#until menopause? which just will give me a different set of problems

[hey-i-really-miss-you]

I cant imagine this is it. I cant imagine im supposed to just endure and endure and endure with no relief and no love no understanding just endure this is what you're meant to do this is what it is this is how you were born my feet ar tingling my legs are tingling my fingers are tingling hot water bottle extra strength pain meds and it still hurts I cant think straight my stomach hurts my head hurts it hurts to sit so I walk but i can't walk because I'm so fucking exhausted I need to sit down right after I get up endure endure endure over and over for WHAT to what end theres no nobility in this its just pain I wont get into turbo heaven for this there no light at the end of this tunnel there is no point to this cant just keep doing this shit

[jeannereames]

Super weird question, but how did women in ancient times deal with their periods? Was it taboo? Was it acknowledged at all?

Pretty much everywhere, women on their menses have been expected to take special care, as bleeding is viewed as disruptive. What “disruptive” means, however, varies, and here we get into technicalities that can sound a bit odd to modern ears. Stick with me. I’m going to divide this into “How menstruating women were viewed” versus “What women actually did about it.”

Part I: How menstruation was viewed

Throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Ancient Near East (ANE), both women menstruating and women who’d just given birth were regarded as “ritually unclean.”

This should not be confused with sin. First, “sin” was much more of a thing in the ANE (and Carthage) than in Greece and Rome, where “impiety” mattered more. This is not hair-splitting. While “sin” could include strictly religious affronts, it also embraced a lot of what we’d call immoral behavior. By contrast, “impiety” might include moral affronts, but was more focused on religious error.

I’m trying to avoid going down the rabbit-hole of sin vs. impiety. The main thing I want to point out is that sin in the ANE carries different overtones than Greco-Roman impiety. And neither of them is necessarily connected to ritual impurity.

Certain aspects of human life were “unclean” and all involved bodily fluids. These “unclean” actions or states are things that you are not allowed to enter a sanctuary after doing, or are not allowed to do in a sanctuary. And I say “sanctuary” (temenos) because this is the broadest term for “land that is cut off as sacred.” Sacred space was set apart for the gods.

For the Greeks, one was not permitted to kill in a sanctuary, or have sex. One might be bad, but the other wasn’t. Similarly, someone who’d committed murder (not in war), especially kin murder, was barred, even if the killing was accidental. And not only could you not have sex IN a sanctuary, if you’d had sex the night before, you couldn’t enter until taking a special bath. Likewise, a woman on her menses couldn’t enter a sanctuary, nor could a woman who’d given birth. A certain number of days were required for a new mother to wait. That doesn’t mean having a period, much less giving birth, were “bad” things. Certain diseases weren’t permitted in some sanctuaries (except those to Asclepius). All Greek (and Roman) sanctuaries had “rules” about who was, and wasn’t, allowed inside that could be highly arbitrary. Some sites permitted only members of that city-state, or perhaps barred members of certain other city-states. Spartans might be barred from sanctuaries in Argos, for instance. Some sites wouldn’t allow women, others allowed only married women, etc. Many if not most chthonic sites required the one entering to have no bindings, from sandal lacings to braided hair. The restrictions depended on the god (or hero) involved.

But the broader matter of ritually clean or unclean spanned sites. Being “cleansed” was usually pretty easy. It involved taking a bath, or waiting a given set of days. In the case of murder, it might be more complicated, and involve a trip to Delphi (to be thwapped on the shoulders with a laurel branch), but the MORAL side wasn’t considered. So if you had sex with your wife, or committed adultery with your neighbor’s wife… either way, you’re ritually unclean. If you killed your brother with premeditation, or just knocked over somebody accidentally in the street who hit his head on a rock (and died)…you’re ritually unclean.

It’s not that murder or adultery wouldn’t carry their own CIVIC repercussions, but in terms of religious purity, it’s a different matter.

In the ANE, similar restrictions surrounded menstruating women (or those who’d recently given birth). There, it was also ritual purity, not sin, and the concern is sacred space.

Now, if you want a completely different view, I give you American Indian attitudes, at least those I know of the NE woodlands. Here, also, menstruating women were restricted in their contact, mainly with medicine men (not necessarily medicine women), as well as where they could sit relative to the Grandfather Drum. But in this case, it’s because menstruating women were regarded as so much more powerful than men, they disrupted male medicine. Why? They could give birth. (How this fit into ideas of the third gender varied, but there were men, and male-bodied; women and female-bodied, so a menstruating man might be subject to the same restrictions.) In any case, here, too, women’s menses were disruptive but for positive reasons.

We have to figure out how any particular group actually understood what was going on, not make assumptions based on our (culture-locked) views of their (equally culture-locked) actions.

Part II: What did you do when Auntie Flo came to visit?

Before I go into details, let me first recommend a really great book that addresses not just the status of women in ancient Greece but women’s health using the Hippokratic Corpus. As I frequently tell my students, the status of women in ancient societies depends on two things: control of fertility, and control of her own finances. Demand’s book addresses especially the former, and she talks about the states of a woman’s life, from birth to first menses to marriage to childbirth to menopause (for those lucky enough to live that long).

Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Greece, Nancy Demand, Johns Hopkins UP, 1990.

So, the practical side.

The BIG problem with such logistical matters is 1) that stuff doesn’t survive except under special, unusual circumstances, and 2) men mostly ignored what women did about Those Things. So they didn’t write about it. But we know a few things.

The first tampons, at least in the west (not counting Americas), seem to have been invented by the Egyptians. Softened papyrus around a reed. (Even softened…ow.) I note that women in Egyptian society had relatively high status and more freedom, so the fact they invented tampons doesn’t surprise me.

I wish we knew more about societies like the Scythians, where women regularly rode and (past a certain age) fought on horseback. Similarly with the Illyrians. But at least the concept of a “plug” was out there early. The Hippocratic corpus says Greek women put lint around a stick: same purpose. Romans used wool.

But these societies aren’t giving tampons to virginal girls. And not just because it might be uncomfortable. It could break the hymen…and that’s potentially disastrous for her reputation. But also, ancient tampons probably wouldn’t have been easy for young girls to use. (Modern tampons aren’t always easy for young girls to use,)

There are mentions of something like a menstrual belt, with clips for cloth pads. One can assume an enterprising ancient woman came up with the idea of a pad between the legs and something to hold it up pretty early. Certainly, the notion of the “girdle” was known to the Greeks and associated with virginity, first menarch, and marriage.

Other societies, however, weren’t that kind. Women stuffed rags into their underwear. Or they simply bled into their clothes. (Yuk.) My impression, though, is that just because the society in question isn’t writing about it (assuming they’re writing at all) doesn’t mean women IN that society hadn’t figured out how to deal with Auntie Flo. Certainly, there’s also hints of various teas brewed to deal with cramps.

A final, sorta wacky ancient idea I’ll leave you with … as I’ve mentioned in a few asks before, the ancients mostly had bad knowledge of women’s bodies. They thought the womb sorta wandered around inside the body causing havoc unless a woman was preggers. They also didn’t understand that menstrual “blood” was mostly fluid (and a little blood to give it color) from the womb shedding. They thought it was blood, which came from all parts of the woman’s body. And they assumed she was losing a LOT more of it than we know today to be true, even for those with a heavy flow.

But they also believed it was that blood from which babies were made. It was almost like soil, into which the father planted seed. Once fertilized, the blood turned into flesh and “built” a baby.

Yeah, weird, but they didn’t understand reproductive cell replication.

Another titbit…even at a very early period, menstruation was connected to the moon. Modern research has shown little connection between lunar cycle and menstruation (aside from the 28-day thing), but the ancients believed in it. So “moon-bleed” is a not uncommon term for menstruation. And of course, the term “menses” is the plural of the Latin word for “month.”

[coalfall42-blog]

vaginal tightening Up Femiwand Treatment.

face Lift

Content

Skin Tag Removal therapy rates.

Are You ready To book Your Free consultation?

Fat Melting Vs Fat Freezing treatment results.

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exists An Age limit For This sort Of surgery?

What To get Out Of A Cryotherapy, Fat Freezing Coolsculpting procedure?

exactly How Will Your Skin Tag Be removed?

Skin Tag Removal treatment costs.

Females observe outcomes instantly and after that much more so after a short amount of time, usually a couple of days. The number of FemiLift therapies that you will call for will be recommended to you for long-term outcomes. This will certainly be talked about with you at examination before any FemiLift therapies are accomplished. Ideal You Charm is Congleton's elegance and also skincare hub, offering the most innovative and also cutting-edge treatments including a professional series of non-invasive facials, eyebrow and also lash care as well as a lot more. The team are specialists in their area, qualified as well as are constantly well-informed with the latest patterns as well as treatments.

You'll likewise be asked not to consume or consume alcohol for around six hrs prior to your HIFU.

If you're having focal HIFU, you will typically most likely to a screening consultation first

You need to not rely upon the details on our website as an option to clinical recommendations from your medical professional or other healthcare provider.

HIFU might be ideal for you if your cancer is contained inside your prostate.

This procedure is occasionally made use of prior to HIFU to reduce the threat of some urinary system issues after the therapy.

Ask your doctor or registered nurse which sort of HIFU may be ideal for you.

Specialist or specialist suggestions ought to always be looked for prior to taking any type of action connecting to medical visual treatments.We make reasonable efforts to ensure that the Content on Our Site is total, exact, as well as up-to-date.

We do not, nevertheless, make any kind of depictions, guarantees or guarantees that the Web content is complete, accurate, or current.

Transurethral resection of the prostate is a procedure to eliminate prostate cells as well as boost the flow of urine.

You will normally be able to really feel the full outcomes by ninety days after the procedure. Results differ from one person to another, as well as depend on the number of therapies you have undergone. " Given the excellent void of proof of the value of such treatments, and also effectively handled investigatory work by specialist therapists in sexual medication as well as wellness, I would certainly advise fantastic caution in going after such treatments.

Are You all Set To schedule Your Free consultation?

Fat Melting Vs Fat Freezing treatment outcomes.

90% of the patients that participated in the research claimed they experienced a considerable enhancement in their quality of life. Speak to your expert in detail about your symptoms and also, if you're experiencing symptoms that can't be assisted with vaginal laser tightening up then review your alternatives with your GP or talk to a gynaecologist. The results of laser vaginal area tightening up are long enduring, yet they are not long-term, as you'll require regular treatment top ups each to 2 years to preserve the results. As a lady, you ought to prepare to begin experiencing raised satisfaction and vaginal feeling after the therapy. Chances are that vaginal lubrication will likewise raise, triggering you to experience a lot more intense climaxes. The therapy assists by resolving common concerns that can disrupt your intimate connection as well as everyday life such as genital dryness and also vaginal rigidity.

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" They're extremely little research studies," stated Professor Joyce Harper, director of education and head of the Reproductive Wellness Division at UCL's Institute for Female's Health and wellness, who has actually checked out several of the research with Refinery29 UK. Late in July, the US Food and Drug Administration, the federal government body in charge of shielding public health and wellness in America, provided a caution versus devices and treatments that promise to "rejuvenate" ladies's vaginal canals. " These products have serious threats and also do not have ample evidence to support their use for these functions. We are deeply worried women are being hurt," the FDA stated, provoking an in a similar way damning judgment in the UK. The FemiLift treatment provides durable enhancement in vaginal feeling as well as control of urinary incontinence. Results generally last from 18 months to 2 years depending on your specific health and wellness as well as pre-existing laxity.

Not just that, yet any kind of treatment to transform the exterior look of a lady's vaginal canal is more than likely clinically unneeded, Professor Harper added. Gynaecologist as well as singing Goop critic Dr Jen Gunter made this point loud and also clear on Twitter just recently. " The term renewal is typically made use of for marketing for women that have nothing else medical problem past ageing," she composed. According to Teacher Harper, the vagina doesn't constantly lose rigidity with age, particularly if a lady hasn't had a child, and also there is a big variation in the look of the vulva. " The researches I've seen have discovered that there isn't any difference in a great deal of these women compared to various other females. It's mostly simply their assumption that they have actually had a baby and so consequently has to have a loose vaginal canal." Professor Harper said she is additionally right away suspicious of therapies that guarantee to 'take care of' numerous inconsonant symptoms at the same time, from vaginal laxity and also agonizing sex to rigidity, dryness and also incontinence. While a small number of facilities do give citations and links to scientific research on their internet sites, the researches are generally very minimal as well as have been deemed not enough by the professionals we talked with.

exists An Age limit For This kind Of surgical Treatment?

New modern technology has actually allowed us to use an innovative technique for tightening the vaginal wall surfaces. Utilizing the FemiLift laser to boost collagen growth, it will tighten the genital wall surface, thus recovering an extra youthful feeling. Additionally, feedback has actually shown that Laser Vaginal Firm making use of FemiLift additionally aids those that experience dry skin and persistent vaginal infections. If you have Femilift laser vaginal tightening up for signs and symptoms such as the above, then it's unlikely to work to any type of wonderful level and also you might be let down with the outcomes. Even if the HIFU treatment therapy is non-intrusive does not mean that it can't penetrate the SMAS layer.

Following your FemiLift treatment it is suggested that you do not make love or usage tampons for around 5 days to allow the genital wall to work out. At LBPS we provide a substantial range of Womens Health and wellness Services. Your examination may include a smear test, maternity examination, bust assessment, menopause guidance and hormone screening before laser genital restoration. Customers coming for hair elimination likewise have their selection of electrolysis and also laser in irreversible choices as well as all the specific shaving basics. Positioned around an 18-minute walk from West Finchley tube station, Aesthetics Home Limited specialises in complicated skin facility treatments executed by qualified specialists.

We understand that any procedure involving the vaginal canal and bordering locations is incredibly personal in nature and also our expert and mild approach suggests that your self-respect and comfort is of utmost value. We have a specialized female expert that will make certain that the therapy is quick, discomfort free and comfy.

If still questioning that a suitable prospect for the treatment is, you must note that it's only suggested for females who are previous thirty years. A reason to consider undertaking this therapy is to assist you in improving the wellness, health and wellness, and vitality of the vaginal cells.

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You may experience redness and also inflammation in the vaginal location for a few days after the therapy, however this will fade. This is the most usual Vaginal Tightening FAQ. The procedure is not painful, however you may feel some pain when the probe is inserted right into the vaginal canal. At Harley Ultrasound, we constantly placed a condom on the probe and also lubricate it for your safety and convenience. Our professionals are devoted to your welfare, and can adjust the probe so it is not inserted as deep right into the vaginal canal to make the treatment a lot more relaxing. I was repeatedly assured vaginal rejuvenation was risk-free, although I was never ever described any scientific researches to back this up. The consultant at Vivo Facility ensured me there had not been any kind of main public health warnings versus it anywhere in the world and that there were no long-lasting adverse impacts. The medical and also clinical know-how of the team at LBPS is unrivaled.

To discover more concerning FemiLift vaginal tightening laser therapy, go here to go back to our FemiLift advice centre. There have been a number of clinical researches right into the effectiveness of laser genital tightening up treatment, such as Femilift. As laser genital firm is a relatively brand-new strategy, it has actually been attempted as well as examined by various journalists in conventional media, every one of which have actually provided the therapy positive testimonials.

Is 60 too old for a facelift?

The optimal age for a facelift though is during your mid-40s; while most people wait until they are in their 50s or 60s to have work done, by pre-empting your skin losing the majority of it elasticity, the results achieved will appear more natural – you will look rested, and people may not even notice you've had work

If you are fretted about its security, you should note that there's absolutely nothing to bother with. It's a procedure that has actually already been checked as well as discovered to work with various aesthetic treatments. Superficial Tightening up targets the external layers of the skin in the vaginal wall. This does tighten the vaginal area, yet the outcomes will only last in between 6 to eight weeks. Muscular Tightening also targets the muscle layer that is deeper within the vaginal wall, tightening up the vagina for approximately eighteen months.

While non-surgical vaginal tightening will not have an influence on how you look, it's a therapy that can substantially impact your quality of life and total joy. The HIFU genital tightening FemiWand treatment is the best choice to undertaking invasive as well as medical surgery. Planning for a genital tightening session doesn't require too much preparation work. However, it's advised that you don't engage in intercourse twenty-four hours before you have it performed. While the function of this treatment is to tighten your vaginal muscle mass, not all ladies are considered suitable prospects for this treatment. A female that is about to give birth, or that has actually just recently delivered and also began to registered nurse must not undergo this treatment.

This stress, combined with the raising normalisation as well as accessibility of surgical and also non-surgical treatments, as well as the lack of policy around, has added to a boom in "vaginal renewal". After an appointment to ensure that you appropriate for the FemiLift therapy, the procedure fasts and painless. Using a. speculum, a tiny pole having the laser is delicately placed into the vaginal area. It is then very carefully drew back to ensure that the laser covers the full length of the vaginal wall.

Refinery29 got in touch with the Advertising Criteria Authority to discover its stance en route genital rejuvenation therapies are being promoted, given the cautions. " We would need to judge specific situations relying on the degree of the case," a speaker claimed, including that "objective claims would need to be backed with proof". Goodacre is likewise asking for better understanding of ladies's sexual wellness, which places much less onus on the body. He said the "treatment claims to renew the vaginal area by permitting the vaginal canal to normally produce brand-new collagen" and that it "is done in a safe as well as regulated fashion sticking to the strictest standards and also cleanliness guidelines". He explained the lack of law around such treatments in the UK as "regrettable" and also said Vivo Clinic's procedures are covered by insurance policy "and satisfy well-known insurance coverage suppliers that our procedures will not hurt the general public". So is it any kind of marvel that some women are seeking hasty solutions to get their vaginal areas an action more detailed to pornstar "excellence"?

