How Hormone Rejuvenation Therapy Helped with PMS/PMDD - Martha B.
I was a 31-year-old bitch. That pretty much sums it up. I had no patience. I would snap at my child and make him cry. Over what? Generally, it was because he hadn’t made his lunch for school or something. My frustration level was extremely high. I couldn’t talk to my husband without losing my temper. I never had a happy moment. It was as though I had PMS 24/7. I was very moody and irritable. I had no patience, no libido. I would snap at the drop of a hat.
I’d experienced several miscarriages and required progesterone suppositories during my pregnancies in order to carry them to full term. After my last pregnancy ten years ago, I had postpartum depression and have been depressed ever since.
I wasn’t always like that. When I was a teenager my periods were normal and regular without PMS, cramping or heavy bleeding. Everything changed after the birth of my first child when I was 21. I experienced postpartum depression and was placed on Paxil. It took about six months before I even liked my child. I only succeeded in breast-feeding him for two weeks. The whole experience of childbirth had been traumatic for me. It was hard to bond with my child. Prior to delivery I had severe hypertension and finally had to be induced. I experienced 24 hours of hard labor.
I’ve never needed to work out. I’ve always been active in sports. My metabolism had always been high. After my pregnancies my metabolism started to slow down and I really needed something for the stress. I changed my diet and started to work out more. I went to the gym five days a week in order to get the extra pounds off. Initially that seemed to help, but after a while it was as though my body was getting used to it and, in spite of doing all the right things, I was still very moody and bitchy.
Now I’m on optimal estrogen restoration therapy. The difference in my irritability is night and day. I have more energy. I have nice happy thoughts. I can speak without losing my temper, and I have a lot more patience. It was my nature to be opinionated. Now I don’t just blurt out something negative. I am able to control my response if I don’t like what someone is telling me. My mood is much more even-keeled.
As long as I follow the recommended hormone therapy and Elimination Diet (see appendix), I am okay. My sleep, energy level and irritable bowel symptoms are directly related to how I eat. Before I implemented the dietary recommendations I was bloated and looked six months pregnant. After starting HRT and changing my diet, my stomach has trimmed down tremendously and my PMS has resolved.
How HRT helped Depression/Anxiety/CF/ Fibromyalgia/ Sexual Dysfunction - Linda O.
I never liked sex, but I wanted babies. My big goal in life was to be a mother, so I tolerated sex in hopes of getting pregnant. I just wanted my husband to hurry up and get it over with. There was something about the act of sex I always hated. I was sexually molested at a very early age and had always assumed my dislike for sex was due to my sexual molestation.
My menstrual periods began when I was 12 years old. They were fairly regular and normal, although I tended to be moody, irritable and bitchy much of the time. After my marriage at nineteen, I kept having miscarriages. Maintaining the pregnancies was difficult. Eventually, I succeeded in maintaining two pregnancies, and had a boy and a girl. From age 23 I transitioned on and off birth control numerous times. I stopped birth control mainly because I felt bloated and had headaches and fatigue. Weight gain was what bothered me the most. I didn’t get along with the pill at all, nor did it do anything for my libido.
My maternal aunt and two cousins developed ovarian cancer. Because of this strong family history of ovarian cancer, I had a complete hysterectomy on the advice of three physicians. Initially, I was placed on Premarin (equine conjugated estrogen extracted from pregnant-mare urine), but due to fear of gaining weight and growing hair, I did not take it consistently.
After the hysterectomy I became horribly depressed. It really wrecked me. Because I felt horrible all the time, my physician started me on Prozac. I would lie in bed a lot and was moody, tearful, irritable, miserable and didn’t want to live.
I went to several different doctors and psychiatrists, none of whom ever suggested hormones or that I was estrogen deficient. They kept emphasizing that I had a chemical imbalance in the brain and insisted on pushing antidepressants. Prozac worked for a while at 60 mg a day. Then I was placed on Effexor, but it made me “nuts.” I wanted to kill myself on that one. Wellbutrin gave me a strange taste in my mouth. Zoloft made me feel tired and dizzy. Eventually I went back on Prozac, but that time it didn’t work. I had no patience and acted like a bitch.
