. I also didn’t have anyone in my life telling me to just to do what the doctor says, like a good girl.

But allopathic medicine will just use surgery, poisonous drugs and radiation which will shorten most lives enormously. What we really need in this country is an open attitude to ALL ways of curing the body from everyone in the healing field. I am open to radical options like surgery if nothing else can be done and everything has been tried - but as a first resort! NO.

For me the first resort is always to correct the pH balance, then diet, supplements and nutrition, and to connect to a positive and healing  frame of mind. We all heal ourselves with our miraculous minds and bodies.

So I guess I was feeling powerless over this. The woman is far away, has no-one to talk to and doesn’t know what to do. This happens to me a lot because of my website but I’m not allowed to give medical advice.  I’m not an alternative physician and I don’t want the responsibility of someone else’s health and well-being. When it comes down to it we must all be responsible for our own health.

We all have inner guidance and hers is speaking to her right now otherwise they’d be wheeling her into surgery. If she listens to it the right person will pop up on her radar and she will get the right answers for her. Ok, that makes me feel a lot better.

Have a blessed day,
Pam

Posted in Bone Stories, Diet, Osteo-News | No Comments »

Supplements and pH balance

August 26th, 2009

The company that makes the green food that I sell on my site started out with three products; the green food, pH test sticks and drops to put in your water. They have been adding products ever since and now I just got news that they were changing formulations, packaging and names once again to make room for even more products in their arsenal. They want to be the premier company in the growing field of managing your pH balance.

I know that companies in the health field are in business to make money but, the truth is, you affect your pH every time you put something in your mouth. Why take ten different capsules to affect that when your real food is acid-forming?

If you want to eat acid forming foods, or non-foods, all day, then make sure to take the baking soda and lemon juice drink every night before bed so that you will be alkaline while you sleep, the most important time for your bones. That is half or one teaspoon of baking soda, juice of half a lemon and half a glass of water, it will fizz up. That will cost you a few pennies.

When you read some of the supplement companies sites you might wonder how you lived so long without their products. When I was really sick I bought all of that stuff. Anything that promised to make me well, I bought. At one point I was taking handfuls of pills 4 times a day; for detox, for pH, for blood sugar balance, for longevity, etc.etc. Probably half of them worked as promised, the rest were a total waste of money. I was spending between $250-400 a month. Once a weight vest customer asked me to list my supplements and I was too embarassed to do it.

Now I only take B12 once a week, D3, occasional cod liver oil when I remember. I feel healthier than I have in years and I certainly seem to be getting all I need from the raw fruit and greens that I am eating.

I’m not trying to talk anyone into the rawfood diet. I’m just saying that we probably have to take the supplement companies promises with a grain of salt. They are in it for the money. When I talked to the rep about the new green food she urged me to sell ALL their products. Then you could spend $250- a month all in one place  ;-)

I realized that the difference between me and them is that I want to get women OFF the stuff - drugs and supplements- and realizing that they hold their health in their minds and in their nutrition. Of course I’m not going to get rich from that but I really don’t care! Abundance is all in the mind, just like health.

On a personal note; I just finished a new stained glass piece that I’m really pleased with. I’ll put it on the about me page of the site so you can admire it :-)

Enjoy the rest of the Summer,

Pam

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Update on Bio-Identical Hormones

August 6th, 2009

It has been over a year since I gave an update on the bio-identical hormones that I’m taking. I actually looked into having a saliva test done for my adrenals so that I would have some concrete “scientific” results to share, but when I filled out the list of symptoms the only one I had was thin hair and I think I was born with that!

So I decided not to waste the money testing and the results I am telling you are based solely on my feelings and knowledge of my own body.

Since I started the rawfood diet in November 2008 I went off the cortisol for the adrenals and the T3 for the thyroid. My pulse rate dropped from over 100 to about 80. I am now eating some cooked food at dinner, a baked potato or some Ezekial bread with avocado on it, or steamed veggies. Just for the pleasure factor. I think it helps me to be happy with the fruit all day long.

So, the bio-identicals that I am still on are estrogen (2 kinds), progesterone and testosterone. They are all put into one cream that I apply to my arm at night. I tried getting them from many different places, some were over $100- a month, and finally found a great compounding pharmacy online that does the same thing for about $27- a month; lovely, helpful, professional people. http://www.womensinternational.com/

My testing on the last lot of thyroid tests from the doc say that I’m getting lower on thyroid and I do feel a little less energetic than I did when I first went off the drugs. BUT, plenty energetic for my lifestyle still. I’ve finished my house remodel and I’m back to my pretty ordinary life so I have no need of superwoman energy.

I also am thinking so much now about my beliefs and thoughts and feelings and the effect they have on my hormones. I spent a chunk of time with my grandkids this summer and that is always exciting for me so when it was over I was feeling a little bereft and bored. When I worked my way back to being happy I immediately had more energy again.

Now I know the hormone cream is working because I am growing muscle finally with the bodyweight exercises I told you about before. I’m working up to Michelle Obama muscles in my arms! Not quite there yet but I am getting visible muscle. I also woke up with sensual dreams several times in the last few months so the cream is working! I thought I’d give you that information in case you have a significant other in your life :-)

I am perfectly happy with the results of the cream so I won’t worry about increasing or decreasing it at this point. If I do have to take a bit of  T3  for my thyroid at some point then I will. My doc said we’d decide at the next test in 3 months. But you have to remember that lab tests are wrong a lot of the time although doctors believe them like the gospel. Only you know how you feel and that is more important than any test in town.

So, I hit 65 this year and at the moment I am thriving and I really appreciate that my body is working so well and feeling so good. I bought a wetsuit this summer so I could go in the waves and bodysurf with my grandkids. I was actually embarassed at first to put it on. But I got used to it and I loved it. And now I’m looking forward to a trip in the New Year to a place where there is a zip-line. That’s where you sit on this small seat and hang from a wire high in the canopy of a forest and zip along like a monkey. I’ve wanted to do that ever since I first heard about them years ago and now I’m going to.

I think it is important to have something new and exciting in your life to look forward to. It doesn’t have to be big, just a little stretch in any direction can get your creative  juices flowing again. 

 I wish that for all of you who read this,

Blessings, Pam

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