What is the best treatment for deep wrinkles on face?

Wrinkle TreatmentsRetinoids (tretinoin, Altreno, Retin-A, Renova, Tazorac). Alpha-hydroxy acids. Antioxidants. Moisturizers. Glycolic acid peels. Deeper peels. Dermabrasion . Laser resurfacing . More items•

how Will Your Skin Tag Be gotten Rid Of?

For many females, they only need to go through a single therapy session for them to get optimum results. However, for others, it may be needed for them to go back to the clinic for in between two and three sessions for them to totally benefit. HIFU is the go-treatment for women seeking to tighten their vaginal areas. While it's a subject that few people, especially ladies are confident talking about in public circles, it can help invigorate their exclusive components. many solutions on the market is a non-surgical treatment that has been made to recover suppleness and flexibility. The innovation we use is safe as well as non-invasive meaning there are extremely couple of negative effects, every one of which are short-lived.

Astudy of 28 post-menopausal ladies with signs and symptoms of vaginal atrophyby gynaecologist Scott Evan Eder MD, found that "mostly all VVA symptoms were dramatically enhanced at one month following the first treatment". In 2018, Julene B Samuels, MD, Plastic Surgeon and also Martin A Garcia, MD, Obstetrician Gynecologist, checked into the performance of lasers for symptoms of vulvovaginal degeneration in postmenopausal females. The results revealed that signs and symptoms of dry skin, itching as well as pain throughout intercourse boosted considerably, and that the density of the genital tissue had actually increased. Follow the link toread more concerning the research study and prior to as well as after images. A 2017 studyfound that laser treatment was an "efficient and also easy-to-perform therapy technique for menopause-related genital degeneration and also anxiety urinary incontinence".

How much does a ponytail facelift cost?

Cost: $8,000–$11,000. The Hair Trick: A DIY ponytail placed just right will yield impressive results too, even if only for an evening.

Before being utilized in tightening genital cells, it was being used on treatments that involved boosting as well as tightening the skin tone on various components of the body including the face. At Pro-Moi Center the HIFU Vaginal tightening up additionally known as the Femiwand is a non-surgical vaginal firm therapy. This treatment works well for looseness, dryness and also bladder weakness. If childbirth or menopause has actually triggered some modifications in the health and wellness and makeup of your vagina, then this can be your solution. If you would love to complain about the method genital restoration therapies are advertised in the UK you can send an issue to the Marketing Specifications Authority. The procedure is relatively simple however you'll need a photo, video clip or screenshot of the ad, that includes marketing on a company's web site or social networks channels.

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Five Minute Ficlet

Based on a true story

XxX

When you’d requested a consult on an elderly patient with an abnormal growth on his forehead, you hadn’t expected Doctor Leonard McCoy to stroll into your clinic. When you double checked the chart on the patient, it made more sense. The old man you affectionately called Pops was actually a retired Starfleet Admiral.

“Fill me in, Lt. Y/L/N,”

“Well, Pops comes in once a week for a vitamin supplement by hypo. That freckle on his forehead has been on my watch list for about a year, but the growth has really sped up in the last month or so,” you explained. “When I scanned it with the tricorder, it was identified as cancerous. Pops just wants it removed, which, as you know, requires surgery. No laser will get that.”

Doctor McCoy leaned in and assessed your patient’s forehead, nodding. “Good call. I’ll prep my kit. You can assist?”

A telltale bead of sweat trickled down your back and you cursed your physiology, but nodded. “Absolutely. It’s been ages since I’ve scrubbed in, but I’m sure you’ll direct me?”

“Of course. I don’t see the point in sending the Admiral over to a clinic where the nurses are unfamiliar to him for something so minor,” he nodded. “You’re a little flushed, are you alright?”

“Hot flash,” you admitted. His brows furrowed in disbelief.

“You’re hardly old enough -”

“I assure you, I’m plenty old enough. But thank you for the compliment,” you teased, interrupting him. “It’s early days, so these are passing quickly enough. I’ll get Pops set up for you?”

“Thank you,” Doctor McCoy nodded. “Now Admiral, the lieutenant is going to help out while I cut that freckle off your forehead. I’ll numb the area, but you tell me if you feel any pain, and I can always add more numbing for you. You’ll probably need three stitches when I’m done, but the lieutenant -”

“Her name is Y/N. We don’t stand on ceremony here, Doc. And you can call me Dave,” Pops interrupted. Doctor McCoy smiled and nodded.

“Of course. So Y/N is going to keep an eye on that wound, and I’m going to want you to pop in once a day for three days after. In about ten days, she can take the stitches out. I’ll be around for about three more months, so if there’s any complications, she’ll give me a call and I’ll come check on you. That okay with you?” Doctor McCoy continued.

“Get to see my favourite nurse every day? No problem at all, Doc,” Pops smiled, winking in your direction.

“If you’re ready, Doctor McCoy, I’ve got everything set here,” you offered.

Subcutaneous injections were still the preferred method of pre-operative numbing, you recalled as Doctor McCoy prepared a syringe full of lidocaine. The dispersal of the fluid was superior to a hypo injection, and would have better coverage if Doctor McCoy needed to cut more tissue than initially assessed.

As you watched the injection, you realized your hot flash was not abating. You back was damp with sweat, and your brow was starting to drip down into your eyes. You ignored it, hoping it would stop soon, and refocussed on Doctor McCoy as he cut into Pops’ forehead. Blood welled up quickly and you passed the doctor some gauze to clear it so he could see what he was doing. He continued, carving an eye-shaped piece of skin out of Pops’ forehead with the cancerous growth at the centre. You held open the sample container for the excised tissue, and twisted it closed, concentrating on anticipating Doctor McCoy’s needs rather than the sweat dripping into the waistband of your pants. 

Doctor McCoy moved the gauze to start suturing the wound and an arc of blood spurted from the wound on Pops’ forehead across the bed, landing on your arm. It wasn’t enough to really notice, particularly as your skin was easily as hot as the blood spatter, thanks to the goddamn hot flash that wasn’t ceasing. Doctor McCoy quickly covered the wound as another short spurt of blood arced across the bed toward you.

“Capillary?” You asked. He nodded, applying pressure. He prepared his suturing needle quickly with one hand while continuing to apply pressure to the wound, and then pulled back the gauze again. The blood was just pooling instead of arcing, and you suddenly noticed an absence of the overwhelming heat you’d been feeling. You were very cold. Very cold, and the ringing in your ears that had started with the hot flash had changed to a static-like white noise. The periphery of your vision started to go black.

“Y/N, are you okay? You’re very pale,” Doctor McCoy commented.

“I think it’s just the hot flash?” You replied. Pops had threaded his fingers in your own when Doctor McCoy had started, and was still clinging to you. You needed to be there for him. You swayed a little, and your vision got a little narrower.

“I think you’re having a vaso-vagal episode, sweetheart. You should sit down,” he suggested. You hooked your foot in a chair and pulled it toward you, sitting down beside Pops and dropped your head between your knees, taking deep steady breaths. You head was swimming, and as much as it horrified and embarrassed you, you realized the doctor was right. The white noise in your ears was so much that you didn’t realize that Doctor McCoy was in front of you until he touched your shoulder. 

You looked up at him, humiliation written all over your face.

“I’m so sorry,” you started. He shook his head, waving it off.

“You’re an outpatient clinic. How often do you assist with surgery?” He asked.

“Well, this is probably the first time in,” you paused, “well, ever? I just. I failed you as a nurse. I should have been okay. It was just a little blood.”

“And your normal scope for here is to manage labs and maintain the health of the residents in your quadrant so they don’t clog up the urgent care clinics?” He asked.

“Yes?”

“And you work without the supervision of a doctor because your judgement and skill level is trusted?” He continued.

“Yes,” you nodded. He smiled and patted your knee.

“Then don’t worry. No one likes to see blood. And if you’re Dave’s favourite nurse, it suggests a friendship, and it’s even harder to see your friends vulnerable. Trust me, I know,” he smiled. “That said, I’d like to give you a quick assessment. Despite your protestations that you are of advanced enough age to be starting menopause, you’re really a little early, and I’d like to run some quick tests. And then just humour me a little longer. Vaso-vagal syncope can be an indicator of something more amiss than just queasiness at the sight of blood.”

“I really think I’m fine,” you protested, embarrassed still.

“Humour me please, Y/N,” he asked. 

“This is so mortifying,” you complained. Doctor McCoy smiled again, his eyes crinkling attractively at the corners. You looked at him and noticed for the first time how handsome he was, and then your embarrassment intensified. So not only had you made a fool of yourself in front of a doctor, but it was in front of a hot doctor. You wanted to melt into the floor. Instead, you hopped up on the biobed beside the one Pops was in, and let the doctor work.

The steady rhythm of your heart rate reassured you that you were fine, and you pointed at the monitor above your head with a smug look. Doctor McCoy arched his eyebrow and pulled your chart up on his PADD.

“Good lord, woman, you’re barely older than me. This is far to early for menopause!” he exclaimed.

“The women in my family have always started in their early forties,” you shrugged.

“Then then women in your family have always been treated by idiot who haven’t a clue about women’s bodies,” he countered. “I’m going to run a complete panel, including hormone levels on you, and I’m referring you to Anishka Polatoff. She’s the best gynaecologist Startfleet has to offer.”

“You think it’s so serious you need to refer me to a different physician?” you asked, doubtful. 

“More because I’d like to take you out for drinks and I don’t want to violate the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship,” he smiled.

[over30hormonesolution]

Over 30 Hormone Solution

Over 30 Hormone Solution Review: Who is Debbie Anderson’s Program Good For?

If you’re wondering whether or not Debbie Anderson’s dietary supplement called Over 30 Hormone Solution is right for you, then this Over 30 Hormone Solution review will help you make your decision.

Below, I’ve given a complete review of the dietary supplement. Plus, at the end of the review, I’ve given my final thoughts, how it stands up against other solutions like it, and an overall score (out of 10) for Over 30 Hormone Solution.

Title:

Over 30 Hormone Solution

Creator(s):

Debbie Anderson, Marissa Anderson

Creator Credibility

Debbie Anderson isn’t a doctor or trainer. She’s the first woman whose life was changed using Over 30 Hormone Solution. After having her third child, she had a hard time controlling her weight. When she tried losing weight, she injured her leg and fell into a frustrating pattern of late night snacking. No matter what she tried, she only gained more weight. Eventually she her sex drive slowed down to nothing and she became depressed.

Then, tragedy struck. She had a Transient Ischemic Attack in her kitchen, which is also considered a Mini Stroke. The doctor then told Debbie that her blood pressure and cholesterol levels were high. To make matters worse, she was a type II diabetic.

That’s when the doctor gave her grim news: “Debbie, I’m sorry to tell you this but if you don’t lose at least 47 pounds in the next 7 weeks. You are very likely at risk for another stroke….. and your next stroke may kill you”

Just a few days later, Debbie caught her husband cheating on her. And she was ready to give up. That’s when she got a call from her daughter, Marissa. 

Marissa Anderson was just returning from a trip to a Blue Zone in Asia where the world’s healthiest and longest living people reside. There was a special combination of herbs that all the women on this island in Asia ate which they claimed is the reason their average life expectancy was 86 years old. 

After using this combination of herbs, Debbie lost 2 lbs. overnight. And the weight kept coming off until she was a happier, healthier and hotter version of herself. That’s when Debbie and Marissa Anderson knew they had to get these recipes out to the world — and created the Over 30 Hormone Solution.

Creator Credibility Score: 8/10

The Supplement

Why Was Over 30 Hormone Solution created?

Over 30 Hormone Solution was originally created to help Marissa Anderson’s mom, Debbie, lose almost 4-dozen pounds in just weeks to save her life after a Mini Stroke. (see story above). 

Marissa discovered the amazingly simple (yet almost miraculous) herbal recipes featured in the supplement while studying in Blue Zones in Asia. A Blue Zone is a region of the world where people live much longer than the average. They’re typically a lot leaner and healthier as well. 

Marissa suggested these ingredients to her mother because she had sustained an injury while exercising and couldn’t workout while recovering. Yet, she kept piling on the weight because her metabolism was running very slowly and hormonal imbalances were adding inches to her waist, neck and face. Debbie was in desperate need for a solution, but nothing she tried worked. 

There are many women who face this same struggle as Debbie. Yet the herbal recipes from Asia (featured inside the Over 30 Hormone Solution supplement), helped her go from 210 pounds to 132 pounds in 8 weeks, at age 53. And she did it all without a strict diet or exercise. Plus, the doctor was blown away when her high blood pressure, cholesterol and type II diabetes vanished in 2 months.

After discovering the power of these ingredients for herself, Debbie and Marissa set out to help as many women as possible get a second chance at life — whether that’s losing 10, 20, or even 100+ pounds, reversing a difficult diagnosis, or just looking younger and feeling more confident. That’s why they created Over 30 Hormone Solution.

What’s Inside The Over 30 Hormone Solution?

The Over 30 Hormone Solution supplement contains:

➤ Black Cohosh: Black cohosh has been used for centuries by Eastern North American to treat various conditions and carries a rich history of medical use. Multiple records show that Native Americans started using black cohosh centuries ago for the treatment of menopause symptoms, menstrual irregularities, as well as to ease childbirth. Today, black cohosh is a popular remedy for the symptoms associated with menopause, such as hot flashes, mood changes, night sweats, sleeping program, and even vaginal dryness. 

➤ Dong Quai: Dong Quai’s scientific name is Angelica Sinensis, but it is mostly referred to as female ginseng. Mainly it is because this herb keeps the female reproductive system healthy. For thousands of years, Dong Quai has been used as a medicine throughout China, Korea, and Japan. Today, it is often recommended as a treatment for premenstrual syndrome (PMS), menstrual cramps, and other related menstruation problems, as well as hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms. 

➤ Red Clover: Due to its beauty, Red Clover is used as an ornamental plant. This herb is traditionally used in the treatment of different conditions, including symptoms of menopause, coughs, cancers, and disorders of the lymphatic system. Today it is more frequently used as a key treatment for various hormonal imbalances. 

➤ Chaste Berry: Chasteberry is the fruit of the chaste tree; it is sometimes called Monk’s pepper. This plant has been used for centuries to treat numerous hormone-related gynecologic conditions. You will find chaste berry in most women’s health supplements, because it’s useful in treating menstrual problems, menopause symptoms, infertility, and other conditions. 

➤ Licorice: Licorice is the root of glycyrrhiza; it is known for its earthy odor and sweet flavor. While licorice is best known for its use in chewy candy, it has also been used in medicine for centuries. Most importantly, this herb is potent in reducing the occurrence of hot flashes, which make it essential in hormone health. 

➤ Sage: Sage is another very important herb to the native American. It’s not only beneficial for multiple health problems, but it is also believed that sage can protect against harmful spirits and draw them out of the body or soul. Historically, this herb has been used in the preparation of many foods not just because of its amazing flavor. Though there is little research targeted at its uses in menopause, people popularly use sage to deal with various menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings. 

➤ Blessed Thistle Herb Powder: Blessed thistle is commonly used in the form of herbal teas as a herbal remedy for loss of appetite and indigestion. It is also prepared to treat colds fever and cough, diarrhea, and bacterial infections. Some people use blessed thistle as a diuretic, as well as for promoting the flow of breast milk in new mothers. 

➤ Mexican Yam: Some experts suggest using wild yam as an alternative to estrogen replacement therapy for treating symptoms of menopause. Evidence suggests that the yam may increase or stabilize estrogen levels in the body, and this helps relieve the person of the symptoms of estrogen imbalance. 

This combination of herbs makes Over 30 Hormone Solution a very simple yet effective remedy for hormonal imbalances, unwanted weight gain and just wanting to feel better. In fact, one of the best parts is its simplicity. All you need to do is take one serving per day and you’ll restore hormonal integrity to the most important female hormones including cortisol (stress hormone), estrogen (the primary female hormone) and insulin (fat storing hormone).

Who is Over 30 Hormone Solution for?

Over 30 Hormone Solution is for women over 30 who want to lose weight and shrink their waist without starting a rigorous exercise program or boring, tasteless diet. It’s for women whose hormones are out of balance and it’s wreaking havoc on their bodies and lives… and they’re in search for a simple solution that can make them feel better. 

Whether you have 10 pounds or 100+ pounds to lose, are 30-70 years old, or just want to have a better balanced and happier mood — Over 30 Hormone Solution is for you.

Ingredients Score: 9.5/10

Has 

Over 30 Hormone Solution

Created Real World Results?

Yes! 

➤ Kimberly lost 35 lbs. in 6 weeks and says, “At 45 after two kids, my weight ballooned up to close to 198 pounds. I was on the verge of a divorce because my husband and I completely lost our sexual desire with each other and worst of all I had no energy to play with my kids. I tried everything and decided to give Over 30 Hormone Solution a try…and I quickly lost 35 pounds in 10 weeks….now we’re going on weekly trips together as a family and my husband proudly holds my hand in public!”