Along this journey of trial and error I found Cymbalta. It helped a little bit, yet overall I was still unhappy, miserable and stayed in bed all day. When the reports of the Women’s Health Initiative first came out, my physicians took me off Premarin, but that made me feel worse. I was eventually placed on low-dose Vivelle-Dot, which had no impact on my depression. When the hormone scare first happened, none of my physicians wanted me on estrogen. Since my hot flashes weren’t severe, my OB/GYN specialist didn’t think I needed estrogen anyway.
Not only was I depressed, fatigued and wanted to sleep all the time, but my muscles and joints hurt. I was plagued with headaches and migraines. My entire life I have struggled with sugar addictions, but after discontinuing the Vivelle-Dot estrogen patch I gained ten pounds in two months. Carbohydrates and sugar were all I wanted to eat. If that wasn’t bad enough, I was constipated and bloated. My skin was dry and my hair was falling out. I know now that I have been estrogen deficient my whole life.
When I went to see Dr. Nagel. I told him all I really wanted was to be able to wake up in the morning. He placed me on a therapeutic lifestyle intervention program and completely changed the way I was eating. Estrogen and progesterone were progressively restored over a few months to the levels of a healthy, young, reproductive female.
I was skeptical that any of this would help. Over the last twenty years my life has been miserable. I had already tried so many other therapeutic interventions that hadn’t worked. Within a month on optimal hormone restoration my depression completely lifted. I started going out with a group of my girlfriends and we would do karaoke, dance and just have a great time. Three months into the treatment—oh, my gosh! I didn’t know what it was, because I had never felt that way before. All I know is I’d be dancing with some guy during girls’ night out and all of a sudden I would feel like having sex. It was scary at first, because I didn’t realize what it could be. I had never felt those feelings before.
It was as though I was awakening for the first time in my life. I don’t think I had ever truly felt alive, much less experienced what a libido felt like. I had my first orgasm at age 54. All of a sudden I just felt very sexual. I really wanted “it.” I’ve never felt like that before and thought there was something wrong with me.
The first time I had sex after starting the hormones it was like being in the movies. I didn’t know what an orgasm felt like, much less to have multiple orgasms over and over again.
I can die now and it would be okay. For the first time I know what it means to have lived. I am living my life free from Cymbalta and other drugs. Before the hormones I had frequent migraines, and took Imitrex and other drugs continuously. If I didn’t catch the migraines early enough, I would invariably end up in the emergency room for a Demerol shot. Since starting the hormones I haven’t had a migraine in months.
Now I think about sex every day and can’t wait until the next time I’ll be with my lover. I’m having a Passion Party at my place next Tuesday night. I never even knew sex toys like those existed. I can honestly say I love sex, and would never say no to another opportunity to have sex with my lover. I initiate sex, always. Occasionally, the thought crosses my mind that I am a nymphomaniac simply because I’m not used to initiating sex. My boyfriend really likes it though, so it’s okay. I am very sensual now, and everything even smells differently to me.
Since starting the hormones I’ve lost a lot of weight. It is amazing. There is no way my body should look this good at this stage in my life. All my life I’ve had a flat ass, but now it is much nicer, toned and curvy.
Looking back over my life I feel so cheated and angry with all the doctors who just wanted to put me on yet another drug or antidepressant. I felt like I was a prisoner and didn’t know why. I could pretend, put on a pleasant face, fake all those orgasms, and people would say, “You are so pretty; you are so outgoing and vivacious,” but it was all a lie. That wasn’t how I was at all. I was miserable. I never felt sexy a day in my life.
It wasn’t sexual molestation at age five that made me feel treated like another piece of meat or created my hatred for sex. I suspect my ovaries from the very start under-produced estrogen to the point I never fully felt alive.
Now I’m 55 going on 25, and I’ve never felt more alive thanks to HRT. I can walk into a room and it is as though men can smell me. I must be putting off pheromones like crazy, because men will approach me from all sides. I am friendly by nature, but now it’s like I am oozing something and I can’t stop attracting men. My girlfriends all want to know what I’m doing, because they want the same experience.
