My Menopause Blog

It’s an awkward time of year in central Canada. We’ve opened our windows and turned off the furnace but the temperature range over a single 24 hour period is anything but stable or comfortable.

Which, when I think of it pretty much describes my own menopausal body temperature. And yet, unlike previous post where I moaned about hot flashes, I’m finding the spring night sweat to be the perfect temperature boost needed for my unheated home with the open window and fresh breeze.

Yes, last night as the curtain billowed softly with chilly night air and my home headed toward the 50Ëš, my wonderfully menopausal body kept me simmering at a near perfect temperature - provided at least one foot was free of the blankets.

Sue Richards

Menopause Tags: My Menopause Blog, my menopause blog,Sue Richards, peri-menopausal, menopause relief, guelph blog, baby boomer, womens health news, menopause symptoms .

Here’s a disturbing paradox.

Most of the world wakes up in the morning and wonders if they will get enough to eat that day.

Meanwhile, 60% of North American’s are overweight and the Diet Industry will rake in excess of 40 Billion this year.

According to the National Eating Disorder Information Center, “it’s not our bodies that need changing. It’s our attitudes.”

Sue Richards

Menopause Tags: My Menopause Blog, my menopause blog,Sue Richards, peri-menopausal, menopause relief, guelph blog, baby boomer, womens health news, menopause symptoms .

Permission to post this cartoon generously provided by the very talented artist Piraro. Check out his gallery of comic goodies at Bizarro.

Sue Richards

Menopause Tags: My Menopause Blog, my menopause blog,Sue Richards, peri-menopausal, menopause relief, guelph blog, baby boomer, womens health news, menopause symptoms .

For those of you that were reading along on My Menopause Blog 15 months ago, you may recall that I did a home saliva test to determine my current hormone levels.

Should you want to refresh your memory by revisiting my experience, you can read the beginning, middle, more middle, near the end of the middle, the absolute end of the middle, near the end, and finally the end of the end of my saliva test adventure by mousing your way through those links.

Fifteen months ago, I had a hard time tracking down enough information about saliva tests for me to feel confident, let alone fully informed. They were not nor are they yet close to a mainstream approach to menopause. Indeed, poor old mainstream was still standing in the middle of Menopause Street, pants dangling at the ankles, not sure where to turn post HRT scare. HRT was Menopause Plan A. There was no Plan B.
I’m no scientist - but neither am I content to put all my dried up menopausal eggs into the conventional medical stream basket. Medical science has never been terrific at treating the ‘whole woman’ nor issues that are not diseased based. Menopause may have a list of symptoms but disease it is not - nor is it universally experience the same way. So unless the doctor is specializing in menopause, you may not get the individual attention that you need.

When I took the plunge and forked over the dough for a saliva test, I did so with my intuition in high gear and a few encouraging words from other women. If I was being taken for a ride, the worst case scenario was simple - there was nothing dangerous or risky about a saliva test. And best case - I’d learn something about my hormone levels.

Times have changed since I went searching for information and a test. For starters, there’s simply more opinions to wade through. And like everything to do with your health, it’s your job to do the wading.

So if this is a path you want to explore, I would suggest you start with one of my advertisers, Jackie Harvey and her content rich website. I’ve attended one of her seminars and listened to her DVD on Hormone Health. In both cases I came away feeling much more informed about my menopausal health.

Her banner is posted on the top right side of this blog for your easy clicking pleasure.
Sue Richards

Menopause Tags: My Menopause Blog, my menopause blog,Sue Richards, peri-menopausal, menopause relief, guelph blog, baby boomer, womens health news, menopause symptoms .

It was the term ‘cosmeceuticals’ that caught my attention in a short news report from a recent Globe and Mail.

I’ll let you read the on-line story about how the ingredient DMAE, a key component of the skin cream that is referred to as ‘facelift in a jar’, has been found to be toxic to the skin.

So you know, ‘cosmeceuticals’ are not considered to be drugs and have much lighter manufacturing regulations than any drugs which allow them to be sold without much information about their negative attributes. The anti-aging slice of this ‘cosemeceutical’ market is huge - making the menopausal - at least those with fear of wrinkle - the women most at risk of - well - no one is really saying just yet.

I don’t use anti-wrinkle creams and it turns out that’s likely a good thing. A few years ago, I twigged into the fact that what goes on the skin absorbs into the body eventually ending up in the blood stream before passing through the liver and kidney’s. Or not. Sometimes toxins stick around and cause serious problems.

Given the sheer amount of ‘everyday’ pollution I face in the environment, regardless of what I do, I have no interest in knowingly adding more to my body burden.