➤ Carla says, “For years after I had my daughter I experienced everything that you went through. I was going around in circles with doctors telling me to take all these different types of medicine that made me feel worse. Once I started taking Over 30 Hormone Solution my tiredness disappeared. I even lost 29 pounds! Thanks Debbie!”

➤ Ann says, “I really couldn’t believe how easy this solution was. I didn’t even have to leave my couch!”

➤ Tina says, ““I never thought in a million years I would not only lose my stubborn body around my belly and love handles but reverse my hypothyroidism! It’s amazing just how easily the fat began to come off once I put my “hormone hat” on – haha.”

➤ Miranda says, “Debra I can’t thank you and the team enough for changing my life! Menopause really took me for a spin. I gained an extra 30lbs and didn’t even want to get out of bed some mornings.”

➤ And Cindy says, “I couldn’t believe my own reflection. For the first time in my life, I have been able to lose my stubborn belly fat…it was just so hard before…I tried everything…eating well, workout but nothing worked until I took the Over 30 Hormone Solution. It feels so good to have my hormone balance so I wake up every morning full of energy”

And here are Debbie Anderson’s results:

Debbie says these are just a few of the thousands of amazing testimonials that have flooded her inbox since releasing Over 30 Hormone Solution.

Results Score: 9/10

Comparison to Other Solutions

You’re probably reading this Over 30 Hormone Solution review to figure out if it’s the real deal. And I’m glad you’re doing your homework and want to compare it to some other solutions for you. Obviously, this isn’t the first hormonal balance and quick fat loss solution you’ve ever heard of. But after seeing the results I’ve shared with you already, I’m willing to put it up against some that have made a splash in the health world. (And honestly, I think Over 30 Hormone Solution is easier than all the others I’ve seen):

Lean Body Hacks

Cinderella Solution

Flat Belly Fix

What’s so great about The Over 30 Hormone Solution is that it’s not a cookbook full of recipes that may or may not work, and that take time to make. It’s a simple supplement. It only takes 7-seconds to use this supplement and you’ll unlock exciting results.

Price

If I had to choose a price I would pay to use Over 30 Hormone Solution, I think the maximum I would pay would be around $65-75.  

Don’t get me wrong, this supplement is something special. It’s packed with powerful all natural, herbal ingredients that restore hormonal balance to women of any age so you can feel like you again. 

So if you can get it for under $65-$75, definitely do it. Now, The Over 30 Hormone Solution normally has a $99 retail tag on it. However, as I’m writing this, there’s a special sale going on for only $59. All you have to do is click the link below: 

Price Score: 9/10

Final Thoughts

The Over 30 Hormone Solution one-a-day supplement from Debbie and Marissa Anderson is for women who want to regulate their hormones and get leaner and healthier without making drastic changes to their lifestyle. It’s simple to use (only takes seconds to take an easy-to-swallow capsule), and can help you see exciting (even life-changing) results, and feel like you again — and completely refreshed.. 

The testimonials are impressive. I haven’t tried out some of these recipes for myself, but I have to admit, these Blue Zone herbal ingredients have lots of great science to back it up.

All that’s left to do is try it out for yourself. You can try it out for a limited time discount price by going here:

*Note: This is an affiliate link and Fit-Critic.com gets a commission on this sale. If you found this review helpful, then please buy through the link above.We buy every program we review, and the money made from this site helps fund those programs. This way, we can continue to provide you with free reviews.

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Cryopen ™.

face Lift

Content

Skin Tag Removal treatment rates.

Are You all Set To book Your Free appointment?

Fat Melting Vs Fat Freezing therapy results.

Facebook.

exists An Age restriction For This kind Of surgery?

What To expect From A Cryotherapy, Fat Freezing Coolsculpting procedure?

Skin Tag Removal therapy prices.

Females discover results right away and then extra so after a short amount of time, frequently a couple of days. The number of FemiLift treatments that you will certainly call for will be recommended to you for long-term results. This will certainly be gone over with you at consultation before any type of FemiLift therapies are performed. Ideal You Beauty is Congleton's beauty as well as skincare center, offering the most advanced and ingenious therapies consisting of an expert range of non-invasive facials, brow and also lash treatment as well as a lot more. The group are professionals in their field, certified and are always aware with the most up to date patterns and also therapies.

You'll also be asked not to eat or consume for around 6 hrs before your HIFU.

If you're having focal HIFU, you will usually go to a screening appointment initially

You must not rely on the details on our site as a choice to clinical guidance from your doctor or other healthcare provider.

HIFU may be Spire Aesthetics Loughborough for you if your cancer is included inside your prostate.

This procedure is occasionally used prior to HIFU to minimize the danger of some urinary system issues after the treatment.

Ask your medical professional or registered nurse which type of HIFU might be ideal for you.

Transurethral resection of the prostate is a procedure to eliminate prostate cells as well as enhance the flow of pee.

You will usually be able to feel the full results by ninety days after the treatment. Results vary from one person to another, and also depend upon the number of treatments you have actually undertaken. " Provided the terrific space of proof of the worth of such therapies, as well as properly managed investigatory work by specialised therapists in sexual medication as well as wellness, I would urge excellent caution in seeking such therapies.

Are You all Set To book Your Free appointment?

Fat Melting Vs Fat Freezing therapy outcomes.

90% of the clients that participated in the study said they experienced a considerable enhancement in their quality of life. Speak with your specialist carefully concerning your signs and also, if you're experiencing signs that can't be assisted with genital laser tightening up after that discuss your options with your General Practitioner or talk to a gynaecologist. The results of laser vagina firm are long enduring, however they are not long-term, as you'll call for regular treatment leading ups each to 2 years to maintain the outcomes. As a woman, you ought to prepare to begin experiencing boosted pleasure and vaginal sensation after the therapy. Chances are that genital lubrication will likewise raise, triggering you to experience a lot more extreme orgasms. The therapy helps by attending to usual problems that can hinder your intimate connection and everyday life such as genital dryness as well as vaginal tightness.

What is the best face tightening procedure?

Laser resurfacing This is the most effective procedure for tightening loose skin. Unlike the laser treatment described above, this procedure requires some downtime. You'll need to stay home for 5 to 7 days. Laser resurfacing also gives you the fastest results.

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" They're really small studies," said Professor Joyce Harper, director of education and head of the Reproductive Health And Wellness Division at UCL's Institute for Women's Health, who has actually taken a look at some of the research study with Refinery29 UK. Late in July, the US Food and Drug Administration, the government body responsible for safeguarding public health and wellness in America, provided a warning versus devices as well as therapies that promise to "rejuvenate" ladies's vaginas. " These items have serious risks and do not have appropriate proof to support their use for these purposes. We are deeply concerned women are being damaged," the FDA said, prompting an in a similar way damning verdict in the UK. The FemiLift treatment offers durable renovation in vaginal experience and control of urinary system incontinence. Outcomes normally last from 18 months to 2 years depending upon your specific health and wellness as well as pre-existing laxity.

Not just that, however any kind of therapy to transform the exterior appearance of a female's vaginal area is probably medically unneeded, Teacher Harper added. Gynaecologist and singing Goop movie critic Dr Jen Gunter made this factor loud and also clear on Twitter recently. " The term restoration is typically utilized for advertising and marketing for women that have no other clinical problem beyond ageing," she created. According to Professor Harper, the vagina doesn't constantly shed rigidity with age, particularly if a lady hasn't had an infant, as well as there is a substantial variation in the look of the vulva. " The researches I've seen have actually found that there isn't any difference in a lot of these ladies contrasted to various other females. view full pricing 's generally just their assumption that they have actually had a child and so consequently has to have a loosened vaginal area." Professor Harper claimed she is also immediately questionable of treatments that guarantee to 'fix' so many inconsonant symptoms simultaneously, from genital laxity and also agonizing sex to tightness, dryness and also urinary incontinence. While a small number of facilities do give citations and links to clinical research on their websites, the studies are generally really restricted and also have actually been deemed insufficient by the experts we talked to.

is There An Age restriction For This kind Of surgery?

New innovation has enabled us to use a cutting edge method for tightening up the genital wall surfaces. Utilizing the FemiLift laser to stimulate collagen development, it will certainly tighten the vaginal wall surface, therefore recovering an extra vibrant feeling. On top of that, feedback has actually shown that Laser Vaginal Tightening utilizing FemiLift additionally helps those that deal with dry skin and recurrent genital infections. If you have Femilift laser vaginal tightening up for signs such as the above, after that it's not likely to function to any fantastic degree and also you can be let down with the results. Even if the HIFU treatment therapy is non-intrusive doesn't mean that it can not permeate the SMAS layer.

Following your FemiLift treatment it is recommended that you do not have sexual intercourse or use tampons for approximately 5 days to permit the genital wall surface to resolve. At LBPS we offer a comprehensive variety of Womens Wellness Services. Your consultation may consist of a smear examination, maternity examination, bust assessment, menopause advice and hormone testing prior to laser genital restoration. Customers coming for hair elimination likewise have their selection of electrolysis as well as laser in permanent options as well as all the specific shaving fundamentals. Located around an 18-minute stroll from West Finchley tube station, Visual appeal House Limited is experts in complex skin center therapies carried out by qualified experts.

We recognize that any treatment including the vaginal canal and bordering locations is very personal in nature and also our expert as well as gentle approach means that your dignity and comfort is of utmost importance. We have a dedicated female expert that will make certain that the treatment fasts, discomfort totally free and comfortable.

If still wondering who a perfect prospect for the treatment is, you must note that it's only advised for ladies who are past thirty years. A reason to think about undertaking this therapy is to aid you in enhancing the wellness, wellness, and vigor of the genital cells.

You may experience soreness and also inflammation in the vaginal location for a few days after the treatment, yet this will certainly fade. This is one of the most usual Vaginal Firm Frequently Asked Question. The treatment is not agonizing, nonetheless you may feel some discomfort when the probe is put right into the vaginal canal. At Harley Ultrasound, we always placed a condom on the probe and also lube it for your security as well as convenience. Our specialists are dedicated to your well-being, as well as can change the probe so it is not placed as deep into the vaginal canal to make the treatment more stress-free. I was repeatedly ensured genital renewal was safe, although I was never referred to any type of clinical studies to back this up. The specialist at Vivo Facility ensured me there hadn't been any kind of main public wellness warnings versus it throughout the globe and that there were no long-term adverse impacts. The medical as well as medical competence of the team at LBPS is unrivaled.

Is a liquid facelift worth it?

Liquid facelifts are more subtle than surgical facelifts. The results won't be as dramatic. However, they can make your skin look more plump and youthful. It is effective at reducing the appearance of wrinkles and sagging.

To find out more concerning FemiLift vaginal tightening up laser treatment, click here to go back to our FemiLift guidance centre. There have actually been a variety of scientific research studies right into the efficiency of laser genital tightening treatment, such as Femilift. As laser vaginal firm is a relatively brand-new strategy, it has actually been tried and examined by many journalists in mainstream media, every one of which have actually given the therapy positive evaluations.

Is 60 too old for a facelift?

The optimal age for a facelift though is during your mid-40s; while most people wait until they are in their 50s or 60s to have work done, by pre-empting your skin losing the majority of it elasticity, the results achieved will appear more natural – you will look rested, and people may not even notice you've had work

If you are bothered with its safety and security, you need to note that there's nothing to stress over. It's a procedure that has actually currently been tested as well as found to work on different aesthetic procedures. Shallow Tightening targets the external layers of the skin in the vaginal wall surface. This does tighten up the vagina, yet the outcomes will just last between six to eight weeks. Muscle Tightening up additionally targets the muscular layer that is deeper within the genital wall surface, tightening up the vaginal area for approximately eighteen months.

While non-surgical genital tightening will certainly not have an effect on how you look, it's a treatment that can significantly impact your quality of life as well as total happiness. The HIFU vaginal tightening FemiWand treatment is the best option to undertaking intrusive and also medical surgery. Getting ready for a vaginal tightening session doesn't call for way too much preparation job. Nevertheless, it's advised that you don't engage in sexual intercourse twenty-four hrs before you have it done. While the function of this treatment is to tighten your vaginal muscular tissues, not all women are taken into consideration excellent prospects for this treatment. A woman that will give birth, or that has recently delivered and began to nurse needs to not undergo this treatment.

This stress, incorporated with the enhancing normalisation as well as availability of surgical and non-surgical therapies, and also the absence of regulation around, has contributed to a boom in "genital rejuvenation". After an examination to make certain that you appropriate for the FemiLift therapy, the treatment is quick as well as pain-free. Making use of a. speculum, a little rod having the laser is gently inserted into the vaginal area. It is after that carefully drew back to make sure that the laser covers the full length of the vaginal wall.

How do you wash your hair after a facelift?

After the dressings are removed, shower and wash your hair. Use warm not hot water (much as you would wash an infant.) Use only baby shampoo. Let the water run through your hair to remove all dried blood and surgical soap.

Refinery29 spoke to the Advertising and marketing Requirements Authority to find out its position on the way vaginal restoration therapies are being promoted, provided the warnings. " We would certainly need to evaluate specific cases depending upon the level of the case," a representative claimed, including that "objective cases would need to be backed with evidence". Goodacre is likewise asking for higher understanding of women's sexual wellness, which positions much less onus on the body. He said the "treatment asserts to invigorate the vagina by permitting the vaginal area to normally generate brand-new collagen" which it "is done in a secure and controlled fashion adhering to the most strict standards and also cleanliness policies". He defined the absence of guideline around such treatments in the UK as "unfortunate" and also claimed Vivo Facility's procedures are covered by insurance coverage "and also satisfy well-known insurance coverage companies that our treatments will certainly not hurt the public". So is it any kind of marvel that some ladies are seeking hasty remedies to obtain their vaginal canals an action better to pornstar "perfection"?

What is the best treatment for deep wrinkles on face?

Wrinkle TreatmentsRetinoids (tretinoin, Altreno, Retin-A, Renova, Tazorac). Alpha-hydroxy acids. Antioxidants. Moisturizers. Glycolic acid peels. Deeper peels. Dermabrasion . Laser resurfacing . More items•

exactly How Will Your Skin Tag Be gotten Rid Of?

For several ladies, they just require to undergo a single treatment session for them to get optimum outcomes. But also for others, it might be essential for them to go back to the clinic for between two and three sessions for them to completely benefit. HIFU is the go-treatment for females looking to tighten their vaginas. While it's a subject that very few people, particularly females are certain talking about in public circles, it can help renew their personal parts. FemiWand is a non-surgical therapy that has been designed to restore firmness and suppleness. The innovation we use is risk-free and also non-invasive definition there are extremely few adverse effects, all of which are temporary.

Astudy of 28 post-menopausal women with symptoms of vaginal atrophyby gynaecologist Scott Evan Eder MD, discovered that "mostly all VVA symptoms were significantly improved at one month adhering to the initial treatment". In 2018, Julene B Samuels, MD, Cosmetic Surgeon and Martin A Garcia, MD, Obstetrician Gynecologist, checked into the effectiveness of lasers for symptoms of vulvovaginal degeneration in postmenopausal females. The outcomes showed that symptoms of dry skin, itching as well as pain during intercourse enhanced substantially, and that the density of the genital tissue had increased. Adhere to the web link toread more regarding the study and before as well as after photos. A 2017 studyfound that laser therapy was an "effective as well as easy-to-perform therapy method for menopause-related genital atrophy as well as tension urinary incontinence".

How much does a ponytail facelift cost?

Cost: $8,000–$11,000. The Hair Trick: A DIY ponytail placed just right will yield impressive results too, even if only for an evening.

Before being used in tightening genital cells, it was being used on procedures that involved boosting and also tightening up the complexion on various parts of the body including the face. At Pro-Moi Facility the HIFU Genital tightening also called the Femiwand is a non-surgical genital tightening up treatment. This treatment works well for looseness, dry skin as well as bladder weakness. If childbirth or menopause has created some modifications in the health and wellness and anatomy of your vagina, after that this could be your answer. If you would love to whine about the way vaginal rejuvenation treatments are marketed in the UK you can submit a grievance to the Advertising and marketing Requirements Authority. The process is relatively straightforward however you'll need an image, video or screenshot of the ad, that includes advertising on a business's site or social networks networks.

[cbdschweiz]

10 Things Most People Don't Know About cbd wirkung

The Cannabis Cancer Get rid of With Rick Simpson

Hemp seed may be the best way to obtain protein and several other nutrients in the world. The hemp oil and cancer thing needs a bit more attention, while regular hemp essential oil can help from a nutritional stand point, it requires to be mentioned that the nice stuff comes from the kind that gets you high. The chemical make up differs, and the cannabinoids in pot impact your CB1 and CB2(I might have got that wrong or off) receptors, which turbo charges your disease fighting capability and kicks it right into a higher equipment. You can find out more at: by Rick Simpson and he even shows steps to make it. It might not be legal, but it's worth the risk if you're in need of it. This might also be a positive thing to stack onto Mike Farley's guardian's attempt at getting healthy, also the 90 forever protocol I mentioned previous can help with the cirrhosis(it can help alcoholics), the liver runs on good fat and a lot of nutrients.