I’ve learned that women really do have a powerful, deep-seated sexuality that is as strong, maybe even stronger than what men have. All I know is that my newfound sexuality is very real, and I’m never going back. If I described what having a libido feels like, I would have to say it is living. I feel in touch with my body and I feel alive.
I’m 55 and I feel alive. I would feel so angry if I lived my whole life without having experienced the feelings that I am having now. I guess it’s better late than never, and I am so grateful to the approach that focuses on optimizing my health and achieving hormonal balance with bio-identical hormones. I never felt this way with Premarin, Vivelle-Dot, or any other hormonal samples that I have been given. I am never going back.
How HRT Helped with Fibromyalgia/Poly-Pharmacy/Menopause - Mindy F.
I was standing in front of my classroom of first graders in agony. It was as though my back had been clobbered with a baseball bat. That was the start of a progressive downward spiral of deterioration, resulting in numerous surgical interventions. The first was a disc fusion in my neck, which failed to ease the pain. Then I had the bursa sacs removed from my shoulders, followed by yet another disc fusion of the neck. None of these interventions helped. Eventually I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and arthritis. I searched for anything that might ease my pain. My doctor kept prescribing more and more pain meds until I was taking OxyContin every day. Fearful that my narcotic addiction might simply be masking an underlying problem and perhaps creating its own set of problems, I weaned myself off of the OxyContin. My pain was still rearing its ugly head, though. I replaced the OxyContin with a hefty dose of alcohol and cigarette smoking.
These foolish behaviors accelerated my already deteriorating health. Death was frequently entertained as a welcome escape. My daughter, sensing the crisis in my life, suggested a life coach and hypnotherapist. In the course of receiving therapy twice a week, I was referred to Quality of Life Medicine where I was placed on a therapeutic lifestyle intervention program. My dietary habits completely changed, and my hormones were balanced through optimal estrogen restoration. My energy and sense of wellbeing have dramatically improved, and I started an exercise program. My chronic pain and fatigue progressively diminished, and over the course of ten months my thirteen prescriptions dwindled to three.
I am taking several vitamins and supplements specifically designed to promote detoxification and reduce my inflammation. My diet is now gluten-free, dairy free, alcohol free, sugar-free, and balanced with moderate amounts of protein. I haven’t felt this good in twenty years. Now I take my dog on long walks in the park instead of hibernating in the house. I no longer drink hard alcohol or smoke cigarettes. What a difference!
What impressed me the most was that the physician allowed me to bring the entire story of my life onto the table and created sense out of the dysfunctional shambles of my life. He listened to me and made me feel important. He talked about finding the root cause of my health problems instead of piling on yet another drug to my poly-pharmacy.
With each follow-up he would do the same thing: evaluate my HRT progress and explain my blood tests in detail. For the first time in 45 years I don’t have asthma. My fibromyalgia and arthritis don’t bother me anymore. I am happy and no longer feel depressed thanks to HRT. I feel alive, and look forward to each and every day.
Renee’s Story on Her Experience with HRT and Dr. James Nagel
What brought Renee to the office were symptoms of aches and pains, but it was clearly apparent that her underlying problems were rooted far deeper than a Cymbalta or Lyrica deficiency. There was much more to Renee than just a few aches and pains.
A closer look revealed that Renee had transitioned into menopause about seven years earlier. Initial media reports from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) had surfaced around that same time, frightening her against considering the use of hormone replacement therapy. Additionally, Renee saw the progressive deterioration of her marriage at the hands of her now 70-year-old alcoholic husband. Menopause, coupled by yet another failed marriage, left Renee feeling lonely, depressed, abandoned, undesired, unloved and in pain. This was not how Renee had envisioned her life 40 years earlier, nor was this going to reflect how it would end, she resolved.
