I’m on a mission to help educate all my girlfriends (and if you are one of my female patients, then yes, you are my girlfriend) about the very little talked about topic of PeriMenopause/Menopause. My concern is despite having symptoms like hot flashes, sleepless nights, and mood changes there are serious concerns for long term effects from untreated hormone deficiencies such as memory decline, heart disease, osteoporosis, obesity, cancer and much more. And because you're my girlfriend, I would like to share with you a few of my favorite books to help educate you on some of your hormones.
One of my favorite books is HOW TO PREVENT YOUR DOCTOR FROM SLOWLY KILLING YOU: A WOMAN’S HORMONAL HEALTH SURVIVAL by Dr. Angela DeRosa, DO. It’s a bold title and it caught my attention and hopefully catches your's. Dr. DeRosa was 35 when she went into menopause. Medical school = Stress = Negative hormone impact. This makes me think of one of my girlfriends. She was 42, still having regular periods, high stress job, and little to no progesterone. Ladies, your stress is depleting your female hormones. One of progesterone’s benefits is to prevent breast cancer. If you are in PeriMenopause, Progesterone is the first hormone to be depleted. So girlfriends, please get your hormones checked. I digress. Back to Dr. Derosa’s book. Dr. Derosa shares because most medical professionals aren’t properly trained to diagnose they don’t understand the impact on your health. The general public’s medical misperception is that gynecologists are women’s health experts and have all the knowledge on hormonal imbalances. She makes a forward statement that they are not hormone experts, they are surgeons. In this book, she talks about female hormones (Estrogen, Progesterone, and Testosterone) through each of the decades of our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s and touches on thyroid hormones and the hidden negative side effects of birth control pills. She talks about different patient scenarios of how women were misdiagnosed. For instance, a lack of libido was diagnosed for depression and was put on an antidepressant pill and not testosterone. Unfortunately, many antidepressants can make libido worse.
This book has some wit and tells you when you should RUN and find a new healthcare provider. So, after I read this book I want to share with you "just a few remarks" I agree with at the end of her book. If you are still are having a regular period and your provider states it’s not necessary to test your hormones…RUN! Dr. DeRosa said you should ask your provider if they will be ordering of a full thyroid panel and full female hormone panel of TSH, Free T4, Free T3, and reverse T3, estradiol, testosterone, and FSH…If NO…RUN! Another remark in this book was if your starting PeriMenopause, feeling depressed, starting to gain weight, pre-diabetic, rising blood pressure, occasional hot flashes and your provider dismisses it as a part of getting older and just hands you a prescription for a blood pressure pill…RUN! Speaking of pre-diabetic, though not in the book, if your provider does not check for A.M. fasting insulin, I say…RUN!
One of my other favorite books on menopause is Estrogen Matters: Why Taking Hormones in Menopause Can Improve Women’s Well-Being and Lengthen Their Lives-Without Raising the Risk of Breast Cancer. This book is written by Arum Bluming, MD, and Carol Tavris, PhD. Dr Arum Bluming is a medical oncologist. Yes, finally a cancer doctor writing a book on estrogen and encouraging hormone replacement therapy (HRT). He paves a way for women to soar in their health. In this book, the authors write how study after study demonstrates if HRT is started at the onset of menopause, it can reduce menopausal symptoms, reduce the risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, some cancers, and extend a woman’s life.
In this book, I found a familiar dialogue written about common symptoms of PeriMenopause and the routine treatments for them. PeriMenopausal women with heart palpitations will be sent to the cardiologist, aching muscles and joint pain sent to rheumatologist, depression and anxiety to the therapist, psychiatrist or given an antidepressant pill, and insomnia to a sleep disorder clinic or given a sleeping pill.
The author’s talk about risk of HRT. To give you a better understanding of relative risk, they display a chart comparing several risk factors for breast cancer risk. Synthetic hormone replacement Premarin/Progestin (WHI 2002) had a 1.26 Relative Risk associated to breast cancer. While electric-blanket use had 4.90 Relative Risk. To further help you understand relative risk, smoking tobacco associated risk to lung cancer has a relative risk of 26.07.
Enclosed in this book, is a chapter title “Can Breast Cancer Survivors Take Estrogen”. This chapter discusses several studies from around the world with breast cancer survivors trialed with estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) and report study findings lack evidence of detrimental effects and find potential for positive effects of ERT. With knowledge of these findings to be positive effects with ERT with breast cancer patients, as an oncologist, Dr. Avrum then conducted his own ERT trial with breast cancer survivors. Some of Dr. Avrum’s patient’s told him they were angry for wasting so much time feeling miserable and should have started HRT sooner. I personally wish I would have started my progesterone earlier...Finally, I can sleep and my brain fog has lifted. Dr. Avrum also shares how his wife had breast cancer at age 47 and daughter was 35 when she discovered her own breast cancer. When his daughter asked him if she should take HRT, Dr. Avrum told his daughter he could not guarantee the cancer will not come back but if she did not take HRT, it has consequences that she may lose many of the health benefits of HRT. Can you guess what his daughter decided to do? Yes, his daughter decided to take HRT.
I challenge all of my girlfriends to stop, deep breathe, envision your future health. I want you to educate yourself so that you can take action to be the CEO of your health. Hopefully, some of my favorite books can help guide you to be a CEO of some of your hormones. So, ladies get you hormones tested and let your health soar!
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