Happy Spring! I hope it is happy and healthy! You know I get emails all the time and I respond to each and every one of them.

Recently, I received a cryptic email from one of our BHRT clients: "I have stopped my hormone therapy. I had blood work done and my lipid panels were elevated."
My response to this email is this: 

1. Why are you correlating this rise in lipid panels to your customized hormone replacement therapy?
2. The risk of heart attack and stroke is equal to that of a man after a woman reaches menopause, so there is a better correlation between replenishing hormones and PREVENTING heart disease than the correlation between hormone therapy and lipids.
3. Monitoring cholesterol levels is important, but equally as important in monitoring overall health in women, is monitoring glucose and triglyceride levels.

I am really looking forward to the day when we finally and unequivocally believe in and trust therapy that focuses on holistic health INSTEAD of drugging the masses; when we automatically, inherently question the drug company rhetoric INSTEAD of assuming that just because a product is "FDA approved," that makes it safe and risk-free. I mean, when was the last time you went to your doctor and he handed you a prescription and you just accepted it without question?? Why aren't we asking OUR doctors to see THEIR studies on the safety of the drugs they are prescribing? Just askin'.

 I love it when practitioners ask ME to send them studies on the safety and efficacy of estriol, when they are still prescribing synthetic hormones like Premarin® and Prempro® with proven health risks (WHI 2002). Is that ironic to anyone else or is it just me??

I get many emails every day from women who are on our therapy and are now believers. They are sleeping, losing weight, seeing an increase in their libido (yes, even in Ohio!), have energy etc. (See what they are saying on our Testimonial page). These women are why I do what I do. But I still get the occasional email like this one: 

"I meant to tell you that I am now feeling fine, so when I had to go back to my doctor for more refills for my natural hormone balance, I stopped my therapy."  Wow! Really? And she would do this why?? Does she think she will continue to feel good as her hormone levels deplete again? (Remember, as we age, our body's ability to produce hormones at the levels at which we need to remain healthy, is insufficient.) Do you think this client has done her homework and read the books on natural hormone balance? Without education in this area, there isn't enough commitment to stay the course.  Make no mistake, her hormone levels WILL deplete again over time so her symptoms of a hormone imbalance will reappear and her body will be RIPE FOR DISEASE as she ages. Don't forget, I have seen and studied this client's hormone levels that she received through her saliva testing. She is extremely estrogen dominant. She had (before she began our therapy) weight gain, swelling, brain fog, and most importantly was at high risk for developing breast cancer (unopposed estrogen has a high risk of breast cancer). So without her progesterone cream that she was using, that was dosed physiologically for HER body and balancing with her estrogen to PREVENT breast cancer, her risk for this disease will reappear, as her progesterone levels disappear. But until this client understands the education behind customized hormone therapy, she won't have the commitment to go the distance. The only good news is that if she is like most of our clients, she will be back! Visit our Tips for Success page for more information!

The first question I have to ask is, "If you are feeling good on something that is working for you, why would you stop?" Is feeling your best for the long haul NOT worth your investment of continued support and use? My husband says it best, "If you're not first on your own list, how can you expect to be first on ours?!"

I love the emails I get from my faithful followers who are now blessedly better since they are on our therapy, who share an experience they had with their practitioner BEFORE they came on board. Julie writes, "Hi Lyn. It's me again. I read your blog and it was GREAT! I decided to share with you MY experience with my GYN office which is mostly staffed with a Nurse Practitioner. I went in to see her a few weeks ago and when she asked me what was new I thought it was the perfect opportunity to bring up the BHRT subject. Of course I was not sure how it would be received but as you may have guessed, she didn't think my decision to use customized natural hormone therapy was the "right" thing to do. When I asked her about the absence of my hot flashes now that I've been on your therapy, she said, "Oh, hot flashes won't hurt you!" DUH! I know that...but they sure are miserable and won't let you sleep through the night. She said that she knew ALL about BHRT (bioidentical hormone replacement therapy) and "YOU" people never give US the right information. Now I ask you, what info do you NOT give us on your website or anywhere else, when we ask for it? (Note-we do have a Practitioner's Resources and References section in my Resources/Reading tab on my website with lots of clinical studies and information.) And.....I guess sex isn't an option for us "OLD" people either? She said libido and sex just slowly drop off to nothing as we get older. She said she is not sure we are supposed to even have hormones at the end of our lives. (I had to stop reading Julie's email for a minute at this point so I could decide whether I wanted to run outside and scream my head off or just shoot myself! She can NOT be serious!! Her health care professional who is supposed to be FOR her clients' good health really said this??!!) At this point, with my head in my hands, and my disappointment evident....to make a long story short, she wrote me a prescription for....guess what? Estradiol. For hot flashes (which I am no longer having now that I am on your therapy and my hormone levels have been replaced). Needless to say, I brought it home and threw it in the trash! So there you have it! Another horror story. Thanks for listening. Julie"

Just to comment on Julie's nurse practitioner's estradiol (estrogen) prescription, here are questions Julie should have asked her: 

• How do you know how much estrogen I need for MY body?
• Did you check my hormone levels before writing me my prescription?
• What about progesterone? Why aren't you giving me that? (Remember progesterone helps sleep, depression, anxiety, mood, aches and pains)
• Do you know that we also use progesterone for its protective benefits for the breast tissue, heart and uterus? This is critical as an anti-aging strategy. 
• What about my bones? Don't I need testosterone for bone density, which becomes less as I age?
• So you just want me to settle for a lower quality of life with no hormones and just be ripe for disease?
• Are you aware that there is a heightened risk of blood clots, and thus strokes and heart attacks, with oral estrogen? Yet you are prescribing this to me why??
• You expect me to be ok with no sex or intimacy for the rest of my life really?

There you have it! Another reason why I do what I do. I urge YOU to begin reading to educate yourself on your body and your options for hormone therapy. So when you go to your health care practitioner to begin the discussion of hormone balance, you can dialogue with them and maybe, just maybe, begin to educate them as well! Remember, YOU are in charge of your journey and YOU DON'T HAVE TO SETTLE!