My Menopause Blog: Mood Suit
Meno-suit.JPG

When I was a hormonally challenged teen, I owned a mood ring. Now that I’ve moved into the major leagues of hormonal upheaval, I’m opting for a full mood suit.

Thanks to the fine folks from “Huston We Have Touchdown” and the Whoa-Man-On-The-Moon designer label, the more menopausally mess up can breath a big sign of relief. The ‘Mood Suit” as pictured here, offers the perfect solution for all your menopausal symptoms. Basically, you zip yourself in and let the suit run your life. When you find your mood swinging madly off in one direction, just press the ‘reduce pressure’ button and viola. You’re steady Eddy once again.

Think about it. You feel like you’re on another planet. Why not dress for the occasion.

Batteries are included.

Sue Richards

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Sue Richards @ 10:42 am
Filed under: Menopause Relief and Photo Flashbacks and Menopause Fashion
My Menopause Blog: The Testosterone Effect

‘The Testosterone Effect’ silently rules my life. This is not a menopausal symptom, new to this stage of life. Nor is it exclusively mine. All females around the world, no matter their age, skin tone or religion have ‘TE’ stories to share.

Yesterday I heard from a 12 year old girl who no longer walks home from her bus stop in the middle of the afternoon, along old tree lined residential streets thanks to not one but three encounters with creepy men. A young mom admits to keeping hawk like vigilance on the horizon for men lingering just a bit too long while her toddler daughter plays. Another savvy woman fears walking home alone at night thanks to being grabbed from behind by a guy a few years earlier.

Since the beginning of time, a percentage of men in the population have behaved violently towards women. Indeed these stories are not ‘news’. But just imagine what would happen if the stories sounded like this.

Yesterday I heard from a 12 year old boy who no longer walks home from his bus stop in the middle of the afternoon, along old tree lined residential streets thanks to not one but three encounters with creepy women. A young dad admits to keeping hawk like vigilance on the horizon for women lingering just a bit too long while his toddler son plays. Another savvy man fears walking home alone at night thanks to being grabbed from behind by a gal a few years earlier.

I’m betting the drug companies and scientific community would be burning the friggin midnight oil cooking up a plethora of creams, pills, injectibles and sprays to rid the menace of female aggression from the streets.

Here’s an editorial I wrote for our local daily paper last fall.

My mind was elsewhere as I walked home basking in the afterglow from attending an excellent performance of the Community Play Project.

Marveling. Yes, as I strode down the well-lit street, my stride confident, the night clear. I was full of admiration for my city and the hundreds of creative beings that call this town home.

I’m lucky. I live a short, pretty walk from the core of my small city. Over the years I’ve walked and rode the streets daily, mindfully, but not fearful. So when the late model black sports car pulled up beside me, and the tinted window electronically lowered I stopped, prepared to offer directions. After all, why else would someone stop a female pedestrian at 9:30 on a Sunday night?

Quickly, my Good Samaritan bubble burst. The thirty something male driver wasn’t lost. He was prowling the streets of downtown, looking for someone to hit on.

Or worse.

Disgusted I walked on, clearly disinterested in his rude offer.

Undeterred he tried again, perhaps stupidly thinking I was playing hard to get. This time I offered very clear directions for where I thought he should go.

With reluctance he drove off, slowly enough for me to burn his license number into my memory. Then, I bee lined home and called the cops. Turns out they knew who he was.

Ten months later, I was returning home along another well lit street. This time, my mind was firmly on the task at hand, getting home safely, acutely aware of my surroundings.

I can’t say for sure that it was the same car. But the vehicles tinted windows and slow speed tipped me off to potential danger. I crossed the street just as the driver did a u-turn and circled back my way.

As the car approached me from behind, I hurried up an unfamiliar driveway, and headed for the side door, hoping no big dogs were waiting to greet me. This was not my house but that didn’t matter. Slowly the car drove by, then pulled over on the side street slightly past the house, and then dimmed the headlights.

Carefully I picked my way through the dark, strange yard, crouching behind shrub after shrub until I was able to move beyond the driver’s sight line.

Then, with fear coursing through my veins, I ran like hell.

I arrived home, winded and wild eyed just as my neighbour pulled up on his bike. His smile quickly changed to a look of concern as I breathlessly told my story.