She had once been a highly energetic, successful nurse, whose life had been infused with periods of intense passion and sexual pleasure. She remembers fondly that her libido had always been high and that she first became sexually active with her high school sweetheart at about the age of 18. Even though she was young, naïve and inexperienced, she confessed to really liking sex and achieved multiple orgasms easily
Nursing school brought change and growth. Renee broke up with her boyfriend and experienced several transitional relationships. This was during an era when people didn’t talk about sex. Most of what she learned about sex was from self-exploration and imaginative experimentation. The “Pill” came out about that period in her life. Renee’s experience with the Pill was that it made her horny.
At age 22, she ultimately married her high school sweetheart. They settled on a ranch where they farmed and raised horses. She also worked as a nurse and raised two boys. Somehow they found the time to engage in sex at least once or twice per day, and she confesses to initiating sex at least 40 to 50 percent of the time. After the children were born, the IUD was her mode of birth control.
Around age 35, she attended a seminar by Dr. Christiane Northrup who recommended that couples use saliva testing to evaluate their sex hormone levels. Her saliva test was high for testosterone and estrogen, which explained why she had always been assertive about getting her sexual needs satisfied. From her perspective, sex was stress relief, and it served to validate her need to be wanted and desired.
Interestingly, she developed an appetite for raw primal sex. She even took belly dancing classes in order to spice up their sex life. In retrospect, she expressed regret in having done that. Apparently, it backfired on her with the husband. She thought that perhaps her sexual creativity and assertiveness frightened or intimidated him to the degree that he eventually withdrew both emotionally and physically from her. As she approached 40 years of age she began to feel neglected and recognized that her needs were not being met within the context of her marriage, and she filed for divorce.
She married a 55-year-old guy who possessed the masculine characteristics that she needed. Sex was great, filled with passion and primal energy, at least initially. They found the time to engage in sex at least four to five times per week. In time, she noticed changes in her husband that concerned her. She noticed he started drinking nightly between the hours of five and eight. He went directly to bed, bypassing any quality alone time with her. She found herself becoming desperate for affection and literally resorted to begging her husband for hugs.
She became more insistent that they have sex. However, as his alcoholism progressed so did his erectile dysfunction and loss of libido. Again she found herself in a marriage that was no longer fulfilling her emotional and physical needs. Her husband was now exhibiting evidence of alcoholic dementia. She resorted to consoling herself with food and began to gain considerable weight.
While all this was going on she started entering menopause herself, and noticed that her libido plummeted to at least a third of its former intensity. Renee assumed this is just what happens in life as one ages and felt like she just needed to suck it up. She hated the loss of her previous sexuality. Her former 135-pound frame now supported over 200 pounds.
Renee had previously maintained a very active athletic lifestyle, and those activities included ranching, horseback riding, walking and gardening. Gardening was one of her favorite activities. Renee found gardening as a source of joy and felt a sense of connectedness to the earth. Nature had always been a source of spiritual strength and rejuvenation for her, maintaining also that she never smoked or used pot and other recreational drugs.
With a growing sense of loneliness and marital unhappiness, she turned frequently to food for comfort, but that brought only temporary solace from the unhappiness and despair that accompanied her 60-pound weight gain.
There was a complete loss of sense of self. Her femininity, creativity and instincts were numb. She was no longer the confident, assertive and creative person that she once had been. She was experiencing the gestalt of multiple factors that conspired to steal away her self-esteem and self-confidence. Among these factors were severe fatigue, pain and exhaustion, estrogen deficiency, a broken marriage, and constant rejection and putdowns from her husband.
She felt trapped and unable to formulate a strategy to escape from this hell. Exhaustion, depression and brain fog sabotaged her motivation for change. The real Renee felt dead, or at least asleep. How could she wake up and extricate herself from this life that now was unrecognizable from the one she had envisioned for herself. This was not how Renee wanted to live out her days.
Friends and physicians alike told her she was just depressed, and recommended she consider antidepressants. Her gut instincts told her she was not suffering from depression. There had never been a need to contend with issues of depression before. How she felt was not primarily rooted in depression, she thought to herself. Instinctively, Renee knew something else was stealing her libido and sleep, replacing it with exhaustion, brain fog and generalized aches and pains.
