Monthly Archives: July 2009

Is The Economy Hurting Your Health?

If unemployment, money woes, and the incessant stream of negative news about our economy are getting you down and perhaps contributing to anxiety-related health problems,  try listening to Dr. Christine Northrup’s free audio clip in which she offers an affirmation for dealing with fears around money — words of wisdom that, she says, once helped her through a rough patch.  It’s an excerpt from an on-demand web class called Is Today’s Economy Hurting Your Health?, so if you find inspiration from her message, you can pay a modest fee to hear more.

If you’re considering Bio-identical hormone therapy and Oprah’s shows on the topic left you more confused than ever,  tune into a free, live webinar, “The Buzz on Bioidenticals,” scheduled next week, on August 4th.  It will feature Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, author of Women, Weight and Hormones: A Weight-Loss Plan for Women Over 35 and Karen Giblin, founder of Red Hot Mamas, a menopause education organization. There’s also a free companion magazine that you can download from their website.

You should be aware that both the webinar and the magazine are supported “by an educational grant” from Ascend Therapeutics, which makes EstroGel, an FDA appproved estrogen gel that competes with the Vivelle-Dot estrogen patch  as well as hormone products formulated by compounding pharmacies.  That explains the repetitive advice you’ll find throughout the magazine against using compounded hormone products (i.e. “you don’t need to go to a compounding pharmacy to obtain bioidentical hormone therapy” and  “there is no need to risk using a compounding pharmacy.”)

As I’ve written here before, the debate continues over the safety of bio-identical hormones, the reliability of saliva tests and the safety and consistency of compounding pharmacies.  It’s hard to evaluate claims when the information we receive is “sponsored” by an interested party.  All I can say is read and listen to everything, ask questions and know the source.

Hot Flashes Can Last HOW Long?????

Some women are just plain lucky. They sail through Menopause without a minute of discomfort.  I put them in the same category as super-models.  They’re freaks of nature.  The fact is that most menopausal women experience hot flashes and/or night sweats and they can range from mildly disruptive to downright debilitating.   Hormone therapy will help with the hot flashes (vasomotor symptoms as they are called), but current guidelines recommend that it be taken at the lowest effective dose for the shortest period of time.   So,  in making the decision to take HT, wouldn’t it be a lot easier if women knew how long their hot flashes would last?

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Have You Lost Your Mojo?

If hot flashes and insomnia are getting you down, you’ve probably lost your Mojo along with your estrogen!  What’s Mojo, you ask?  Well, according to Dr. Lissa Rankin’s Pinktionary, which I found on her wonderful website, Owning Pink, it speaks to the “aliveness, spark, energy, joie de vivre, passion and wholeness” that makes us live life fully..and with gusto!

Just the definition makes me sit up straight! When’s the last time you felt any of that? If you’re unsure of where you stand on the Mojo scale, check out her blogpost, “20 signs that you’ve lost your mojo.”  If you identify with more than three, you should probably check in with one of the Mojo Mentors on her website for help in reclaiming your Girlytude! (see the Pinktionary for an explanation).  If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, you could also attend one of her “Pink Workshops,” including the one called “Owning Menopause.”