Many studies and research reports have indicated that hemp seed oil may be useful for preventing some of the common diseases, including heart conditions. One study actually indicated that hemp seed essential oil might have some role in avoiding heart attacks. It contains numerous organic compounds known as sterols, which help in lowering cholesterol levels. Hemp oil can be abundant with gamma linolenic acid, which can assist in restoring hormonal balance and could be useful for who have problems with PMS, menopausal symptoms and women. With an ideal balance of Omega 3, Omega 6 fatty acids and ceramides, hemp essential oil is great for your skin and hair, and it has been considered for most beauty treatments. Researchers think that it might have a role in boosting the immune system too. Not to forget, hemp oil is extremely great for organic pain relief. If you have considerable chronic pain, this could be one of the effective solutions you are looking for.

Info and statements made are for education purposes and are not intended to replace the advice of your treating doctor. Global Healing does not dispense medical information, prescribe, or diagnose disease. The views and dietary assistance expressed by Global Curing are not intended to be a replacement for conventional medical support. When you have a serious medical condition or wellness concern, see a medical doctor. This Web site consists of links to Web sites operated by various other parties. Such links are cbd schweiz provided for your convenience and reference only. We are not responsible for the content or items of any linked site or any link contained in a connected site. Global Healing will not adopt any medical claims which might have been made in third party references. Where Global Healing has control over the posting or other communications of such claims to the general public, Global Healing will make its best effort to eliminate such claims.

A few oils are rated 0 on the scale. These are sunflower and hemp. I chose hemp for personal reasons. I take a spoonful of it daily to obtain my dietary linoleic acid, and I use it as a moisturizer and cleanser for my face and body. A lot of people SWEAR by this oil, including myself. This is the best thing that ever happened to my skin. I utilize it two ways. I use a drop or two as a moisturizer on my face after my cleaning and toner part of the morning and night time, as soon as or twice a week I utilize it as a cleanser. Hemp is quite volatile; it goes rancid quickly. I maintain mine in the freezer. This will keep it from going bad. I've had mine within for 5 or 6 months and it's still fine. It'll begin to smell funny when it goes rancid, and you'll have to throw it out.

A lot of the intended has with regard to these components range from developing them simply because availabilit of health proteins, suscrose, flatulence, furthermore to some other nourishment towards cold beverages (juices, smoothies, necessary proteins shots, plant-based opportunities to ensure that you can milk meals), soups, dips, develops, sauces, curtains, plant-based possibilities to help meat products and services, candy, sunbaked items and diet plan pubs, solutions, wholegrain cereal and goodies. Lately, permits to look at any potential hallmarks of CBD happen to be naturally considerably more habitually right today there exists a competing firms towards manipulate numerous and varied probable features with in the material basically no spot gives you considerably more intend depth. Business connected with mental sickness.

The greatest upside for me personally, taken only at night the indica strain for hypertension and sleep, about twice week for my heart dieses or even more if needed. My girlfriend uses cannabis for her brain cancers. Can't imagine a larger up part of anything, since my research and personal encounter shows it is the best treatment on the underground marketplace. Plus if 63% of all people are going to die from either cardiovascular disease or cancer that means it is very clear and doubtful that mainstream medication causing genocide and lying to us. You need to share my personal success with the world. My daughter keeps telling me I am a genius between my micro nutrition, cannabis and sculptor business. For the ABCs of lifestyle survival is priority one, maybe period will tell, if I'm a genius.

The facts in Hemp essential oil that allows Anxiety to subside? ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS and Omega 3 and Omega 9. Proper amounts of Omega 3 and 6 have already been proven to reduce both headaches and migraines. How can you know what the proper quantities are? For many individuals, this will differ but research have been done and for nervousness related problems the magic number or sweet spot appears to become 300mg of Hemp oil. Lower and higher dosages of Hemp oil didn't seem to have the same impact. Other studies have shown that Hemp Essential oil helps slow down a racing mind enabling you to get better sleep. Getting better sleep makes you even more refreshed and enables a better standard of living! Once you can help with Sleep https://cbdbro.ch/cbd-oel-ein-helfer-ohne-rausch/ problems which are a major sign of stress and anxiety, you can feel better and with better rest, your anxiety levels become easier to control.

CBD hemp oil is extracted from the cannabis types that are naturally loaded in CBD while being lower in THC. A specialized extraction process can be used to yield highly-concentrated CBD essential oil that also contains other nutrition-oriented material such as omega-3 fatty acids, terpenes, vitamins, chlorophyll, proteins and additional phytocannabinoids such as for example cannabichromene (CBD), cannabigerol (CBG), cannabinol (CBN) and cannabidivarian (CBCV). What many people aren't aware of is that 100 % pure hemp cannabidiol oil could be consumed directly as a supplements - through the years, incredible advancements in CBD hemp oil product development possess led to what are now dozens of various kinds of CBD hemp oil products including even chewing gum, capsules and drops.

Alcohol and cigarettes aren't for medical use only, and they're killers. We tried outlawing alcohol and just the mob benefitted. And oxycontin is normally pretty much as bad as heroin, and nobody settings the abuse of this. Furthermore, you allow every farmer develop pot and it might recover this overall economy in a heartbeat. Our founding fathers knew this, that's why they grew it and smoked it. Actually, in Groundbreaking America you can also be jailed for not developing it. Pot was legal tender here until about 1800. American flags and King James bibles had been once created from it, too. As for the moral issue, I simply don't see one. What's immoral about ingesting a substance that is not even while dangerous as soda? The just moral concern I see is certainly in imprisoning people for having it. In the mean time, untested pharms go to the market and kill people on behalf of the profit-minded drug companies and their advertising clients. And those drugs do wayyy more harm than good.

In 2013, my annual PSA test showed a rise. I knew that PSA, which means prostate-specific antigen, is a proteins that can sometimes become an indicator of prostate malignancy when the level begins to go up. When my PSA score reached 5.6 and remained in that level for approximately a calendar year, my doctor near my home in Oakland, Tennessee, just outdoors Memphis, suggested that We see an urologist for a biopsy. The urologist had taken 12 samples of prostate tissue, and among the samples was twenty five percent cancerous. That was the very first time I heard the big c” word. Instantly I was in a daze that lasted about a week. Regardless of how you prepare or everything you expect to hear, when a doctor tells you that you have cancers, it's a shock. Questions had been racing through my mind: What will life be like now? How will things transformation? Exactly what will eventually me? Fishing season As I began to take steps toward deciding on my treatment, many options were presented to me. The urologist who diagnosed me recommended prostate removal. But he also offered me a book of 101 queries about prostate cancer and known me to two additional doctors at different facilities.

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[gethealthy18-blog]

312: What to Expect & How to Prepare for Menopause with Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs

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312: What to Expect & How to Prepare for Menopause with Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Katie: Hello and welcome to the ”Wellness Mama” podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And I’m here today with Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs, who is a board certified family medicine physician with 22 years of clinical training and experience in functional medicine and urgent care from the Cleveland clinic. Her practice is focused on listening to her patient’s needs first, then keeping them involved in every decision along the way. As a mother of three and a Yogi, she loves to travel in her free time. She’s accepting a limited number of patients across the country through SteadyMD where she’s a personal online concierge doctor. You can find out more about that in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm or by going to steadymd.com/wellnessmama. And in this episode we tackle peri-menopause, hormones, menopause if you are in that phase of life, how to get through it with the least discomfort possible, what you need to know about hormone replacement, how everything else can come into play during that time of life. So if you are in that phase or close to that phase, stay tuned. This episode is going to be a great one for you.

Dr. Lyla, welcome. And thanks for being here.

Dr. Lyla: Thank you so much for having me, Katie. I’m glad to be here.

Katie: I’m so glad to have you here because you are an expert on a topic that I get a lot of questions about that I don’t know how to answer, which is perimenopause and menopause and how to navigate that in the best way possible with the least discomfort possible. And I know that’s something that you are very much an expert on. So to start broad, can you explain exactly what perimenopause is and why there’s such a wide range of ages in which women experience that?

Dr. Lyla: Right. It’s kind of an interesting concept because we talk about menopause like it’s this really long period during life when in actuality perimenopause probably takes up more time. A woman can become peri-menopausal, which means around the time of menopause, as early as her, you know, early to mid-40s. And this can go on until, depending on how late she stops having her periods for up to 12 months, which is the definition of menopause. She might go till 52, 53, 54. So it can take quite a long period of time that you’ve actually fit into that category. And it really depends on the woman and a whole host of factors. Like when did she start menstruating? How many pregnancies, if any, did she experience? How long did she breastfeed?

And so it’s a very interesting time and the symptoms can be confusing. The height of the symptoms where, that we’ll get into a little bit, I’m sure, itself may only last a couple of years though. But women will start to notice some changes in their periods mostly as early as their mid-40s moving forward. So this wide range of ages leads a lot of women… I’ve even heard women in their late 30s describe themselves as feeling like they’re in the perimenopausal period. Sometimes we can tell with hormone testing where people are, but most of the time these are clinical kind of diagnoses based on symptoms that people come in with.

Katie: Got it. So when it comes to like technically defining peri-menopause, it’s not like there’s an age cutoff or even like a hormone test that defines it, but it’s more symptom based. Is that, am I understanding? So like how would one know that they might be in perimenopause and might need to like keep an eye on these things or address things?

Dr. Lyla: Yeah, exactly. That’s a really good question because menopause is a little bit easier to define. It’s the definition of menopause is not having had a cycle for a full year. If you don’t have a period for 12 months, you’re considered menopausal regardless of what your FSH is, which stands for follicle stimulating hormone. However, with peri-menopause, it is true that there’s really no lab test that can diagnose that and there’s no specific age for it. Like I mentioned earlier, you can begin to have some erratic periods, you can have breast tenderness, you can start having some weight gain and some mood changes when you start entering the perimenopausal period of time. You might even have a little bit of hot flashes because this is a period when estrogen levels are fluctuating from high to low, high to low. But progesterone is often quite low. Progesterone starts reducing much earlier than estrogen levels, maybe about 10 years earlier. Maybe in the early 40s, progesterone levels start going down. So that kind of heralds the onset of perimenopausal symptoms.

Katie: That makes sense. So I’m curious, just like to understand biochemically what is happening during perimenopause with regarding hormones and physiologically? Like I get the overall idea that the body’s preparing to stop menstruating and to go through menopause, but what hormones are changing and tend to go up or down?

Dr. Lyla: So initially, like I said, you’re gonna get a reduction in your production of progesterone. Progesterone is produced primarily by what we call the Corpus luteum within the ovary. And this happens after ovulation every month. As you become peri-menopausal, you have more cycles where you don’t actually ovulate and so you’re not secreting as much progesterone as you were earlier in life. So you’ll start seeing a steady decline of progesterone. Your estrogen levels can be great and they can continue at pretty high levels up until the time you stop having periods. And this leads to a problem called estrogen dominance and we’ll talk about that I’m sure during the course of this podcast. So you’re gonna see decline in progesterone, steady or normal estrogen. As you approach closer and closer to the menopause itself, you will also see a sharp reduction in progesterone beginning.

In addition, you’ll start seeing testosterone levels going down. And that also plays a role in some of the symptomatology, especially libido issues and energy issues. But we’re not gonna talk a whole lot about testosterone today, but do know that that is one of the three major hormones that are affecting or bringing about some of the symptoms we see.

Katie: That makes sense. And I would guess based on my understanding of hormones more just from me, the pregnancy and just monthly cycle side, it’s like they are so interdependent. Like if one goes up or down, it typically has an effect on the others in some ways. Is that true also in perimenopause?

Dr. Lyla: Yes, that is absolutely true. And, you know, other things like body weight can kind of impact the severity of symptoms during the perimenopausal and menopausal period of time because remember, fat cells will make estrogen in the body. And so, you know, one of the ways that you can keep your estrogen levels a little bit more steady and try to avoid some of the estrogen dominance that’s at least preventable is by trying to maintain a healthy body weight.

Katie: That’s good to know. And I know that applies to hormones, like for people with PCOS or other hormonal-related issues that can be really beneficial as well. To circle back to something you said at the beginning, just sheerly out of my own curiosity, you mentioned that like pregnancy and nursing and how many babies and how long can affect potentially that the age at which someone starts to enter this period. So I’m just curious to understand for my own benefit how that works and whether that makes you more or less likely to go through it at an earlier age. Because I’ve had six babies and I started having kids pretty young, so I’m just curious for my own sake.

Dr. Lyla: Yeah. So the number of pregnancies and how long you’ve nursed is important because remember we were born with a certain number of follicles in our ovaries. And whenever you’re pregnant, obviously, you’re no longer ovulating and having monthly cycles during the pregnancy. In most, you know, in 99% of cases you’re not ovulating or having a period during a pregnancy. And then for most of the time where at least if you’re nursing enough, you know, there’s that window where if you go below a certain amount of minutes per day nursing, you also won’t ovulate. That’s why women don’t get their periods immediately. And they can often go up to a year without having a period. The lucky ones, can go up to a year without having a period if they’re nursing sufficiently.

So those two things, pregnancies and nursing, help reduce the amount of actual periods that you have, the amounts of time that you actually ovulate. So then you can go longer into your lifetime, if that makes sense, having more periods. So if you never had a pregnancy, obviously you probably didn’t nurse. If you never had a pregnancy and you started your period relatively early, you’re probably gonna enter menopause a little bit earlier and vice versa. It doesn’t always follow that rule book, okay? But these are just kind of generalizations and that’s how those two things can affect the time at which somebody might enter perimenopause and then menopause. Does that make sense?

Katie: Yeah. That does, that makes perfect sense. And yeah, good to know that those factors would be really could influence that. You mentioned estrogen dominance a minute ago, and I know this is a word I know in the context of like PCOS for instance. So I’m curious, can you, for anyone who doesn’t know, define technically what estrogen dominance is and then how this affects women in that perimenopausal menopausal period and like what’s going on there?

Dr. Lyla: Well, remember I mentioned earlier that progesterone levels start going down and estrogen pretty much stays the same. And in some women, their estrogen levels may be higher than normal. So there’s a few scenarios that can lead to estrogen dominance. One of those is you’re not producing enough progesterone, but you’ve got normal amounts of estrogen. When you look at that ratio, even though your estrogen levels look normal because the progesterone is low, it throws the ratio off and so you have too much estrogen. Another scenario is when you have high estrogen and either normal or low progesterone, again, that will lead to a picture of estrogen dominance. And then the third scenario is if even if you’re almost menopausal or you’re in the midst of being, say you’ve not had a period for nine to 18 months and your estrogens already become low, you can still be estrogen dominant with a low estrogen because your progesterone is even lower. It might even be almost non-detectable because you don’t have any more Corpus luteum being produced. And so you’re still gonna be estrogen dominant.

And it’s interesting because now the more I’ve studied about this, the more patients I’ve seen in this period of their lifetime, the more I’m finding that that’s the predominant picture that we see is women with estrogen dominance. And the symptoms that you’re gonna see are, you know, those tender breasts, fiber cystic breasts, those irregular menstrual cycles., mood swings. You can see a lot of mood swings because these rapidly swinging estrogen levels. We call them basal motor symptoms. These are your hot flashes and hot flushes, weight gain, especially around the abdomen. Sometimes the hips as well can be involved. And also we can see an increase in uterine fibroids. Those typically tend to get a little bit better as estrogen levels completely go down because they’re sort of, for lack of a better word, fed by the estrogen. So these are all the symptoms and there’s several more, but these are the main symptoms that people will come in. Sometimes low libido. A lot of women complain of brain fog during this time period.

Katie: Okay. So if I’m understanding estrogen dominance is actually all about the ratio. It’s not like men can just take a test and have an estrogen number in a vacuum and a doctor say, “Okay, you have estrogen dominance.” It’s about in relation to progesterone.

Dr. Lyla: That’s correct. So you can get estrogen levels as well as progesterone levels drawn. And you know, there’s debate out there about whether saliva, blood spot or serum levels are best. I typically use blood levels. You know, I send someone to the lab and I’m gonna get an estradiol level and I’m gonna get a progesterone level and I can do the math to figure these out. And it’s easy to find if a woman is… especially if you see that her progesterone comes back really, really low. Ideally you want a ratio of about a hundred to 200. And I’ll be honest, most women that come in that are in this period of time typically do not have a ratio of 100 to 200, and they’re usually pretty symptomatic by the time they see me. So that’s probably why we’re seeing this.

Katie: Gotcha. So then if it’s about the ratio, is it as simple as raising progesterone or is it more complicated than that?

Dr. Lyla: Well, that’s a good question. And I think you’ve kind of hit the nail on the head. And there’s a lot of ways we can do that. It doesn’t automatically mean giving somebody progesterone, but in many cases that is what we do. There are some other things that you can do to reduce the estrogen dominance. You can give oral micronized progesterone. Typically we use, the studies have shown about 200 milligrams per day. In women that are still menstruating, you can give it during the last half of their cycle. So usually it’s day 12 or 14 until they begin menstruating. And women that aren’t menstruating, we can give it throughout the cycle. We can give it daily. But some other things before going to progesterone, especially in women that are concerned about taking any hormones, these are for sure bioidentical hormones. However and it’s the correct form of progesterone. It’s not the same progesterone you find in oral contraceptives. But some women still wanna try other things first.