There was one other time when my heart lodged in my throat thanks to an unwanted, male shadow. I had missed the last bus after a concert while visiting Stuttgart, Germany. Unscathed and knowing my hostel was close I set out on foot. Given my limited language skills, I figured taking a cab might come with its own set of problems.

When it became clear that I was being followed, I took action. Turning quickly, I growled like a wild beast, waving my fists fiercely at the man who was ten steps behind.

The guy stopped in his tracks. Then he took off like a shot.

Just last weekend, returning home from the Film Festival, I noticed the man walking ahead of me had stopped. I had been trailing him for a few blocks, feeling no threat, grateful for his presence. But as he continued to wait and the gap between us narrowed, I tensed. “What now”, I wondered nervously.

When I got within earshot he broke the silence. “Should you be walking home alone” he offered with sincerity? Relieved, my shoulders dropped. After a brief exchange we continued on together, talking about the perils of drinking and driving, the unusually balmy November weather and drudgery of cleaning our eve troughs.

No doubt some of you will think I am asking for. I’m not. Trouble is not something I go looking for. Rather, I believe all people should be able to walk in their own neighbourhood without fear. It’s part of a healthy community and a civilized society.

I’ve lived here for twenty-five years. Never before have I felt concern for my safety in my own neighbourhood. And suddenly in the last year, thanks to two creepy encounters, I do.

As a woman, I could change my habits and stop walking.

Or the men in this city who know better, could make sure that their sons, brothers and co-workers understand the importance of showing respect for women. It only takes one jerk to shift the comfort level of an entire community.

Besides dad, this creep’s next hit might be your daughter.

Sue Richards

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Sue Richards @ 11:33 am
Filed under: Life Stages and Men and Menopause
My Menopause Blog: Testosterone

In light of yesterday’s big news about another drug designed for women that messes with their hormones, I reluctantly cracked my morning Globe and Mail. Having read the over twenty comments that appeared with the on-line story, I knew that opinions ranged from steamy hot soup to spicy roasted nuts.

Since my inaugural bleed back in the early 1970’s, I have managed 420 periods give or take a dot or two. I have leaked through pants, stained underwear, been caught unprepared, stayed in bed for days, struggled through blurring headaches, felt bloated like a dead fish, experienced cramps that left me gasping and been pissed off. I was even pregnant once for a short period of time. After a very limited stint on the pill as an 18 year old, I opted for an IUD for a few years. Finally I settled on condoms and a calendar. Eventually I found the heavenly bliss of a vasectomy.

Even my feminine hygiene changed as my understanding of my body developed. I went from what I consider my lowest point when I used ‘deodorized tampons’ to organic cotton pads with the occasional organic ‘plug’ for those plug-specific situations. If I’d continued my bleeding career further, I suspect the new Diva cup would have become my friend.

Now as I go months without a period, I feel very lucky to have managed my reproductive life with as little synthetic hormone intervention as I did. Call it women’s intuition, gut feelings or common sense. I believe that non-life saving drugs have their place, provided that the trials are large scale, multi year and are NOT financed by the drug company who make and manufacture them.

Today I wonder if the advent of ‘the pill’ 50 years ago is the culprit behind the seeming epidemic of breast cancer we see today. From a historical perspective, the multi-untested-chemical soup of progress mushroomed about the time of my birth. I realize that the ‘birth control pill’ played just one part in this vat of toxicity. But when I think back to my visit to our family doctor and how incredibly easy it was for me to get several packs of ‘demo’ model birth control pills, just by lying about bad cramps, I shudder. Thank gawd my vanity was such that the immediate weight gain I experienced from popping my pills turned me off the whole business in very short order.

This morning while I leafed through my morning Globe and Mail, I read about the following real life issues that seriously effect women and girls health.

1. Domestic homicide: a reported 10 women have been murdered by their husbands, boyfriends or lovers so far this year in Toronto.
2. Rape of girls in South Africa: one in four girls can expect to be raped prior to their 16th birthday.
3. Parental abuse: an 8 year old girl was left in the car at 3am while her father trolled the red light district. He forgot where he parked.

Seems to me that at the root of each of these life altering or ending experiences for women is neither estrogen, progesterone nor messy periods. Instead I see a man with a tad too much testosterone coursing through his system.

Perhaps our scientific community and pharma friends could get together and develop a drug that reduces this highly volatile hormone that wreaks havoc in the life and homes of millions of women. Imagine the peace that would wash over the valley as men slipped their daily dose under their tongues and quietly went about their business of being fine husbands, fathers and friends.

