I was driving home from my friend Linda’s house (by the way, she is older than me) in this 90-degree heat with my air on 70 (because I don’t like to freeze, especially in summer), when I felt my seat warmer come on. What was so strange about it is that my seat only warms from the seat area, not the back, and that’s where I was feeling the heat. I checked the dial on the dashboard but the knob read 0. Strange. I reached around and felt the seat and it wasn’t hot to the touch. Then I realized the heat I feeling was radiating from the inside of my body, starting from my back and wrapping around my torso, causing me to shake and sweat – and I’m not talking a damp brow, but a sweat that drenched my scalp and clothes before I even pulled into my driveway.

I’ve been blogging about menopause and the risks of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for the law firm long enough to know that my symptoms were frightfully similar to that of a hot flash. But I can’t imagine that I’m old enough to be going through “the change.” A little symptom Googling and I surmised that it could likely have been a low blood sugar issue. My nurse practitioner friend Kathy said it was possible, but more likely I experienced a hot flash. I described a text book case. She said if my mother went through perimenopause at an early age, I likely could as well.

I can’t ask my mother because she’s dead. And thanks to my regular blogging with the law firm, I now am convinced her HRT killed her.

One most often hears of the connection between HRT and breast cancer. In 1991, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute launched the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), a 15-year research program to address the most common causes of death, disability and poor quality of life in postmenopausal women – cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis. WHI consisted of a hormone trial and that is where researchers began to see an alarming trend –women on HRT were at an increased risk of serious health complications, most notably, breast cancer. The link between HRT and breast cancer has spurred numerous lawsuits against the makers of the one-time wildly popular Premarin and Prempro. People don’t hear so much about the uterine cancer risk because it’s a little different.

You can look up the connection between HRT and uterine cancer (also known as endometrial cancer) at the American Cancer Society or the National Institutes of Health and they’ll tell you the same thing – that the risk for endometrial cancer (this affects women who still have their uterus) is more than five times higher in women who take estrogen-only therapy (ERT) compared to estrogen plus progestin (HRT). Thus, women who no longer have a uterus are often prescribed ERT and women with a uterus are given HRT, which does not carry the same risk of endometrial cancer.

Years ago when my mother sat down with her general practitioner and requested help overcoming her symptoms of menopause, her GP gave her a choice – one pill would keep her menstruating, the other would not. She made the obvious choice. Perhaps the GP was unaware of the increased risk of uterine cancer with ERT. Maybe researchers were still combing the data. But the fact remains, my mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. The next three years involved painful surgeries and procedures. The last six months were of excruciating pain.

My OB/GYN dismisses this connection. He says estrogen-receptor positive cancers are usually less aggressive and easier to treat. Sure, some studies show uterine cancer has an 84.4 percent survival rate. That hardly matters when you fall in the 15.6 range.

If it was a hot flash I experienced and I am embarking on my path down the shady road of perimenopause, I will not choose to take HRT. The risks are just not worth it to me. If the symptoms get worse – and I hear they often do – I will seek out holistic methods, acupuncture, yoga or whatever. And I will pray never to suffer like my mother had to.

Photo, Flikr, erix

Post from: Blisstree

If It Is ‘The Change,’ I’m Not Touching HRT

Dr. Northrup had some great gems that have stuck with me.

• * You have to give up the idea that you can do it all if you want to be healthy.

* You can not be turned-on and angry at the same time.

* You should show yourself the kindness you think your 2-year-old deserves.

• If you’re depressed, get angry enough to take action.
• Then get rid of anger so you can be happy and healthy and turned on.
• You can sacrifice yourself to death and illness, but there is no reason to.
• Forget about the kids, if you’re not taking care of YOU then the whole family ecosystem is broken.
• Romance novels should be called clit-erature and we should read more not less.
• Peri-menopause starts at 35. (35!? I’ve gone straight from childbirth and breastfeeding to menopause! Feminism didn’t change biology.)
• You are in labor with yourself. You’re giving birth to you.

That romance novel one makes me think it might be time to give up being a book snob. She said romance novels account for 80% of the publishing industry. Do you think that’s really true? I may pick up a few at the next garage sale. So clever – cliterature! Ha!

This would make a great Christmas gift for a woman who pushes herself too hard. I worry about the health of some women I know who are driving themselves literally toward death by not allowing themselves any slack. Me included.

She also has a website and newsletter you can find by clicking here.

Post from: Blisstree

Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

There is one element of this fabulous change in direction in a woman’s life that people are familiar with…but don’t seem to dwell on.

Memory loss or scatter-brain-ness. (And I am just in the beginning stages, I think.)

It’s one thing when I’m standing alone in my pantry — wondering if I was supposed to be looking for an ingredient, or if I was supposed to go get the mail.

It’s quite another when this gem of a side affect…appears in public.

When hubby and I were in Vegas, I left (his mother’s antique) a black beaded purse in a cab.

(followed by him dragging me through the casino back to the ladies room where I fibbed and said I’d left it). Oh the horr-ah.

On the flight back home I lost my boarding ticket… then I thought I lost my wallet…but didn’t remember I plopped it into a plastic food bag.

(You should have seen my face blanch with fear at the thought of telling him.)

He just kept making these faces at me, as if to say God woman, you are a ditz! What is wrong with you?

I couldn’t even chalk any of it up to being drunk, ’cause I wasn’t! And if I were to tell him what I was going through, he’d then know I was old.

Someone needs to come up with some memory techniques which are designed especially for pre and menopausal women, or I swear they’re going to find out that this is the reason for identity theft!

Post from: Blisstree

Menoupause Is The Word Of The Day