Wrinkles on the other hand – at least in my opinion – won’t kill you.

Sue Richards

Menopause Tags: My Menopause Blog, my menopause blog,Sue Richards, peri-menopausal, menopause relief, guelph blog, baby boomer, womens health news, menopause symptoms .

Excuse me while I regurgitate a previously covered topic.

A year ago I wrote a post on Adrenal Fatigue and announced that one of my health team had encourage me to seek out a supplement - which I did. Then - with little thought of you - I selfishly never spoke of it again.

I will tell you that besides dutifully popping my pills three times a day for four months, I imagined my pooped adrenal glands resting - in little hammocks - with healthy drinks and a gentle breeze blowing their tiredness away.

Yes, my inner flake did run with this one - and my adrenals got their mojo back. Still, I apologize for offering so little information or follow-up at the time. Today I will make up for that void.

In the past, I’ve directed you to Dr. Erika’s Blog for her fabulous posts on Bioidentical Hormone Replacement. Today I’d like to suggest you read what she has to say about adrenal fatigue - especially if you find yourself facing a conventional medical doctor with a list of symptoms that doctor Erika suggests “include but are not limited to the following: exhaustion, weight gain around the waist, mental fogginess, sleep disturbances, bloating, depression, anxiety, palpitations, night sweats, loss of libido, muscle and joint pains, etc.” and they in turn suggest Auntie Depressant move into your life.

You see, according to conventional Dr. Erika - conventional doctors offer Auntie Dee up when they don’t know what’s wrong.

So then - go visit Dr. Erika’s Blog and read her primer on Adrenal Fatigue. As she claims in her post, “Adrenal fatigue is not yet another answer to your prayers for solutions to your feeling crummy. It is another piece of the puzzle.”

Sue Richards

Menopause Tags: My Menopause Blog, my menopause blog,Sue Richards, peri-menopausal, menopause relief, guelph blog, baby boomer, womens health news, menopause symptoms .

As an advocate and user of alternative health care, I’m posting this alert from Sandra J. Florio, C.N.P. Holistic Nutritional Practitioner and Personal Fitness Trainer.

We may be on the cusp of loosing our health choice freedom.

From Sandra: On April 30, 2007 the FDA will close the public comment period on “Guidance” which will classify every alternative practice as medicine so that only licensed physicians can carry out the procedure AND vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc., will suddenly become “untested drugs” which will be forbidden.

Note From Sue: Are you taking anything vitamin, mineral or herb like for your menopausal relief? Imagine these becoming illegal!

The goal is simple: through a “Guidance” about the regulation of “CAM” (which they conveniently define as “Complementary and Alternative MEDICINE” the FDA hopes to serve the interests of Big Pharma by eliminating all CAM practices and products.

ALL of them.

Here’s how this deadly game is played:

1. By using the term “Medicine” rather than “Modality” for CAM practices, the FDA sets the stage so that anyone who is not a licensed physician is breaking the law by using these modalities since they are therefore ‘practicing medicine without a license’.

2. By using the term “treatment” rather than “therapy”, the FDA limits those who can perform these practices to licensed physicians and, again, anyone who is not a licensed physician is breaking the law by using these modalities since only licensed practitioners can treat. So people using these modalities are therefore ‘practicing medicine without a license’.

3. By using the terms “Medicine” and “treatment” instead of “Modalities” and “therapy”, all substances, including vitamins, minerals, herbs, co-factors, etc., automatically become untested drugs since they are being used to prevent, treat, mitigate or cure disease states. Such use can only legally take place with FDA approved drugs.

Here’s How We Protect CAM Practices, Practitioners and Products

Numbers. Sheer volume of response. Nothing more and nothing less. NOW is the time to act. Our window of opportunity slams shut on April 30, 2007.

This is the link which allows you to send a comment directly to the FDA about their deadly “Guidance”.

Will it matter? Yes, if millions of people respond. So I am asking you to take this “viral”.

Note From Sue: Bloggers - Start your engines!Here is what you need to do NOW if you value your health choice freedom:

1. Click on this link and add your name to the letter. When you click “Send” it will be electronically delivered to the FDA docket site and posted.

2. Blog this!

3. Get further information at the Natural Solutions Foundation website

The Goal - 5,000,000

That’s our goal. Two weeks, five million comments to the FDA, all asserting our fundamental right to control our own health.

Pass it on - quickly - time is ticking!

-30-

Thanks Sandra.

Sue Richards

Menopause Tags: My Menopause Blog, my menopause blog,Sue Richards, peri-menopausal, menopause relief, guelph blog, baby boomer, womens health news, menopause symptoms .