This type of hormone adjusting science would get my respect.

Period.

Sue Richards

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Sue Richards @ 11:17 am
Filed under: Menopause News
My Menopause Blog: Save the Period

Today’s Globe and Mail featured a front page story titled: “Period-free birth-control pill a step closer after study”.

Back in November, I posted another Globe and Mail article, written by Kathleen O’Grady the Director of Communications for the Canadian Women’s Health Network and a Research Associate at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia on the same subject only with quite a different take.

Here’s my two cents on using birth control to stop our menses.

How stupid can we get? And how greedy is greedy enough?

There. That pretty much sums it up. It doesn’t matter that I’m menopausal. This ‘medical break through’ will negatively effect every girl I love.

I read an enlightened editorial in Ode Magazine last evening that struck a completely different cord. The author Tijn Touber suggested that you and I need to do a big shift in being from the narrow same old same old. Instead he encouraged us to “be the Beatles” and “remake the world the way they did”.

Think about this for one hair of a moment. The Beatles changed our world. And unless I’m simply getting out of bed on the wrong side everyday, our world needs another massive change of direction fairly fast.

We need to use some good old fashioned common sense. We need to ’stop, hey what’s that sound, everyone look what’s going down’.

Eliminating a normal, natural body functions is insanity. Marketing such a creation is shameful.

Touber suggests inventing “a culture that is so beautiful it makes young people faint”. Or as my recently departed friend Henry used to say, “if you make it beautiful, they will come.”

Please, start right now. ‘Be the Beatles’ and ‘make it beautiful’.
Sue Richards

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Sue Richards @ 1:05 pm
Filed under: Menopause News
My Menopause Blog: Meno-Driving

When I brought up menopause, her eyes widened.

She: I’m turning into my father. Every time I get behind the wheel now, I become a raving lunatic. I swear out loud, give people dirty looks and think nasty thoughts. I was never like this before. I hate myself when I get behind the wheel.

Me: Do you own a bike?

———–

For the perfect example of menopausal car rage, check this painfully funny video out on YouTube.

Sue Richards

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Sue Richards @ 12:33 pm
Filed under: Psychology of Menopause
My Menopause Blog: Art

Just for the hell of it, go here and ‘draw’ your menopause. (Click until you find the perfect colour.)

Sue Richards

Thanks to Heather for posting this link on her sidebar.
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Sue Richards @ 2:38 pm
Filed under: Fun and Freedom
My Menopause Blog: Bio-Identical Progesterone Cream

Moving right along on my little experiment of creaming my hormones up to a nice age appropriate level, I bring you this week’s update.

I thought I would have difficulty remembering the twice daily, different thin-skinned location application required for optimal outcome of my Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement cream experiment. So convinced was I of this outcome that I set up a calendar with daily notations to remind me of the appropriate dose and off days. Then I glued the calendar and cream tube to a place in my kitchen that gets lots of action.

Surprisingly, only once did I find myself on the road to dreamland cream free. In the moments I remained lucid enough to weigh the option of getting up and staying put, I easily concluded that missing that nights slathering would be acceptable.

I was right. Nothing untoward happened the next day.

As far as feeling the effects of the cream, it’s impossible to pin point at this moment. I’m doing several things to support myself as I take this monumental menopausal turn in my lifecycle, not the least of which includes an examination of my attitudes and beliefs about aging. I’m changing my pace to suit my current energy levels. My diet is being overhauled and balanced. Hell, I’m writing this blog five days a week. This alone could be bringing a quality of understanding and acceptance to my world that no amount of cream or primrose oil could ever offer.

Unraveling the social conditioning that I’ve swallowed, inherited and created around what is considered good and what is considered bad about being a woman of my age would make a ball of yarn the size of the moon.

Yarn that can tie me in knots quicker than a lightening bolt hot flash.

Sue Richards

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Sue Richards @ 10:47 am
Filed under: Menopause Relief and Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement
My Menopause Blog: Horror-scope

Desperate times inspire desperate measures. With that in my moody, menopausal, midlife mind, I turned to read my horoscope.

Here’s what I learned.

Uranus is up yer ass.

Sue Richards

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Sue Richards @ 12:23 pm
Filed under: Fun and Freedom