Somehow, Renee started listening to Suzanne Somers and read her books that talked about the seven dwarfs of menopause, and the many health reinvigorating benefits of rhythmic, bio-identical hormone restoration. She read the part when Suzanne Somers asked Diane Schwartzbein the question, “Isn’t it an environment of balanced hormones that prevents disease?” and Dr. Diane Schwartzbein responded with, “Absolutely! That’s why young people do not get the diseases of aging, because aging is loss of hormones; it’s like watering a plant. With water the plant flourishes if it is in the right environment for itself. If you stop watering the plant, it will continue to grow, but over time it will stop looking so good, and eventually the plant will keel over and die. The same thing happens to humans. As we lose our hormones in the aging process, we continue to look and feel good, much like the plant, but eventually, without our hormones which provide nourishment to our organs, we start to have problems. A disease here, a medical problem there, and eventually we die because we are no longer being nurtured, nourished and fertilized by our hormones. It is then that our bodies give out on us. When you get your hormones balanced by taking bio-identical hormones and eating right and exercising, you will achieve your ideal body composition. We don’t have to be pear-shaped or apple-shaped in middle age. Add to that other health benefits, such as more youthful skin, more energy, sharper thinking, no more memory loss, fewer mood swings, less depression, less anxiety, greater muscle definition, enhanced sexuality, sleeping through the night, elimination of hot flashes and the advantages of staving off the diseases thought to automatically accompany growing older, and it is clear that this formula, tailored just for you, is the answer.”
This all made logical sense to Renee. She launched a search to find a like-minded physician who understood her, and could accurately restore her hormones to their correct balance.
This is when Renee entered my office for a medical consultation. Her presenting complaints were physical and related to quality of life issues. Yes, her pain issues would have responded to painkillers, but then she would have needed to contend with unwanted side effects and potentially life-threatening complications, the least of which included addiction and death, she thought to herself.
Antidepressants could also have been offered her since they contain therapeutic indications for depression and chronic pain syndromes. No doubt she would have experienced quick palliative benefits, but at what cost? More weight gain, loss of libido and further loss of connectedness to self? She had already resolved to avoid the conventional approach to therapy. What she was looking for involved permanent, long-term and real solutions to each of her problems. She had never been into the “quick fix” of Western medicine. She was looking for solutions that made sense, and resonated with her soul and the natural healer within.
Renee found our clinic’s approach exactly what she was looking for, and complied willingly with the therapeutic lifestyle changes and hormone protocols that we recommended to optimize her health.
In a few weeks Renee noticed life-transforming changes. She had never imagined that at 60 years of age her libido could skyrocket back to its normal level. Renee felt good again, almost better than she could ever remember feeling. Sleep came back and her weight dropped off like it did when she was younger. Her body started changing shape, almost as though it were being sculpted back to a more youthful version of herself. She felt sexy again, and wondered, “What am I supposed to do now that I feel young, refreshed and sexy again?” She discussed this dilemma with her husband, only to be put down yet one more time. His advice: “Get off the hormones.”
That was not an option for Renee. Why would she choose to stop a therapy that had succeeded in completely eliminating her chronic aches and pains, depression, insomnia, fatigue, food cravings and hot flashes? She had worked very hard at getting her health back. She had completely changed her lifestyle, and was eating better and exercising again. She was now on a low carbohydrate, gluten-free diet, organic and whole food regimen, and was trying to get more protein to support the growth, healing and repair functions of her healing process.
Renee even sought out counseling to more effectively deal with the emotional pain inflicted by constant rejection from her husband. Her counselor’s advice was to get out of this destructive marriage as fast as possible. This she has done. Her inner strength is back, and her independence and courage has returned. The real Renee has reawakened. She adds, “I’m feeling sexy again. My creative juices have started to flow.”
Renee just bought herself a brand new drum set on which she practices her drumming several hours every day. With her renewed energy she has the strength and motivation to go out fishing and kayaking, cycling and jogging. She has hired a personal trainer to optimize her training response.