So one of the biggest things that I like to encourage are dietary changes to start with. Things like increasing your fiber intake because fiber is going to help remove some of the excess estrogen that’s recirculating through our intestinal tract. If you have very low fiber intake, what will happen oftentimes is you’ll reabsorb some of the estrogen that would otherwise pass out through your stool. So increasing fiber will help bind some of those estrogen molecules up and carry them out. Cruciferous vegetables, one to two servings a day, I highly recommend. And one of the reasons is because they contain nutrients. One in particular called Indole-3-Carbinol, helps to detoxify estrogen. And so, especially for women that have what we call a ICOM T mutation, it’s a type of a genetic mutation that some women have that can make it more difficult for them to detoxify their estrogen.

And we won’t go into a whole lot of the forms of estrogen that are toxic versus non-toxic, but cruciferous vegetables and certain supplements like DIM, Diindolylmethane will help detoxify estrogen and also allow it to pass out through the stool. Also, exercise and stress reduction. I can’t talk more strongly about the importance of stress reduction. Things like yoga and meditation and breath work. All of these can help reduce or eliminate excessive estrogen and what we call Pregnenolone Steal, which is kind of a siphoning off of the components that you need to make progesterone where it is due to stress, kind of shuttled over to make cortisol as opposed to making progesterone and then therefore resulting in a reduction in your circulating progesterone levels.

Acupuncture is also helpful and can help with a lot of the basal motor symptoms that women suffer from. Which by the way I haven’t mentioned tends to be the biggest complaint that women come in with but not necessarily the most dangerous aspect of menopause. And, you know, those would be cardiovascular, risk of bone loss. And I’ll just leave it there. Bone loss and cardiovascular risk factors. Also, changes and alterations in the cholesterol profile. We’ll see that happen with reductions in estrogen levels.

Katie: I love that you addressed some of the food based ways because that’s my background in nutrition and it’s like as if any of us needed even more reasons to eat green vegetables. But they’re so beneficial in so many ways. And I’ve also read that green vegetables are high in magnesium, which I personally found and I think a lot of women find helps lessen symptoms of like even like PMS or cramps for me. And so I would guess there’s maybe like a beneficial effect there as well. And I also love that you brought up the cardio and boneless side because you’re right, I think hot flashes are what we stereotypically associate with menopause. But from what I’ve read, at menopause, women’s risk of cardiovascular disease rises almost to the rate of men. And I’d love to explore a little bit of why that’s the case and if maybe like is iron an aspect there because women are losing iron each month by bleeding. Are there other factors involved and how can we counteract that? Because obviously that’s a huge problem in our society and it’s on the rise. So what can women do knowing that going into this to help protect themselves?

Dr. Lyla: Right. Well, we know that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the United States and it’s rapidly becoming the number one killer throughout the world. As we explore our food habits and fast food chains to other parts of the world, we’re seeing just everybody catching up with us. That being said, estrogen is protective for women. And so premenopausal women have a much lower risk of developing heart disease than men do. And so what ends up happening is when we no longer have that protective factor circulating in our blood to the levels that we had as premenopausal women, then we began to look like men to some degree as it relates to our cholesterol profile and our propensity to develop heart disease.

The interesting thing about that is that estrogen, what we found in the Women’s Health Initiative, which was a study back in the very early 2000s, I believe, 2001 was when it was published, caused the panic in the medical community because, you know, at that point in time, almost every menopausal woman had been put on some form of hormone replacement. They were synthetic hormone. Well, let me put it this way. The estrogen component was Premarin which is derived from mare’s urine, horses urine, pregnant horses urine and a synthetic progestin. What that study showed was that women’s risk for what we call VTE or Venous Thrombosis Events went up drastically as did their cardiovascular events. And so it did not protect them against the things that we thought they should be protected against by giving them those components. However, and this is a big caveat to that study and to the interpretation of that data, there were a lot of women in this cohort that were more than 10 years out of menopause. So they were over age 60.

They were naive to estrogen for that entire time. Many of them, or most of them, hadn’t been on any estrogen during those interceding 10 years or so. And also the third piece of it was these were not the same type of products that we are gravitating to now in terms of, you know, using Estradiol as opposed to conjugated estrogens from horses urine. And the progestins I mentioned were different than the oral micronized progesterone that we use now, which is more bio-identical. And so the interpretation of that study really scared a lot of people off from using either if you can call it hormone replacement therapy or menopausal hormone treatment because they were interpreting the results appropriately, but the patient that were in the clinical trials were not the patients that we’re trying to target now that are the most symptomatic and that are within 10 years of starting or having been in menopause.

So I can clarify that a little bit more if you have specific questions, but just know that those…it can get very muddy, right? Because we’re saying, “Okay, you’re gonna treat cardiovascular risk by replacing someone’s estrogen, but wait a minute estrogen and progesterone or progestins caused more heart attacks and clotting events. Where’s the disconnect?” That’s the disconnect. We’re using different forms now of these products and we’re trying to start women earlier.

Katie: Got it. That makes sense. Okay. So I’d love to go deeper on hormone replacement therapy because I know that there are several different kinds. You’ve mentioned a couple of them. And that’s an option that’s often presented to women at that age. And I know that there’s also like the functional medicine approach differs a little bit than maybe the straight conventional medicine approach. So I’m curious for when a patient comes to you who’s in this phase, who’s maybe having some symptoms what are the options available to her and how do you evaluate which one’s best?

Dr. Lyla: At the outset I’d like to say that, you know, women, we’re all individual. And so the nice thing with this is that you can really sit down and talk to a woman and find out what’s bothering you, what are your symptoms. And that’s really what I try to gear my treatment at is what’s interfering with your quality of life. And then in most cases, like we talked about earlier, it’s a lot of the time it’s basal motor symptoms, the hot flashes, the night sweats, etc. So for somebody like that, we do know that as long as the woman is within the first 10 years of her menopause and she’s under the age of 60, the risk benefit ratio is gonna be in her favor to do some form of estrogen replacement. Also, remember that if you have an intact uterus, in other words, you’ve not had a hysterectomy for whatever reason, then you must take progesterone if you’re taking estrogen.

So what we typically will do is offer what we call transdermal estrogen. And that is a patch. And, you know, historically the, you know, there’s been…we’ve had patches for a long time, but the technology that’s around now that allows us to provide very, you know, reasonable amounts of estrogen absorbed through the skin so that it doesn’t have to pass through the liver, makes it a much safer form and also a very effective form. That’s gonna be the most effective for those hot flashes. And then progesterone would be delivered in a tablet or a capsule, typically. Other options are vaginal estrogen in a cream form. That’s gonna be great for some of the vaginal dryness and thinning of the vaginal tissue, but it’s not gonna help so much typically with the hot flashes. You need something a little bit more systemic to help with hot flashes.

For women that have any contra-indication to estrogen therapy, will start again with some of those things I mentioned. With diet, you know, increase in fiber, increasing cruciferous vegetables, acupuncture, starting somebody on DIM also was very helpful, can sometimes help with those symptoms. If a woman is not having significant hot flashes yet, but she’s having maybe the really heavy bleeding, irregular bleeding that some women get, maybe earlier in the perimenopausal period, sometimes we can do things like chasteberry which is a capsule that you take every day. It’s another name for it is Vitex, V- I-T-E-X. Sometimes that will help regulate periods in women, help make them more reliable. You know, they might come a little bit more frequently and they might be a little bit less heavy. That buys you a little bit of time before you need to start some other type of hormone.

Again, weight loss is important because estrogen production that takes place in the fat cells can contribute to these swings. And other things like evening Primrose oil has been used. Agnus castus, this is another herb that some people use. So there’s a lot in our armamentarium and really what most of us are gonna do is look at the particular woman sitting in front of us and we’re gonna say, “Okay, what are your symptoms? What bothers you the most?” And try to gear our treatment at that. That might mean that we’re gonna do several different things over a period of five to 10 years. So the therapy may change from when she’s in her mid-40s or late 40s to when she’s in her early to mid-50s. A few other things that might be helpful is we do some caffeine intake also abstaining or reducing the amount of alcohol that you drink because alcohol we know can increase Estradiol levels and also decrease progesterone levels. And so that’s gonna exacerbate any estrogen dominance that we’re already seeing at baseline.

And lastly, I would say avoiding plastics and other Xenoestrogens like that. Everybody’s probably heard about bisphosphonate A that’s BPA. So avoiding the use of plastics whenever you can, not just, you know, using them in the microwave but trying not to store food in plastics and trying to drink your water out of stainless steel containers and things like that. Looking at your cosmetics and any Xenoestrogens that might be present in those, avoiding foods with pesticides, so eating organic and non-GMO foods, all of these things can help treat those symptoms before even moving on to giving somebody progesterone and or estrogen.

Katie: Yeah, I love that and I think it’s so important what you said about taking that whole body approach and looking at the woman’s sitting in front of you. And I am so glad for functional medicine and for this like really this rise and understanding about functional medicine. Because I think when you’re talking about any life change or health condition, it’s so much more effective to work with a doctor who’s taking everything into account and just like in this how hormones, you know they all affect each other and if one goes up or down it can influence the others. There’s also, at least from my own experience, things like thyroid function and how that can influence perimenopause or any hormone aspect or if there’s gut stuff going on. You know, if people have other conditions instead of just trying to look at estrogen in a vacuum and is it too high or too low, it’s taking the whole body approach and testing all of those things and then working with the patient to figure out how can you as the person where you are right now, change your lifestyle, your diet and is there a need for things like hormone replacement so that it’s a whole body approach.

And that just, I found that was the key for me with thyroid disease and with so much else. An you work with SteadyMD, which is a company I love and my doctor is also a SteadyMD. So I just wanted to mention that for anyone looking for a functional medicine approach who may or may not have a local doctor this is a great way that people can connect with doctors like you, including you and work through all of these things, not just be looked at as a symptom in a vacuum. I also love that you brought up plastic because that is one of those topics I love to write about and educate about and I think is so important. I write about it especially from the kids’ perspective and when they’re young and they’re still, they haven’t even gone through puberty yet, how important it is to minimize plastic, but you’re so right. I think we also have to think of that for ourselves and especially when we’re going through any hormonal period. It’s so, so important. And I think people often discount just how important that could be.

I know for myself when it comes to hormone changes, and again, I haven’t been through perimenopause, but I have worked on balancing my own hormones, I’ve also found that things like sleep is drastic. If I don’t get enough sleep, my hormones will be off. And also for me, sunlight. And I’m curious if this is something that you found as well, but if I get up and go outside in the morning and drink tea or water or just be outside early in the morning, I find that it not only gives me more energy and helps my sleep at night, but that over time my hormones including cortisol, but also estrogen and progesterone have all seemed to get into better ranges. And I’ve done other things as well. But I’m curious if that’s something that you look at with your patients as well.

Dr. Lyla: Oh, absolutely. And thank you for bringing up just the intertwined nature of our organ systems and our hormones because you’re right that all of these hormones are important to understand your thyroid. You know, you can’t do this in a vacuum. You can’t treat someone in menopause and ignore what’s going on with their thyroid. It doesn’t always mean that something’s wrong with their thyroid, but we really need to rule that out as a contributing factor. As it relates to the last thing that you said surrounding the importance of sunlight and sleep, absolutely. So you know that not getting enough sleep causes in and of itself just that alone can cause stressors on the body, which are gonna increase cortisol. And remember I mentioned earlier in the podcast that when the need for cortisol production goes up because of chronic stress, including sleep deprivation, that you’re gonna be pulling away from the hormone cascade that makes progesterone. And so that’s gonna cause a problem right there.

So minimum, ideally of six, ideally more like seven to nine hours of sleep. And what we know is that DNA changes occur after just one night of getting less than six hours of sleep. And these DNA changes lead to an upregulation of your inflammatory what we call cytokines or inflammatory chemicals in your body and downregulation of the anti-inflammatory cytokines. And so what ends up happening is you have an inflammatory picture going on when these genes change. So you’ve gotta get enough sleep first and foremost. And then also the stress piece. We talked about that a little while ago. You really have to keep stress under control. And that means different things to different people. Sometimes it’s meditating. And I recommend all my patients to meditate. We could do a whole podcast on meditation. Sometimes it’s breath work. Sometimes it’s, you know, a walking type meditation, something that’s gonna calm your nervous system. So anything that brings you calm and comfort, you should do that every day for at least 20 minutes.

Sunlight, you brought up. I’m sitting here in front of my light right now because even though it’s still sunny and the weather is still not too bad in Ohio right now, I wanna get ahead of the game in terms of it’s gonna get dark here really soon. It’s gonna start getting dark early. It’s gonna be dark when I wake up. And so trying to get exposure to the sunlight if you can, that would be ideal because if you’re out and you’re walking, you’re getting exercise and you’re getting sunlight. However, for people that live in areas where it’s not as amenable to that type of activity every day, you can get yourself a light that provides at least 10,000 Lux, that’s L-U-X. And use that 20 to 30 minutes sometime shortly upon awakening. If you can get it in within the first four hours upon awakening, that would be great. And that will also help not only your mood, I don’t know that there’s any studies that will prove that lights like this will or sunlight, it in fact helps with hormone levels, but I think you’re onto something when you say that this has helped you because if it helps your mood and it helps your stress levels, then it’s by definition going to help balance your hormones.

Katie: That makes sense. And like you said, if it helps your sleep as well, like sleep is so, so key for, I find that more and more for every aspect of health. And also the stress component you mentioned. That was the one I ignored for a lot of years because I just thought I could power through and as long as I ate really clean and exercise and did all of that, I could just kind of power through the stress and the emotional side of things. And it wasn’t until I really dove in and addressed those things that I really started seeing those internal shifts and then also the physiological shifts that come with them. A few kind of a followup questions related to things we’ve talked about. So, so many of the things you’ve mentioned related to perimenopause sound like things I also hear from women with PCOS and I’m curious if there is any type of connection there and if people who have PCOS are more or less likely to experience symptoms more in perimenopause or to go through menopause earlier.

Dr. Lyla: So women with PCOS have a little bit of a different milled of symptoms. A lot of them, have because of the fact that they have so many it’s called polycystic ovarian syndrome because they have an increase in the number of cysts. They’re producing more testosterone. And so that testosterone is what kind of monkeys up, monkeys with their hormone kind of picture. I don’t know, honestly whether or not women with PCOS tend to have more symptomatic or less symptomatic perimenopausal periods. My gut instinct would tell me that they probably do only because most people with PCOS have spent decades with hormonal aberrations. And so why should it be any different during the perimenopausal and menopausal period of time? They also tend to have problems with blood sugars. And when you have blood sugar issues, that tends to lead to you know, weight discrepancies or having too much weight on board, which as we already talked about, can lead to increased production of estrogen and that estrogen dominance becoming again a problem.

So yes, the symptoms can sound very similar. And, you know, let’s face it, a lot of the symptoms that we’re talking about are sometimes sort of vague symptoms that a lot of us complain about. Fatigue and moodiness and, you know, acne and these kinds of things. So, you know, we’re gonna see them across the board in women with different reproductive type conditions. We can treat them very similarly. People that come in with PCOS though I’m gonna have probably a different mindset as it relates to, “Okay, which hormones do we wanna treat here?” And it’s also gonna depend a lot on their age.

Katie: Gotcha. And then as another followup to that I’m curious about different methods of birth control and how they might impact people and their experience in peri-menopause and just hormonally overall. Because I know there’s a lot of options out there and I get a lot of questions from women about this and I have no idea, and I’m not a doctor, so I don’t answer them. But I’m curious how, if they do come into play, how they come into play?

Dr. Lyla: Well, so the interesting thing is what we often see is that women that enter this period because they’re having these irregular periods, oftentimes very heavy periods because of the high levels of estrogen and the anovulatory cycles that they might experience because of the low progesterone or as a result of low progesterone. We’ll see them get recommended to have, say a Mirena, which is a progesterone eluding IUD placed. Because that will help provides for a local installation of progesterone in the area of the uterus. It can help reduce bleeding and oftentimes just stops periods altogether which can by women a few years before they actually enter menopause. So it can really reduce the amount of bleeding and blood loss that women experience.

Some women are treated with low dose oral contraceptives. Because remember when you’re perimenopausal, you’re still capable of becoming pregnant because you do ovulate sometimes and if you ovulate and you have intercourse, you can become pregnant. So some doctors will use various types of oral contraceptive, usually combination contraception. However, women that are over 40 and or women that smoke may be more at risk for blood clots if they’re on oral contraceptives. So that’s less and less common. We see that less and less commonly nowadays. And that’s certainly nothing that somebody in functional or integrative medicine probably would recommend.

I think it’s definitely worth, especially for the women out there that don’t tend to go to the doctor a lot. If you’re on an oral contraceptive, you may not really see a lot of these changes because you’re gonna be getting a pretty constant dose of estrogen and progesterone throughout, you know, the days that you’re taking your tablets. So you may not get as much of the hot flashes and your periods are gonna be regulated. However, it might be worth for sure a visit at age 48, 49 to start discussing how to manage these symptoms or how long you should continue to be on the oral contraceptive therapy. And I say that because of what I mentioned a minute ago about the risk for blood clots, especially if you have a family history of blood clots. It may be advisable to come off of that and to choose another course of therapy.

