Attitude is Everything .... and so is Hormonal Health! My Story.

One day at a time ... this is enough.  Live in the present and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.

After many years of meditating and often painful self-growth, I now find it easy to be happy (well ....most of the time anyway) and grateful for all the good things in my life and for being who I am.  I am especially grateful for the love in my life and the sheer beauty surrounding me.  I have been truly blessed and I am grateful for the gift of life given to me each day. Every day is full of opportunities and gifts.  I really try hard to focus on the present moment and savour it.  Otherwise it's way too easy to have a head full of "stuff" and sail through life focusing on problems and hassles and losing those special moments along the way when I could have appreciated so many things but didn't.

These moments of true bliss and happiness are often the memories that we will take with us through life.  I know that some of my happiest memories of the past are of moments in time when I truly felt alive and present and blissfully happy. It may have been as simple as sitting on a hill and watching a truly beautiful sunset with a glass of wine or sitting on the beach at sunset with my husband and watching dolphins frolic in the water. Of course when we are talking memories, there are the biggies like my wedding day and the birth of my two children and nothing can ever surpass those, but nevertheless, my little collection of memories of moments of joy and bliss will come with me forever and are infinitely precious and special. 

So that's me.  I love life and enjoy living and try really hard to look after my body and nourish and care for it well.  I'm no saint though and of course, like everyone, I have my good days and my bad days.  My bad days are definitely connected with the way I physically "feel".  It's damn hard to maintain your positivity and uptempo mood if you "feel" terrible physically. I have certainly come to realise that hormonal health is extremely important and comes a close second under "good attitude" in my personal rating of what is needed for a happy and healthy life.

I had years of peri-menopausal symptoms which I eventually managed reasonably well with natural remedies and meditation.  Once menopause fully arrived, however, nothing seemed to help much.  Every day was a battle with non-stop hot flushes accompanied by unbearable feelings of anxiety, stress and exhaustion.  My meditation kept my spirits up and every day as I metitated I saw myself as youthful, healthy and free.  I knew that an answer would come and I never gave up trying new things. Eventually I was lead to read two of Suzanne Somers' books.  These books introduced me to the concept of Bioidentical hormones.

Before reading these books my knowledge of hormones had been quite limited.  I had heard bad reports about HRT and I knew that I definitely did not want that for my body but, although I did  hear about BHRT (Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy) a couple of years ago, I was too afraid to go down that path and I had simply discounted it. After all, BHRT is not approved by the Therapeutics Goods Association. I just didn't have enough knowledge at that time to realise how much suffering I could have saved myself.  So I toughed it out.  Ouch!!  I hate to think of all the other women out there, all toughing it out because they do not have the knowledge to make an informed decision about whether to replace and rebalance their hormones with BHRT.

Here's just some of the information that I wasn't aware of until just recently.

• The word "bioidentical" means biologically identical to the hormone, an exact replica of what we make or have made ourselves in our own bodies.  Bioidentical hormones are made from soy, plant and yam extracts and are synthesized in a laboratory to exactly replicate human hormones.  They are natural in that they are made from things found in nature. 
• Hormones such as Premarin, Prempro and Provera (pharmaceutical hormones currently being prescribed by our doctors and approved by the Therapeutics Goods Association) are synthetic - they did not occur in nature.  The molecular structure is different from that of a hormone produced in our own bodies. 

• In 2005, the Fourner Study in the Internation Journal of Cancer followed 54,000 women who were taking bioidentical estrogen and either bioidentical progesterone or progestin.  Progestins are non-bioidentical fake progesterone.  The women taking the bioidentical progesterone had a 10 percent decrease in the risk of breast cancer and the women taking the synthetic progestin had a 40 percent increase in the risk of breast cancer. 
• An extension of this study, published in 2007 in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, looked at 80,000 women.  Those on bioidentical estrogen and progesterone had no increase in the rate of breast cancer, those on an artificial progestin had an increase of 69 percent in the risk of breast cancer.  
• In 2002 the de Lignieres Study from Climacteric also concluded that the risk of breast cancer is not increased with bioidentical hormones but is increased with synthetic progestin.

The evidence is out there but it is outrageous that this information regarding BHRT seems to have been suppressed. Women going through menopause need to know this information so that they can then check it out and make an informed decision.  I certainly did not see BHRT as a safe alternative until I read about these studies.  Why haven't we been told about BHRT which has been used extensively in Europe (particularly France) for at least 20 years? My geuss is that it is because BHRT is not patented and there are no pharmaceutical companies who make big money from them.  However, HRT makes billions for the pharmaceutical companies.  Not hard to understand why they wouldn't want women to have a choice is it?

 Well, back to my story.  After reading the books I mentioned from cover to cover, I instinctively knew that this was the pathway I was meant to follow.  I felt deep within myself that my answer had come. I searched online and found a practitioner who prescribed BHRT and arranged an appointment. A Blood test revealed that my levels of Oestradiol were extremely low and my levels of Progesterone and Testosterone were non-existent. No wonder I felt so bad! The doctor wrote a prescription for BHRT to suit my personal needs and a compounding pharmacy made up the prescription.  I am now about 3 months into my treatment and I am thrilled to be able to say that after about 3 weeks all my hot flushes settled and I am feeling like a normal woman again.

I can now enjoy life like I used to and the feeling of overwhelming joy was so great when my symptoms started abating that it made me realise that  I hadn't been acknowledging to myself how bad these symptoms really were because subconsciously I was "holding on" until I found the answer to the problem. BHRT was that solution for me. It turned my health around again and gave me a fresh start.  For me, Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy has been the missing link in the recovery of my good health.  I thank God daily for leading me to find this information.  Hence I'm passing it on....... I hope someone may read this who really needs a helping hand with their hormones.