People are noticing her transformation and comment on how good she looks. Her skin, hair and waistline are looking younger, and friends are inquiring as to what it is she is doing to look so good.
“Hormones have changed my life,” she states, adding that, “I have a renewed love for life, and I want to live out my remaining years with energy, creativity, spontaneity, loads of passion and sex. I long to pursue my favorite activities free of pain, illness and depression.” Renee is on a journey of self-improvement. She is determined to enjoy life to its fullest. I see nothing that would stand in Renee’s way.
Menopause is shaping up to be the best time of Renee’s life. The combination of a therapeutic lifestyle and hormone optimization program, tailor made just for you, affords a win-win situation for women like Renee interested in returning to a state of well-balanced health thanks to HRT.
Impact of adequate estrogen on sexual intimacy and relationship dynamics - Paula S
I used to think having a happy committed marriage was enough, the kind of marriage and relationship where it was important to be there for one another as friends and as lovers. But, as lovers our sexual relationship was more one-sided. My husband thought about sex and I thought about how much he thought about sex. Even though I hadn’t refused the man I was deeply in love with, I rarely initiated making love to him. In fact, I often tried to avoid the issue altogether in small subtle ways that let him know it was not good timing for me. I was careful not to encourage him by doing things such as undressing in front of him, or holding and kissing him (which is mostly only what I desired), because I knew it would lead to more than what I wanted at the moment. My husband was confused and I wondered why, for no apparent reason, I couldn’t respond to him. An invisible hardline was drawn between us that I tried to ignore.
Out of discouragement he asked why I didn’t want to make love to him more often. So, I compared my sexual desire to his love for fishing. He absolutely loved to fish, but didn’t go very often. The comparison seemed simple enough, but deep inside of me I wanted more for us. I wanted to desire him the way he desired me, and no matter how hard I tried it never happened. Eventually, I decided this was not the quality of life I was willing to accept. I wanted to feel good and sexy again, and I became determined to discover what the problem might be.
This is when it was brought to my attention that I was surviving with almost no estrogen in my body. I learned that I was aging rapidly and my health was deteriorating. I physically hurt all over with aching joints and bloating; I couldn’t think clearly and I had vaginal dryness. Oh, and I often had very severe headaches. There were other symptoms that I didn’t even relate to hormone deficiency. I really didn’t like myself much anymore. I also knew I wasn’t alone in this. I have talked with many women just like myself who didn’t understand what was happening to them.
When I began hormone replacement therapy it was a slow start for me, because my body wasn’t responding. But to keep from being discouraged, I set a goal to do my best and commit to everything asked of me, including eating the way that was the very best for my body, along with keeping a diagnostic journal and exercising. A total change needed to take place and I felt like this was my only hope.
And then I noticed… My body started accepting the hormones and symptoms of menopause began to disappear. The first change I noticed was that my hair stopped falling out and I started sleeping all night. I began dreaming again and rarely woke up in the morning feeling bloated. Now, my headaches are rare and the aches in my muscles are gone. Vaginal dryness is no longer a concern. In fact, I feel great!
I started feeling better about how I looked and gave more thought to how I dressed. The comfortable underwear I had always worn wasn’t working for me any longer. I began wearing the sexy kind of panties I thought I’d never wear. I actually undress at the perfect time my husband walks into the room so I can arouse him! Who is this new woman?
My libido has returned and I regularly think of making love to my husband. I eagerly wait for him to come home from his day at work so we can be together. My desire has skyrocketed and our routine kisses are passionate. His scent allures me. Every touch from him expands all over my body. Now we have a flirty relationship, which we both know will lead to, well, whatever we want. We are able to communicate by openly sharing with each other intimate thoughts, crossing the line that once came between us.
If only other women knew they didn’t have to settle for what I almost settled for. While having a happy marriage is paramount and wonderful, there is so much more. I am deeply happy, and truly desire my man sexually as much (or more) as he desires me. He feels so loved and has said, “This is a dream come true.” I couldn’t agree more and HRT is to thank for that.
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