You definitely wanna wait until you’ve been off of your oral contraceptives for a period of time, at least four to six weeks before checking hormone levels because clearly if you’re checking them while you’re on those types of hormones, it’s gonna throw off the results. So having an appointment 48, 49, no later than 50 to discuss, “Okay, I’m entering this age range where most likely I’m gonna be entering menopause.” And the average age in the US is 51 for women becoming menopausal. And so while there is a range of typically four to five years on either side of that, I think going to the doctor no later than age 48 would be advisable to see if there are some other ways to manage this period of life in the safest way possible.

Katie: That’s, yeah, great advice.

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Katie: For me personally, I’ve never been on any form of hormonal contraceptives at all, but I track my cycle using several apps actually in NFP and body temperature. I hope I still have quite a bit of time before peri-menopause. But I’m curious for those of us who do track our cycles, you mentioned that like cycles can space out. Are there other changes that we would begin to notice if we were actually like watching for fertile signs? Would like a certain phase of the cycle tend to lengthen? Would it be like the luteal phase or what would we see there?

Dr. Lyla: Yeah, so typically your cycles are gonna get the time between your cycles, say your typical period might be every 28, every 29 days. They tend to get a little bit shorter. And that variation tends to be the luteal phase where that’s actually shortening. And that’s what accounts for the change in the overall cycle length. More often than not, you’re gonna see women that have heavier bleeding maybe more clots. And it can be a little off putting. Women often will come in iron deficient at this point in time because they’re having such heavy periods.

You know, it’s interesting to know that the average woman should typically only lose about 35 MLs of blood per cycle, and that would equate to about 70 spoons of blood. Women that are in the perimenopausal period can lose that in a day or in two days of their cycle or even shorter than that. So you’ll find that maybe you’re going through more tampons or you’re going through more pads, or if you use a menstrual cup, it’s filling up within a few hours as opposed to the 12 hours they say that it’s supposed to last you. Those are indications that you’re probably beginning to have lower progesterone levels and entering perimenopausal time. Another symptom would be of course the hot flashes and sometimes they’ll only happen at night. You might just wake up a little warmer than you typically would. So those are probably the main kind of alerting symptoms that you’re gonna see. So, you know, watching those cycle lengths on your apps can be the first tip off before you’ve even gotten any breast tenderness or anything like that.

Katie: Okay. Awesome. That’s great to know. And as we start to get towards the end, I’m curious, we’ve talked about a lot of these symptoms and what to look for. Is and I know that the understanding is that women think they’re gonna have these symptoms, especially in menopause, are the symptoms avoidable to some degree or completely if women are willing to kind of take this broader functional medicine approach that you talked about and address diet and lifestyle as well as hormones? Have you seen women go through perimenopause and menopause much more easily by doing that?

Dr. Lyla: You know, it’s interesting because you’ve talked to women I’m sure that have said, “You know, I hardly had any hot flashes. I had the easiest menopause known to mankind.” And they’re not always women that are seeing functional medicine doctors. You know, sometimes it just really depends on the person, their family history, their, you know, obviously diet and things like that. I would say this, I would say that in the vast majority of women that are really symptomatic, seeing the right, you know, practitioner can really, really make a difference. Making these dietary changes, losing weight, sometimes it’s putting on weight. If you’re underweight, sometimes putting on weight will help a little bit. Exercise. Can’t stress enough the stress reduction. All of these things can definitely ameliorate the symptoms of menopause.

And when all else fails, you know, we know that estrogen combined with progesterone will help symptoms. And more and more information actually has come out that even progesterone alone, micronized progesterone, like I said, 200 milligrams daily in a postmenopausal woman sometimes is enough. Sometimes they don’t even need to resort to using an estrodiol. It just is gonna be so individual. And so I really urge people to have that conversation with somebody that they trust. Read, read, read. There are all kinds of… Well there’s lots of things out there that you probably don’t wanna read, but there are really good Christiane Northrup’s book ”The Wisdom of Menopause.” It’s an older book, but there’s really a lot of good information in that book. And I think just really getting to know A, your body and B, paying really close attention to when an intervention is tried taking good notes and really being able to document how did that intervention work for you because it’s not always gonna work the same for every individual. And talk to your physician about the results of any interventions that are tried because if it’s not working, working together, the two of you can figure out something that will work. It may take some trial and error and it may take a little bit of time to get it right, but that’s so important. And don’t hesitate if something’s not working to bring it up and just keep plugging away at it because you can get relief.

Katie: Absolutely. And I mentioned SteadyMD kind of in the middle of the episode and there’s gonna be links to both SteadyMD and to you directly on steadyMD in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. So if any of you guys are listening and you are in this phase of life you can definitely find and work with Dr. Lyla or any of the doctors at SteadyMD. But anything you wanna say about SteadyMD or how people can find and work with you.

Dr. Lyla: Well, the great thing about SteadyMD really is, you know, I’ve found in my past 19 years of practice that one of the biggest complaints of people is that they can’t get in when they need to get in. They don’t have the access that they want or that they need. People are busy nowadays and they really need, if they have an issue, they need to be able to get into their doctor. And sometimes two, three, four weeks isn’t fast enough. So with SteadyMD, you have access to somebody that is aligned with your thought process and your philosophy for health and you have access to them and they’re gonna get back to you. The app is great. The video chat is to me as good as being there in person. And so I feel like I can really help improve access. I can see people from all around the country.

Another piece of it is that, you know, if there’s issues with these types of symptoms, I can order labs and you can take them to your local lab. You don’t have to fly to Cleveland, Ohio to see me. And so I really like the convenience of it. The piece about, you know, they typically, when you sign up for SteadyMD, you take this quiz and this quiz will kind of match you with the doctor that has the most similar outlook or philosophy to yours. And so you’re gonna end up with somebody that you didn’t just pick out of a book because they were on your insurance. You’re finding somebody that’s very aligned with the way you look at the world. And I think there’s nothing better than sitting and talking with somebody that thinks the same way you do. You don’t spend a lot of your visit trying to convince the doctor that this is how things should be or this is what you’re experiencing. So that I think it also makes it a very efficient service.

Katie: I agree. And I think a link to find the quiz is steadymd.com/wellnessmama. So if you guys are listening, it’s really quick, easy quiz and like Dr. Lyla said, it connects you with the doctor who’s gonna agree with you. You’re not gonna have to fight your doctor about nutrition or the fact that you want to take a natural approach. They’re amazing. I love my SteadyMD doctor and I think this was a super, super helpful podcast episode. Like I said, this is an area I don’t have experience with and I love that you jumped in and answered all these questions and provided so much value. So Dr. Lyla, thank you so much for being here today.

Dr. Lyla: Thank you, Katie. I look forward to talking with you again and I hope this has been helpful to your listeners.

Katie: It absolutely has. And thanks as always to all of you for listening and sharing your valuable resource, your time with both of us. We’re so grateful that you did and that you are here today. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the ”Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/lyla-blake-gumbs/

[lopithecusfanfiction]

A Life So Changed: Chapter Thirteen

Author: Lopithecus Pairing: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Rating: Explicit Word Count: 3586 Alternate: AO3, fanfiction.net Author's Note: N/A

Chapter Thirteen:

Bruce has an appointment at the hospital to get an ultrasound of the baby. If he’s going to be keeping it, then he’s going to have to start going to doctor appointments for it and making sure it’s healthy. So, once again, he drags himself out of bed and into the shower. He feels sluggish, tired, and his limbs feel heavy and weak. He doesn’t want to go to this appointment. He wants to sleep. He wants to pretend this whole thing isn’t happening.

But he has no choice but to face reality so he dresses up in disguise, putting on baggy clothes and a baseball hat. He wears the same sunglasses that he wore to his other appointment as well. Once done getting dressed, he glances at himself in the mirror, frowns, and then walks out of his closet. He’s not really all that excited to get an ultrasound. He doesn’t want to see the baby. It’ll make it too real.

He makes his way down to the kitchen, not wanting breakfast but knowing he should at least eat some toast to keep everyone off his back. When he enters the room, Dick, Tim, and Alfred are already sat at the small table eating. He looks at the three, grabs a piece of toast off the plate that is in the middle of the table, and nibbles on it, feigning eating. This method has worked for the past few days and he doesn’t see why it shouldn’t now.

Bruce looks around the room as he does this. “Is Damian already at school?”

Dick exchanges a glance with Alfred before answering. “Yeah, he said he wanted to get there early.” Bruce’s stomach squeezes and he has to set the barely eaten toast down or else he’s going to throw up. Dick looks at him with sympathy, knowing that Bruce got the message. Damian didn’t want to see him… again. “Give him time Bruce. He’ll come around.” Dick forgets to mention it’s already been about a week since Damian found out and started avoiding him.

“Right,” he says softly, turning away and leaving the room and toast behind.

“Bruce wait!” Bruce turns to see Tim following him hurriedly. “Can I go with you?”

“You want to go to my appointment with me?” he asks in confusion. He doesn’t understand why Tim would want to go with him. The only explanation Bruce can come up with is this is Tim’s omega instincts drawing him towards a pregnant omega.

Tim shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

He shrugs again. “I don’t know. Just feel like it.”

Bruce squirms, feeling uncomfortable. Tim not knowing why is enough proof for Bruce to think it’s instinct base. Still, he wants to tell Tim to stay here but he doesn’t have a good enough excuse as to why he would want that. In reality he just wants to be alone but he has a feeling that won’t be accepted by Tim. Or maybe it would be but Bruce just doesn’t want to deal with it. “Okay.” He looks his son up and down. “You’re going to have to change quickly.”

“Right.” Tim runs off and Bruce watches him go. He remembers when Tim stopped being Robin and became Red Robin. He hadn’t wanted to give up being Robin completely but he felt like it was time to move on. Most of that encouragement came from Dick who told Tim that it was okay to do that. Bruce wasn’t happy. Then Damian came along and everything changed. Damian became Robin and Tim stayed as Red Robin. At least Jason had seemed to cool down over being replaced by Tim and with Damian as Robin now, he’s even more level headed about the thing. Still, Bruce misses Tim as Robin and fighting beside him. Tim might not have been the best fighter but he was smart and cunning. Plus, besides Dick, he was always the one who actually listened to Bruce and mostly stayed out of trouble.

Time is going by too fast.

“Bruce?”

Bruce startles out of his thoughts, seeing Tim standing in front of him and dressed in baggy clothes as well. “What?”

“I asked if you were ready.”

Bruce nods. “Yeah, I am.” Bruce motions for Tim to lead the way and then follows him out to the car. When they get to the car, Bruce decides to drive as he feels as if it'll distract him from his anxiousness. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for them to reach the hospital and to find a parking spot in the parking garage, almost as if the universe wants to rub in Bruce’s face that this is actually happening. Not that Bruce believes in that nonsense.

Bruce’s heart is pounding in his chest hard and fast the whole time it takes for the two of them to make it down to the ground level and into the hospital building. They check in with Bruce having to fill out some paper work and tell them to call the name Clark Kent instead of his own or Tim’s in order to keep anyone from knowing it is them. While they sit in the waiting room, Bruce can’t stop himself from bouncing his leg. He’s extremely nervous and he isn’t quite sure if he is ready to see his baby.

“You okay?” Tim asks him, leaning in close.

“I’m fine,” he responds.

“It’s just that you seem nervous.” Tim sniffs the air. “You smell nervous too.”

Bruce sniffs the air as well and indeed can smell the scent of anxiety coming off him. “I probably should have put on a scent dampener.”

Tim chuckles. “And make the doctors wonder why you are dampening your scent? Yeah, right.” Bruce doesn’t say anything to this and they both sit in silence until Clark’s name is called. A spike of panic rushes through Bruce and Tim grabs a hold of his elbow, whispering, “Hey, it’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

Bruce nods, swallowing hard as he gets up and tries to control his breathing and heartbeat. Tim sticks close to him as they follow the nurse, something that would be a comforting gesture if it didn't make Bruce more uneasy. He places a hand on Tim’s shoulder, pushing him a few inches away. At Tim’s questioning look, he says, “I can't breathe with you that close.”

“I don't think you can breathe at all with how nervous you look,” the young omega whispers, slight amusement shining through his concern. “I've never seen you this… scared.”

“I'm not scared,” he snaps, not meaning to. The nurse gives them a strange look as she ushers them into a room. “I’m not scared,” he says calmer, quieter.

One of Tim's eyebrows rises. “Bruce, when are you going to learn that me, Dick, Damian, even Jason can read you like a book?” Tim gives him an amused smile as he sits in the chair and Bruce gets up on the bed. “You taught us the skills to be able to do such a thing, remember?”

Suddenly, Bruce wishes he had never taught his sons how to read body language. He's not comfortable knowing they can read him so easily, that he's not as good at hiding what he is feeling from his family as he first thought. Tim doesn’t say anything more and neither does Bruce as they both wait for the doctor. It’s another five minutes before he shows up.

“Good morning, Mr. Wayne,” the doctor says as he walks into the room, shutting the door behind him. He shakes Bruce’s and then Tim’s hand. “I’m Doctor Harty and I’ll be taking care of you today.” He lifts up a clipboard, reading the papers. “Okay, so it says here that this is your first pregnancy and your first visit to the obstetrician.”

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” He sets the clipboard down, flipping to a different page in which nothing is written down on yet. “We are going to start by going over some of your medical history.” He looks to Tim and then back to Bruce. “Seeing as some of these questions can be a bit personal, if you would like to answer them without your companion here, that is perfectly acceptable.”

Bruce shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. He can stay.”

“Then let’s begin with your family’s medical history. Are there any medical conditions or diseases we should be made aware of?”

“None that I know of. Both my parents were alphas though. I don’t know if that is significant to know about.”

Doctor Harty nods, jotting down that fact of information. “Yes, that is very important to know because both your parents being alphas could have had any number of medical complications passed down onto you. Even if you show no signs of one, you could still be a carrier or it could still affect your pregnancy.” He finishes writing. “Do you know if your mother had a hard time conceiving?”

Bruce shrugs. “Most likely seeing as she was an alpha, but I was too young to get into any of those conversations with them.”

“Ah, yes, that is true. Still, we’ll keep it in mind going further.” Doctor Harty then moves on. “We’ll move onto you specifically now. Do you smoke?” Bruce shakes his head. “Drink?  Do any drugs whether it be prescription or not?”

“No to both.”

“Good. So I’m assuming it would be a no for any chronic conditions that you would need to take medication for?” Bruce nods. “Alright, good. Do you have any drug allergies, psychiatric problems?” Again, Bruce shakes his head. “Have you had any surgeries or hospitalizations in the past?”

Bruce thinks about the times he’s gone out as Batman, gotten seriously injured, and had to have Alfred or even Doctor Thompkins patch him up. Sometimes they would even restrict him to a bed as if he really was hospitalized. “No.”

“Now this next question is important.” Doctor Harty continues. “Are you or have you ever been a victim of abuse?”

“No.”

“So you or your baby is in no danger?”

“Correct.”

“Very good.” Bruce watches the pen as Doctor Harty jots all this info down. “I’m going to ask about your heats now. Were they regular or irregular?”

“Mostly regular.”

“How long did they normally last?”

“Four days.”

“Was it always like that or has the days lessened since you’ve aged?”

Bruce thinks about it. He knows how old he is, knows that he probably only had a few more years of going through heats before he hit menopause. That doesn’t make him feel any better about how much time has gone by and how much time he has left for things. “No, it’s been four days since I started.”

“When was your last heat?”

“About thirteen weeks ago.”

This causes the doctor to take pause, looking up from the clipboard. “You’re thirteen weeks along?”

“I’m in my thirteenth week.”

Doctor Harty stares at him, as if he can’t quite comprehend what he just heard. “Why didn’t you schedule an appointment sooner? Normally we like to see pregnant omegas much sooner than their thirteenth week.”

“There’s been a lot going on,” Tim says, saving Bruce. Bruce is thankful for this as now he just feels like a complete failure at being an omega even though he’s never wanted to conform to the castes in the first place. “He just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

Doctor Harty nods. “It’s very important, Mr. Wayne, that you keep up with these appointments.” Bruce only nods, wishing he could leave and never come back. “Anyways, is there anything that you’ve noticed since your last heat that you are concerned about?”

“I’m still having morning sickness.”

The doctor hums. “Some omegas do continue to have morning sickness into their second trimester. I would suggest you have ginger tea or even suck on a ginger candy. It will help with the nausea. If the nausea hasn’t gotten better by your second visit, I can prescribe you Zofran or Unisom to help as well. By your third trimester, however, all the nausea should be gone. We’ll make sure to keep an eye on it though. Are there any other questions you might have?” Bruce shakes his head no and Doctor Harty stands. “Alright then. I’m going to give you a full physical checkup now and then we’ll move onto the ultrasound.” Bruce’s heartrate spikes at the mention of the ultrasound. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want it at all.

He sits there in a mini panic as the doctor takes his blood pressure, his heartrate, and his weight. He continues to panic as Doctor Harty asks Tim to leave the room as he gives Bruce a breast exam and then a pelvic exam that includes getting a pap smear. When he allows Tim back in, he takes a blood sample from Bruce in order to test for different things that could affect his baby. Doctor Harty then gives him a small cup, points him to the bathroom, and tells him to pee in it. Bruce does that, taking a few extra seconds in the bathroom to try and calm himself down. Only it doesn’t work because he knows what is coming next.

