Page 47 - What Doctors Don't Tell You - AU-NZ (February-March 2020)

SPECI
Specialists like Taylor cite research such as the Danish
study of nearly 700,000 postmenopausal women that found
topical estrogen may significantly lower women’s heart
7
attack risk. How, they ask, could the hormones that bathed
your body for years, nourished your cells and kept your skin
and arteries soft, be dangerous?
This philosophy underpins much of anti-aging medicine
today. But others, like Christiane Northrup, see the
menopause industry as “medicalising” the natural aging
process and failing to respect nature’s design.
Just as doctors used to “treat” menopausal symptoms
with hysterectomies and still flatten out the slightest
aberration in a teenager’s cycle with birth control to
“normalize” them, perhaps 60-year-olds just aren’t meant
to have the hormone levels of 30-year-olds coursing
through their veins, as the Women’s Health Initiative and
Lancet studies suggest.
Miracle or nightmare?
The experiences of women themselves reflect the conflicts
in hormone therapy. Jane Dales, for example, started on
custom-compounded BHRT eight months ago, after a
battery of tests to rule out thyroid and adrenal dysfunction.
“The change is astonishing,” she enthuses. Even her hair
grew back to its former “crowning glory.”
But other women describe BHRT as a “nightmare”
rather than a dream come true. “Everyone raves about bio
hormones, but I found they made my symptoms much
worse,” one woman commented on a thread about side-
effects. “It was a horrible and expensive experience for me.
The doctor kept telling me to tough it out, but she was not in
my body.”
One woman started having delusional thoughts and
panic attacks soon after starting bioidentical progesterone
cream that were so severe she was hospitalized. A 35-year-
old prescribed bioidentical progesterone cream stopped
using it after14 days “when I started having panic attacks
out of nowhere, crying spells, intrusive thoughts, inability
to concentrate, difficulty sleeping, etc. . . I have been off for
about nine days and still feel the effects.”
Some women describe having to beg doctors toremove
surgically implanted hormone pellets. “I pluck darkhairs
from my moustache area daily,” one woman complained
about her bioidentical hormone implant. “I can’twaaitfor
this stuff to wear off.”
Another woman who’d contacted this magazinewent
w
on to develop breast cancer after being told to userubb-on
progesterone to prevent it, and was attempting tosueethe
American medical center that prescribed it to her.
The trouble with hormones
What can explain these disparate results? Gettingthee
dose right is crucial with hormones, and overdosingisa
real risk. Delivery system is important as well, andmany
practitioners using bioidentical hormones adviseagainst
g
taking them as a pill.
“If you swallow steroid hormones you will serioussly
distort their natural metabolism, ” osteopathic physiician
andhealthadvocateJosephMercolawroteonhiswebsite.
FACEBOOK.COM/WDDTYAUNZ
“Naturalhormonesnearlykilledme”
In 2004, Cathy Groves wrote to the British Medical Journal
about her nightmare journey with progesterone cream. She’d
had a terrible experience with the Pill, which affected her
thyroid, and seeking to find an alternative to get her back
to normal, she sought out a “natural” cream, following the
manufacturer’s instructions to use between 20–30 mg per
day, split between morning and evening doses.
“When I first took the cream, beginning in May 2003, I felt
great. In fact, I had more energy and ability to lose weight than
I had in about five years. I didn’t need near as much sleep, and
found that I no longer struggled with depression,” she wrote.
However, two months later, Cathy developed sharp pain in
her legs, followed by a bruised and swollen lump and localized
soreness in her calf, which continued to worsen.
“That ended up being the first of two episodes with venous
blood clots in the six months I was on the cream. Little did
I know that progesterone is heavily implicated in clotting
disorders, much as the Pill is. Not one of my doctors ever
made the connection between my blood clots and the
progesterone.”
Cathy’s resting heart rate was going “through the roof,”
reaching 120 beats per minute. She also suffered crying spells,
uncontrollable temper and bouts of nausea and vomiting.
“When I couldn’t stop throwing up and couldn’t eat and it
had been three weeks—that was when I ran across the first
doctor who said, “Well, if there’s one thing I know that makes
pregnant women sick as dogs, it’s progesterone. I’d look there
first.” I quit the cream on October 26, 2003.
From there, it took six months for it to clear her body and for
her to stop being sick.
“The symptoms during those six months of illness as I
rebounded from the cream are almost too many to list, but
they include: severe nausea and vomiting, gastrointestinal
problems (marked heartburn, bouts of diarrhea, and bouts
of constipation), uncontrollable shaking, acne and extremely
oily skin, hirsutism, depression, anxiety, tingling/burning
sensations on the back of my arms, neck and head,
sensations on the back of my arms neck and head insomniainsomnia,
hypersensitivity to medications and foods,
hot flashes and serious withdrawal
symptoms.”
ISSUE 04 | FEB/MAR 2020 | WDDTY 47