Hormonal?

If you know me, you know my life is an open book.  During our summer trip to Alaska, hubby and I had an opportunity to have "bio-identical" hormone pellets injected beneath the skin of our hips.  For months, I'd felt like crap...no energy, no interest in anything, actually wondering if what I felt was akin to waiting to die.  The hormones changed my life--literally. I felt renewed--twenty years younger, alert, fun-loving, and sexy. My husband told me he felt like he'd gotten his wife back.  I saw a new me in the mirror.  My skin tightened, my face looked years younger.  Do you know what an amazing feeling that is?  For him, he was able to discontinue the synthetic testosterone shots he received monthly, and immediately felt and looked better.  Good for both of us.  :)

The hormones are absorbed by your system over a period of four months for women, six for men.  Before the first injection was totally depleted, I went for seconds.  I have to travel three hours away to find a doctor who doesn't see this as a money-making venture and believes in helping his patients. The insurance pays for the office visit, I pay for the pellets, and I get two per visit.  Hormones equal good life, but then, I started realizing I was losing hair.  I'd expected, perhaps to grow a mustache, but not develop male-pattern baldness. *lol*  One call to the doctor explained the problem...my body was converting the testosterone into something that it shouldn't, so I take a pill to change that.  That's been the one side affect, until now, when my second round of pellets has completely gone.  I feel like I've going through the change of life all over again.  So, it's not a wise move to wait until the last minute to see the doc.  I go again next Wednesday to have them renewed, and I can't wait.

What ticks me off?  My husband is able to go to a local urologist and have his done without any hassles from the insurance company.  I, however, am deemed unnecessary since I've exceeded the expiration date on usefulness as far as the medical community and insurance industry is concerned.  Yes, our bodies stop producing hormones, but that doesn't mean we can't replenish them and continue to live a more rewarding life.  The qualify of mine totally changed with the implants, and now I'm back to the same uncaring, unproductive, foggy state I was pre-hormone injection.  This procedure has been around for years, but the pharmaceutical companies don't want you to know about it.  Imagine the decline in their pill-pushing.  I've already ceased taking four prescriptions since becoming a pellet junkie.  :)  But, most doctors, and certainly the insurance companies operate on the theory that if my body has stopped producing hormones, I must not need them.  I guess the fact that for me, BIH are like a proverbial fountain of youth.  the good news is that now the insurance pays entirely for my husband.  Again, we women get short-shafted.

Oh, if you're like me, you're suprised that women need testosterone.  Here's what my friend, Ann, an FNP in Alaska has posted on her new FB page: 

Hormones 101- Testosterone is not just a mans hormone. Men don't have the patten on it like we thought. Testosterone often declines due to many reasons, interfering not only with a woman's sexuality, but also her bone density, energy, memory, and muscle loss. Often putting muscle back into your abs burns the fat that seems to accumulates on tummies. It is a very important and I do mean important hormone for women.
I call getting your sexuality back as icing on the cake, but I have seen many women as young as 30 with hysterectomies, use of oral contraceptives, Depo-provera injections lose their sexuality. If you have heard the old term "sex is all in the head", that is so true, as our receptor sites are in our brains and without adequate "T", we lose the ability to fantasize which lead to those great orgasms. Makes a lot of sense if you think about it. So get those levels checked if you think there may be a problem, no matter what age you are. You deserve it and so does your partner.

 Ann has done extensive research on these pellets and has a thriving practice to prove the procedure works.  We're not talking "horse-urine" (premarin) as was given to many of us after hysterectomies, we're talking hormones bio-identically equal to those produced by our own bodies.  What a concept.  There are always going to be nay-sayers about everything in the world, but let me tell you, I cannot wait until next Wednesday.  I want the new, improved Ginger back.  I'm pretty sure that's why my writing has come to a screeching halt.  Mind-fog, depression, and just not giving a "chit" is what being without my pellets causes, and I don't like it one bit.

If you want to find out more about the procedure and why we need hormones, I recommend a great book, Stay Young and Sexy with Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement. The authors, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright (MD) and Lane Lenard (PHD) explain the science aspect, and the foreword was written by Suzanne Somers, whom I quote...

 "At present, people begin to degrade at middle age (which due to increasing stress is now becoming younger and younger), and the remedy conventional medicine prescribes is one of more pharmaceutical drugs.  Can't sleep?  Take ******.  Depressed?  Take ******.  High cholesterol?  Take *******.  Anxiety or panic attacks? Take ******.  Then there's blood pressure medicine and pain killers, and soon you have a virtual tackle box of pharmaceuticals and so begins the slow degrade of "you."  Your thinking becomes foggy, your joints ache, your libido disappears, the essence of who you are slowly slips away and tends towards disease."

Susanne Somers really nailed exactly how I was feeling pre-pelleting.  Since 2004, this process has been getting a lot of attention, especially from Ms. Somers, Oprah Winfrey, and Dr. Phil's wife, Robin.  As Ms. Somers says in her foreward..."Information is power,"  arm yourself and decide if you want to fade away into nothingness.  I sure don't.