When he gets back to the room, handing the cup back to the doctor, the ultrasound machine is already in the room. Bruce’s heart drops to the floor as he eyes it, getting back onto the bed. Doctor Harty then asks him to lie back and to pull up his shirt. Bruce does as he is told. The doctor grabs a tube, opens it, and positions it over Bruce’s slightly extended stomach. Tim is eyeing his stomach in awe, not having seen him without a shirt on since the time Clark ordered him to eat.

“This is going to be cold,” Doctor Harty warns and then squeezes the gel onto Bruce’s stomach. He grabs the wand from the ultrasound machine, turning it on, and then placing it on Bruce’s stomach and the gel. Bruce holds his breath as Doctor Harty moves the wand around until finally he stops. “And there it is, your baby.”

Bruce’s eyes slowly move to the screen and as they land on the black and white picture of his baby, he feels his heart stop. “Wow,” he distantly hears Tim remark but Bruce can’t breathe and so pays it no attention.

“Would you like to hear its heartbeat?” Doctor Harty asks but the question doesn’t even register in Bruce’s head. All he can seem to focus on is the black and white figure on the screen that is inside him. “Mr. Wayne?”

“Bruce?” Tim says, concern lacing his voice.

Bruce finally drags his eyes away from the screen. “What?”

“Would you like to hear your baby’s heartbeat?” Doctor Harty asks once more.

“Heartbeat?” Bruce is starting to shake.

“Yes, a baby’s heart normally starts beating around six to seven weeks but you wouldn’t have been able to hear it. At thirteen weeks, however, you should be able to hear it clearly.”

“Wouldn’t that be amazing, Bruce?” Tim asks, oblivious to Bruce’s mental meltdown. So much for being able to read him. “Being able to hear your baby’s heartbeat would be awesome!”

Bruce nods dazedly, looking back to the screen. Doctor Harty smiles at him, pleased, and switches a switch on the machine. Suddenly, the room is filled with a rapid swooshing sound. If Bruce’s heart hadn’t stopped beating before, it definitely has now. He feels like he is going to be sick as he watches the baby on the screen and the swooshing enters his ears. Tears pool into his eyes.

He was going to get an abortion. He was eleven weeks along when he was going to get the abortion. The baby had its heartbeat at six or seven weeks. The baby wasn’t supposed to have a heartbeat then. He wasn’t supposed to have almost gotten rid of something that has a heartbeat. He wasn’t supposed to.

The tears start rolling down his cheeks and Doctor Harty smiles, probably assuming the tears are tears of happiness instead of what they really are. “It can be overwhelming to see and hear your baby for the first time.” Tim nods in agreement, his own big smile showing. Bruce wants it to stop. “Would you like a printed out picture?”

Bruce, not taking his eyes off the screen, almost says no. He doesn’t want a picture. He doesn’t want another reminder of his failure. Of all his failures. But then he thinks about Dick and how he would want one for sure. He also thinks about Clark who Bruce didn’t even tell he was going to this thing. It was only fair to get him one too, right?

Bruce reaches up and wipes the tears away, looking away from the screen. He wants the swooshing to stop. “Can I have two?” he asks and Doctor Harty nods. He turns the machine off finally. The pictures print and he hands them to Bruce. Bruce doesn’t look at them as he hands them to Tim.

Doctor Harty cleans the gel off of Bruce’s stomach and then says, “Alright, that concludes this visit. I want you to schedule another one in four weeks.” He gives both Bruce and Tim a smile. “Have a great day.” The doctor then leaves.

Bruce and Tim leave the room as well and then leave the hospital. They don’t say anything to each other until they get into the car back at the parking garage. Tim’s the first one to talk as he looks at the picture of the baby. “It’s neat, isn’t it? To think this is in you?” Bruce doesn’t say anything, staring straight ahead. He hasn’t started the car yet, his hands holding the steering wheel in a death grip. Tim finally looks up, looking at Bruce with scrunched eyebrows. “Bruce? Are you okay?”

Bruce blinks, thinking, panicking. “Your heat is coming up, right?”

“Yeah, in a few days. Why?”

“You should share it with Conner.”

“…What?”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“You should share your heats with him.”

Tim stays very quiet for a few long seconds, studying Bruce. “Why? I thought you would kill Conner if I shared my heat with him before I was eighteen.”

“I’ll buy you birth control. You’ll take it won’t you, Tim?”

“…I mean… yeah, of course, but Bruce, I don’t really understand why you’re bringing this up.”

“Heats are better when they are shared with someone. Especially if you care about that person. They’re less physically painful.”

“Is this about Clark?”

“I just think if you have that person then why wait.”

“This is about Clark.”

“But you have to use birth control because you could end up pregnant like I am and-” The tears come back and they take no time at all to start falling. “And that hurts. That hurts Tim and you can’t let that happen to you. Because you can’t get rid of a baby that already has a heartbeat,” Tim frowns, “and you can’t have a baby when the sire doesn’t care about you.”

“Bruce…”

“You can’t do that because it…” and Bruce is really crying now, hiccups and all. Tim is very silent as Bruce leans forward and rests his forehead against his hands, squeezing his eyes shut.

And that’s when he hears it. A low rumbling noise that is coming from beside him. Bruce lifts his head and peers over at Tim who is sitting there and purring. It’s the first time Bruce has ever heard Tim purr. This kind of omega purr isn’t the content purr, though, but instead is the purr that is designed to help another omega calm down, to comfort them. As Bruce eyes him in amazement, Tim leans over and rubs his cheek along Bruce’s, not even being bothered by the wetness there. He continues to rub until their scents are mingled with each other, father and son, and Bruce’s hiccupping goes away.

Tim leans back and Bruce blinks at him. “It’s going to be okay Bruce.” He pulls the picture of the baby out and shows it to him. “You see this? You didn’t go through with the abortion. The baby is still there, perfectly fine. You didn’t get rid of a baby with a heartbeat.” Tim gives him a reassuring smile. “As for Clark. He might not love you the way you love him, Bruce, but he does care about you a lot. Just like me and Dick do. Just like Alfred does. He’s not your mate, yeah, but you’re still his best friend and that counts for something, right?” Bruce nods. “I know it hurts, I can see that, but it won’t hurt forever. I promise.”

Bruce doesn’t know how Tim can promise such a thing but he nods anyways. He doesn’t believe it. Doesn’t see it getting better. But he’s feeling embarrassed now from his little mental break and wants to move on instead of dwelling on it. “Will you give that picture to Dick?” He grabs the other picture and shoves it into his pocket. He’ll give it to Clark the next time he sees him. Clark will probably be mad that Bruce didn’t bring him along.

“Yeah, of course.” Tim eyes him, putting the picture he is holding in his own pocket. “Are you okay?” Bruce doesn’t answer and instead starts the car up, backing out of the space. Tim frowns. “Bruce?” Bruce never answers him.

A/N: Thanks for reading! :)

[ashafriesen]

Dealing With Teen Tantrums Without Screaming Your Lungs Out

Dealing With Teen Tantrums

I expected a lot of drama and grief as my elder one entered his teen last year. I had read so much about the Teen Tantrums and even remembered my teenage years. I was really, really rebellious. So baited this stage with deep breaths. 

Teen tantrums are very similar to those terrible twos, expressed with much more rage by a grown-up child – that makes it increasingly more difficult to manage.  Teen tantrums are also deemed as one of the most unpredictable and difficult emotional outbursts and no one can understand it better than a parent dealing with it.

All of this may sound scary but actually it’s very normal. The symptoms of teenage actually start exhibiting in the pre-teen years itself but not in the furious form. And this had been true for us. My elder one has actually calmed down and become more responsible in the last year. Maybe, he gave me such a hard time in the preteen years that I feel for us the terrible teens are fading. 

During teenage, the hormonal changes leading to physical, physiological and emotional transformation can trigger sudden outbursts which are not easy to handle both by the child as well as parents. A teenager’s brain is still actively developing, and therefore processes information differently than a mature adult’s brain. The frontal cortex of the brain used to manage emotions, make decisions, reason, and control inhibition, is restructured during the teenage years, while the whole brain does not reach full maturity until about the mid-20’s. So all I am saying is, that don’t worry step back and cut them a little slack. However, it tough to keep a tab on your own emotions when the teen in front of you is all worked up. Here are a few suggestions I have  that will make dealing with teen tantrum tad bit easy.

Be Empathetic

As hard as it sounds, this step is equally important to practice when your child is fuming with anger. I know it’s easier said than done, but it is also crucial to understand that your child is going through a lot in this phase. Teenage is a tricky phase between childhood and adulthood. The energy is high but the teen is still trying to figure out a lot of things. If you look at this situation as a third person, practicing empathy would be simple. Isn’t it? Maybe a little bit of Pranayama(breathing exercises) and meditation daily will help you both control your emotions. 

Focus on building trust

Think of this phase as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship with your child. This phase is temporary but the bonding that you build will remain forever. When you are working on building trust instead of looking at mere tantrums, it will have a positive influence on your teen. Yes, the temptation of checking their phones is there but maybe you can devise a system where you have some kind of parental control on their mobiles and laptop. Some teens may not like that also, in that case you should sit them down and explain your concerns create certain rules and let them be. Don’t make them feel your are hovering around but be watchful as well. 

Model good anger management: Teen Tantrums

There is no point if you and your child both keep losing temper every now and then. Remember, children reflect their parents’ behaviour. Practice anger management techniques that will help set a good example for your teen to follow. However, don’t expect quick results. You both are in different stages of your lives and teenagers can’t be as pragmatic as their parents. This is something, both my son and I are working on. Remember when your kids are entering their teens you are also entering pre menopausal or menopausal stage and you will also experience mood swings. So you need to show them how to control your anger. They will follow. I have had many times when both of us have come back and apologised to each other after a verbal tiff and realised it was something we could have amicably reached a mid way agreement on.

Don’t try to suppress teen’s  emotions

Once your teen learns to suppress emotions, there could be nothing worse. Research proves that teens who can describe their negative emotions can actually keep depression at bay. Supressing feeling of anger or any other negative emotion will not help your child understand it completely. Give them their space to identify the trigger and the following reaction. I understand we are not therapist or experts but we are raising kids and we know are own. Let them express and let them talk so they don’t hold anything inside and then when they have calmed down you can reason with them.

Don’t surpress their emotions

Spend more time with your teenager

Well, teenagers would not like to hang out with parents as often – but that’s not what it is meant to be. It is all about adding quality to your time spent together, howsoever little it is. The teen should feel that parents are listening and not just preaching. I find myself and even more my husband mostly talking about studies to my son as he is also in a grade which is crucial for his future. So I consciously try and play board games with both my kids before retiring for bed and that’s when they automatically tell me stories of their day. Spending good time with your teen will also offer opportunities to understand the pain points – fears, aspirations, and challenges.

Be aware of your child’s friends and other influences

That definitely doesn’t mean that you have to spy your teen, but a little bit of vigilance and information will be useful in understanding the tantrums better. Usually teen tantrums are natural and harmless. However, it is important to know the real cause of your teen’s anger is not something else, which could turn serious in the long run. I have seen if you have had an arguement with the kid before he leaves for school, there is a highly likely chance that he will carry this mood to his class and get a diary note or get into an arguement with his peers and vice versa. So catching his bad mood and just asking him who he had a tiff with helps because he is caught off guard and he also realised that as a parent you understand him. 

Know their friends

For teenagers, the world suddenly changes and they are more attracted to the outside influences. Keeping yourself informed about your child’s regular routine, friend circle, etc. is just a ‘needed’ precautionary step.

Seek professional help

As parents, we are blessed with a sixth sense. Don’t ignore the slightest symptoms of a problem that requires professional help. Any self-inflicted physical pain, suicidal talks or chronic substance abuse could be signs that the situation is much more serious than simple teen tantrums.  Sometimes, getting a counsellor or a therapist helps when you see your teen in such a situation.

The year when Blue Whale Challenge was spreading across India, I decided to discuss openly with my then pre teen. I was surprised how much he already knew about it. So parents they are clued in, don’t think you can keep them away, rather discuss openly.

Love your child a lot more: Teen Tantrums

Love is the universal language understood by all and accepted by all. And showering your child with love cannot be difficult. Yes, the time and situation may be challenging. It could be that your child has just declared you as a nagging parent who is not as cool as many others, but you still can make the best choice…Love your child a little more than usual. Time shall pass and you both will come out stronger. Promise!

  Parenting is definitely a rollercoaster journey. And only a parent to a teen can understand how mild those terrible twos were! Having said that, it would be completely unfair to assume that parenting a teenager is no fun. Of course, there are a few challenges, just like in every stage – but with a little of patience and lots of love you can make these moments as special as ever.

The post Dealing With Teen Tantrums Without Screaming Your Lungs Out appeared first on Maa of All Blogs.

Dealing With Teen Tantrums Without Screaming Your Lungs Out published first on https://parentcenternetwork.tumblr.com/

[brightlynested]

This sweet baby girl was born at at birth center almost 4 months ago 💞 Initially when I told friends and family I was going to deliver my baby at a birth center, everyone was really confused. The most common questions I received were, “What is a birth center?” and “Is that safe?!” Less than 1% of babies are born at birth centers so their questions were totally valid! At one point I had asked those same questions myself. My hope is that this post will answer all your questions about what a birth center is, as well as share how amazing my birth center experience was! 

What is a birth center?

A birth center is a home-like setting for women to give birth. Most birth centers are a free standing building on the grounds of a hospital or only a few blocks away. Some birth centers can even be attached to a hospital. Women are typically seen by midwives as opposed to OBs.

Pregnancy and childbirth are normal life events and are treated as such. In birth centers, midwives and staff hold onto the “wellness” model of birth, which means they provide continuous, supportive care during childbirth and only intervene if medically necessary. (During my birth, once my water had broken, my midwife did not leave my side until hours after the baby was born. She coached me and encouraged me the whole time while I was laboring. This was a stark difference between my first child’s hospital birth when the doctor only showed up a few minutes before the baby was born and then left immediately afterwards. I had never met her and never saw her again after that). 

Additionally, birth centers are universally committed to family-centered care. In birth centers, it is the childbearing woman’s right to be the decision-maker about the circumstances of her birth. Women are encouraged to eat if they are hungry, move around and spend time in a tub if they wish, and push in whatever positions they find most comfortable. Birth centers recognize that the mother knows what her body needs to give birth (🙌).The midwives and staff attend to her needs, while diligently watching for signs that are outside the realm of wellness. If anything should should happen to where the mother or baby’s life may be at risk, the mother and baby are immediately transferred to the hospital.

In the U.S., 98.8% of births take place in hospital labor and delivery units, with physicians attending 86% of these births. In contrast, 0.3% of births take place in birth centers, where nurse-midwives and midwives provide most of the care. Among women who give birth in hospitals, approximately 85% are considered low-risk, while all women who are eligible for care at a birth center are healthy and low-risk.

Since hospitals specialize in treating acute illness and injury, they are an obvious choice for women who have complications that require medical or surgical intervention or who choose to have high-intervention births. However, when normal, healthy pregnant women give birth in hospitals, their care often gets swept up into this same medical way of doing things. The philosophy is often "What if something bad happens?" instead of "What is happening right now?" Standard protocols, meant to prepare for problems that may never arise, can disrupt normal labor for healthy pregnant women.

As a result, many women in hospitals receive interventions, whether or not they need them. Almost all women (87%) who labor in hospitals undergo continuous electronic fetal monitoring, 80% receive intravenous fluids, 47% have labor artificially accelerated with medications, and 43% of first-time moms have labor artificially induced. In addition, 60% of women giving birth in hospitals are not allowed to eat or drink, 76% are restricted to bed, and 92% give birth lying on their backs. There is strong evidence that routine use of these practices, when carried out without medical indications, has few benefits and many potential harms for healthy mothers and babies.”

*All information & statistics were taken from birthcenters.org

My Birth Center Experience

I loved absolutely everything about my birth center experience! Once I got pregnant with my second baby, I was still on the fence about going for a natural childbirth. It wasn’t until I was 16 weeks pregnant that I decided to switch from my OB’s office to my local birth center. Immediately they welcomed me with open arms. My first appointment was an hour long. During that appointment I got to know one of the midwives and shared my medical history with her. I also let her know all the details of my first labor and delivery. From then on, at each appointment I saw a different midwife on staff. There were only 5-6 midwives and only three of them are on-call for labor and delivery, so I knew to spend a little extra time with those particular midwives because I knew one of them was going to deliver my baby! 

Once my labor began I called the birth center to let them know. My (favorite) midwife called me back immediately and told me she was on-call that day! She seemed just as excited as I was and couldn’t wait for me to arrive at the birth center. I had just seen her the day before and she told me, “I want to catch your baby!” (typical midwife jargon meaning, “I want to deliver your baby!”)

Long (labor) story short, I labored at home for the first 8 hours I was in labor. Eventually I knew it was time to go to the birth center and when I arrived I was 4cm dilated, fully effaced, with a bulging bag of water. I labored for another hour until my midwife asked me if I wanted her to break my water, which I did! I knew once she broke my water labor was really going to pick up. Once she broke my water I immediately got into the water birth tub. From that point on my midwife never left my side. She also never checked to see how dilated I was after that, but she knew exactly how dilated I was from the sounds I was making. Eventually she even told me my baby was going to be born within 30 minutes (again, without even knowing how dilated I was) and she was exactly right. My sweet little girl was born 20 minutes later. Her confidence and calm disposition astounded me. It was so obvious how incredibly knowledgeable and skilled she was in delivering babies. 

In that last hour of birth I cried out for strength and help from our Lord and she was right there with me saying, “You’re doing amazing!! You have all the strength you need! You got this girl!!” Even after my sweet little girl was born, she told me over and over how well I did. Her words really impacted me and made me feel so accomplished. After delivery, she took the time to show me my placenta and tell me everything about it. Previously, I had been a little grossed out by placentas honestly, but the information she was telling me was fascinating. Afterwards, she proceeded to tell me how much she loves her job and how delivering babies will never get old to her. After 12 years of delivering hundred and hundreds of babies, she still enjoyed every single birth. 

Again, this was a stark difference between my first birth in a hospital by an OB I had never met and never saw again. 

In the weeks following birth, I was counting down the days until my 6 week postpartum visit with my midwife again. I couldn’t wait to catch up with her and talk about the birth. Once my appointment finally came we laughed and chatted together for over an hour while she held my sweet baby. My appointment happened to be the last of the day and she told me I could hang out as long as I wanted! You don’t hear that very often at a doctors office! Ha! Needless to say, I can’t get over how personal my birth center experience was. It was a stark contrast to my previous doctors office where I was just another pregnant woman. I know I am biased, but I will always, always recommend a birth center birth if you have the option! You won’t be treated like just another pregnant woman, and you can expect individualized, personal care. 

Additional Birth Center Quick FAQ’s

Do birth centers take insurance?

Yes, they accept most forms of insurance. Once you switch over to your birth center, they can tell you how much your birth will cost according to the type of insurance you have. Birth center births are cheaper than hospital births so you may not need to pay much at all! 

At what point in your pregnancy should you start going to a birth center?

As soon as you find out you are pregnant. Your appointments follow the same schedule they would at a typical OB’s office.

Do birth centers give epidurals?

No. Birth centers specialize in unmedicated births, but there are some things they can give you to help ease the pain of labor if needed.

What happens in the event of an emergency during childbirth?

If the midwife feels the mother or infant’s life is in immediate risk, they are transferred to the hospital immediately.

Can I check out the birth center first before I commit?

Yes! Most birth centers will let you tour the place first and see what they are about before you commit. My husband and I did a tour and a class before we committed!

How do I find a birth center near me?

Find a birth center near you using the American Association of Birth Centers (AABC) website: https://www.birthcenters.org/search/custom.asp?id=2926

Do I go back to my original OBGYN after the baby is born?

No! :) Most birth centers provide full-scope gynecological care for women of all ages, from teen to post-menopausal. They provide annual exams with pap smears, mammograms, contraception/birth control, natural family planning, holistic management of menopause, preconception counseling, and much more!

In 2013 a nationwide study was done on birth centers called the National Birth Center Study II. The findings confirmed that women & newborns receive top notch care at birth centers. Read the whole article here https://www.birthcenters.org/page/NBCSII .

I hope you enjoyed the read! Are you considering a birth center birth? What other questions do you have? Do you have friends considering a birth center birth? Feel free to tag your pregnant friends to share this post with them! 

[corneliussteinbeck]

Turning Menopausal Depression Into a Positive Experience

When we think of menopause, we imagine we will experience all the symptoms that our mothers told us about: the hot flashes, the extra weight around the waistline and the crazy erratic mood swings.

Yet how many of you associate depression with menopause? I definitely didn’t.

When my periods started to become irregular, I found myself fatigued more than usual, and definitely a little more snappy with the children. I knew my hormones were in flux, yet I thought I was actually doing quite well and holding it all together.

I definitely had the blues though. But, as I had experienced an emotional year with some family struggles, untimely deaths and then relocating to a new country, I still didn’t associate these stresses and feelings of sadness with depression.

My marriage was starting to suffer. At some point, my husband pulled me aside and asked me: Were we doing OK? Was I OK?

Without me realizing it, my blues had creeped deeper and deeper inside of me and had taken over my whole self: I really was very unhappy. I felt lonely and isolated, and had no desire to achieve the greatness I had once set out to do.

One of the things that struck me was watching my youngest boy. You see, he is like me in every way (with the exception of our gender): he takes on life with a sense of joy and wonderment, likes to live out each day to the fullest, and loves to experience adventures with people. All these traits that we once shared seemed lost to me; my youthful outlook on life had dwindled to the point where I felt dead inside.

Depression is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign that you were trying to be strong too long. — Sigmund Freud

We Don’t Have to Do It Alone

After my doctor diagnosed me with both perimenopause and depression, I went into a period of feeling ashamed.

How had I let myself become so depressed? I took on this responsibility fully.

How could I do this to my family? I felt a deep sense of guilt.

How could I have risked my marriage falling apart? I felt a failure as a wife.

This went on for a period of time until I decided to turn this whole situation around. I couldn’t let my depression take over my life like this: it was impacting all of those I loved, and I felt like it was ruining all our lives.

I started taking a course of medication and talking to my friends about what I was going through. I felt a sense of huge relief when I did — nobody judged me, everybody wanted to support me.

Additionally, I started making changes to my daily structure so that I no longer felt overwhelmed and also had a lighter schedule in case I was having a particularly bad day. All of a sudden the small changes I introduced were making a huge impact, a positive impact, where previously there seemed to be no end in sight.

Depression can consume us to the point of isolation and selfishness.

I realized that I didn’t want depression to own me; I wanted to have some control over it. This is not an easy task, I may add, but the will to live my life fully again gave me the determination to try all strategies.

I knew that I was normal and that I wasn’t a failure. Depression does not discriminate and can consume anybody. The simple truth is that we all have our problems. We are human, after all, and by sharing our troubles and taking positive action, we can reduce the unwarranted shame that depression hangs over us, and start to make a positive impact in our well-being.

As women, it is in our nature to be resilient. We avoid complaining, and do not want to be judged for it. This can leave us feeling like we are the only ones suffering, shameful about being depressed, and believing that nobody would understand what we are experiencing.

Why Do We Get Depressed During Menopause?

Depression can leave us feeling so isolated, yet the reality is much different: statistics show us that one-fifth of the population will have an episode of depression during their lifetime, and that women are twice as likely to be affected. Furthermore, there is evidence that perimenopause represents another period of vulnerability for women, with African Americans twice as likely to have depressive symptoms [2].

We are looking at a twofold problem here, as both physical and external factors are at play. On a hormonal standpoint, variability in estradiol levels and rising FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) levels during menopause increase the likelihood of depression [1].

Decrease in estrogen levels has also been associated with the mental health issues that women experience during this period, as there is evidence that estrogen has some mood-enhancing benefits. Moreover, the drop in estrogen can also lead to hot flashes that disturb sleep, which can in turn cause anxiety, fears, mood swings, and ultimately depression [2].

The external factors that may also impact women during this period cannot be ignored. We cannot blame our hormones for everything, and stress, body image, sexuality, infertility, or aging can all — alone or in combination — be at the root of emotional distress. Determining the cause and extent of your “menopause blues” is important, as is looking at all aspects of your life to see where you can lower your stress and make different choices that will allow you to maintain a feeling of calmness or equilibrium [3].

Nutrition, sleep, exercise, stress management and social support are different self-care options you can look at, as is receiving medical help that may include antidepressants, talk therapy such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT).

What I Did to Remain Positive During Depression

In order for me to get through menopause and deal with my depression, I used a strategy called  “notice and name” which I learned and adapted from my experience as a Precision Nutrition graduate. Whenever I was hit with a depressed mood, I would notice the signs and name them, with no judgement and no shame.

As I became adept at recognizing the circumstances that could trigger a depressed mood, I then made small changes in both my daily life and my mindset to try to stop the despair and sadness taking hold of me.

I now break my daily tasks down into small manageable chunks so that I don’t feel overwhelmed. If I can’t get through all the tasks I have assigned myself, I just do them the next day, rather than stress myself out to get them completed.

Another strategy is to make time for my family. Each day, I turn off my phone at 3:30 p.m. and don’t check it again until 9:30 p.m. at night when the children go to bed, and then I only look at it for 30 minutes.

I also plan my week so that it always contains a day fully dedicated to the things I want to do outside of work, chores or family obligations — making space for this “me time” is one of the luxuries for working for myself!

Using these strategies has allowed me to manage my stress so that the periods where I feel depressed are fewer and farther between. If and when depression takes hold to the point where I know my quality of existence is compromised, I let it happen. I tell my family what is happening and keep the dialogue flowing. I let them know when I need to be alone, when I need help, and when I need support.

This has proved to be a source of relief for me, knowing that I have a team of people behind me who love me and want me to be better.

I have also started to turn my thought process around, to try to focus on the positive aspects of what menopause really means to me.

I know that for many women, the end of menopause can be a liberating experience — let’s face it: no more menstrual periods or cramps to deal with! (My periods have been so heavy and irregular during menopause that I cannot plan for them, so the idea of being free of them is very exciting!)

My mood swings and depression are so unpredictable, as my hormones continue to be in flux, that knowing this phase isn’t going to last forever, and that these symptoms will start to subside when I am postmenopausal, gives me the strength to continue to push through each day.

Conclusions from a 4-year study at the University of Pennsylvania established that while the depressive symptoms increased as women entered menopause, they also decreased when women were postmenopausal [4]. This gives us ladies a glimmer of hope for the passing of the menopause period.

I now see this time of my life as a huge wake-up call, a chance to make decisions that are going to have a positive impact on my life and that of my family.

I still live with depression, and will likely continue to suffer for the next few years. What this means for me is that I have to be very aware of the factors that can impact my mental health on a daily basis. Understanding that depression does not define me and shouldn’t be stigmatized is part of the solution too, which is why I made the decision to openly discuss my issues — it has been, truly, a freeing experience.

Seeing menopause as a new beginning, the second half of my life is ready to be lived fully. So let the party start — soon!

References

Menopausal Symptoms and Their Management, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Colorado School of Medicine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4890704/

Is Menopause Causing Your Mood Swings, Depression or Anxiety?, Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials https://health.clevelandclinic.org/2015/06/is-menopause-causing-your-mood-swings-depression-or-anxiety/

Depression & Menopause, The North American Menopause Society http://www.menopause.org/for-women/menopauseflashes/mental-health-at-menopause/depression-menopause

Hormones and Menopausal Status as Predictors of Depression in Women In Transition to Menopause, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/481940

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from Blogger http://corneliussteinbeck.blogspot.com/2017/10/turning-menopausal-depression-into.html

[unmaskingtheglamour]

Into the Mists

Over the past year I didn’t realize I was heading into the deeper throws of menopause.  A lot happened last year that “distracted” me from my journey. It was a seriously tough year and so in the distractions the changes that started to show up were ones I just could not understand.  My best friend recently asked if what I was feeling could be full blown menopause.  I wasn’t sure but needed the answer...

I am deep into it now....very deep...  I have left everything and everyone but a few people and a few things and decided to dive deeper.  Actually, those people who have shown up to check in number on both of my hands and I am fine with that.  Life became overwhelming at points into this year.  I had to go away.  I didn’t realize I was stepping onto “the Barge” and crossing the Lake to Avalon.

I literally just finished The Seven Sacred Rites of Menopause this morning.  

It helped so much in understanding what was happening to me.  I didn’t feel “my Self”.   I have been in hibernation mode for months trying to weed through all that has been going on with me.  This has been, well let’s just say, difficult and confusing.  I knew there had to be some kind of Divine lesson coming from this and so I searched for something that would at least start to guide me on my way.  This book has helped me to look at it all in a different light and to be forgiving of myself, any mistakes I make a long the way and the overwhelmingly intense feelings I have been having.  It put it all in understandable steps with the first step in Summoning the Barge.  I did that fully back in February.  I was coming around a bend in life and had to review some things from the past that kept popping up.  I also had some other stuff happening and I knew that whatever was going on within me was not helping where I was in that time.   In reading the book it listed the symptoms and so many I could just check off.  Hot flashes and some night sweats are one thing but the weight loss was a surprise.  I had been sick with nasty kid viruses from November up til January of this year.  Everyone has been saying was tough to get rid of so I thought that was partially the reason for the loss of weight but this was too much. My weight went down to 102.  I had been doing some other stuff as well that contributed to this but I had not been 102 since 2013 after my surgery. I do have one the right ovary still to help with generating the hormones I needed but now I am really “feeling it”.  It’s achy.  Over the year and up til recent other symptoms showed up.  Intense anxiety, panic attacks (which I never had before), depression (not typical for me), anger, insecurities, rage, frustration, over thinking, crying just out of the blue, the feeling of imminent death as I was losing myself in all of the emotions and the need to just run away from people and life.  What I didn’t know was that the weight loss actually was contributing to the problems above.  I had no idea that my body was losing it’s capacity to use the estrogen stored in my fat cells because I lost that weight. Be grateful for the extra pounds you have because it is actually helping you!!  It made sense when I look back at the timeline of where I was to where I am now.  I can see where it all started to get worse.  

Last summer I went to the real Avalon.  I was in Glastonbury for over a week and so this book also is bringing me back to the places I encountered there on my real journey.  It’s making me miss it as well...deeply, deeply miss it.... the land especially. The Tor, the ancient Red and White Springs, the only two ancient oaks on the Druid path, Gog and Magog and more. I had also read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon and so it was relating to this book as well.  It’s a different spin on the story of Morgaine, the half sister of King Arthur, and her journey into becoming a Priestess of Avalon.  

Deep within me I intuitively knew that this journey had to happen or I would be in trouble.  I would lose myself in all I have ever done once I started puberty up until this time and never get back the person I deeply am after years of growth through the childbearing years.  We lose so much of ourselves as women in this world as we continuously give and give to everyone around us.  Those moments of quiet that we get are few and far between sometimes as we whirl around in the rest of the world.  I had done that for years and paid for it in so many tough ways. It did show some amazing things as well that I would never regret but more exhaustion that I could not release effectively. Self care was obsolete and yet everyone wanted my energy in some way and would also turn around and tell me to rest or would say, in the same breath of asking, “I don’t know how you do it!”     I got to a point that if one more person asked me for one more thing I was going to go...off, away, hide, you name it but I wasn’t sure where I was going.  I just wanted to go away from everything and everyone. I needed to stop.  I felt angry,  I felt tired.  I felt frustrated.  I felt annoyed.  I wanted no more demands.  No more needs from others that had to be fulfilled, right now!  I was tapped out.  I was already doing my best to heal from a nasty situation early last year that now I needed to really focus on myself and what was happening.  There were huge signals that were happening and I listened.  I know I am not the only one who has this happening but you feel very, very alone in it all.  But I knew I got this too...you know what I mean?

Every woman will have this urge to “go away”.  Every woman will start this journey in her own time.  Some start as early as 30′s or 40′s or 50′s.  It’s how you do the journey that is crucial it seems.  I was already going there and could feel the depths I was diving into within myself.  I knew I needed to “change my story” and so I took the risk.  The risks are scary.  Losing people, losing relationships, losing work, losing myself even...but I did the First Rite and Summoned that Barge.  I feel it most likely happened back in February of 2015 and then fully stepped on it in November of 2015 when I decided that 2016 was a year to take care of myself. That meant kicking out a lot of people, situation, and things from my existence in 2016 that I would no longer tolerate being in my life.  The Second Rite is Pulling Down the Mists and I was jumping straight into the Third Rite of Initiation of Perimenopause in the beginning of this year.  The second has to do with emotions and behavior.  I saw aspects of myself showing up I had no idea were even there.  But it was.  Apparently the mood swings you get when you start your moon cycle are also the ones that show up when you start menopause. The Third is where it all just worsens...  And it has been really harsh!

Because of the weight loss I could not practice hooping.  I needed the calories and that burns 300 at least an hour and I tend to go a good 3 - 4 hours when I get into what I am doing.  I weigh myself to gauge how long I can hoop.  That has been very tough!  I started to track what I was eating and make sure I was getting enough fat.  I have been adding a ton of extra good fat in my diet. I had good days and tougher days emotionally. The tough thing is you feel like you are going off the deep end.  Nervous break down is around the corner and you aren’t sure where the hell you just went.  The depression parts have been the toughest. I am not used to this part at all.  I spiral hard and do this as I look at What brought me to this.  What has not been working.  What has held me back. Who I have allowed to hold me back.  How I feel about life. You have no foothold.  Everything slips away and the darkness sets in.   As the book states “The Mists separate your inner world from your outer world”.  You fear you will lose your magic - your beauty, your youth, your drive, your whatever.   There is a balance that needs to be struck and this whole journey is part of it. Women aren’t allowed to feel like we really feel.  We get shut down pretty fast if we do.  We are taught to fear disappointing or hurting someone, looking crazy or worst of all,being abandoned.  I don’t care right now.  I allow myself to Rage, to express my Anger, Frustration, Grief, Loss, Jealousy and any other darkness sitting in my own space.  It is safe for me to do so alone or with those who are able to really hold space for me.  I never want to take anything out on anyone so for me it is imperative to release them safely - whatever that means to you.  If I am having a tough day then I stay in or go do something for myself in solitude.  I also balance this with sending and sitting in love and happiness for my self.  I am beginning to understand how to forgive myself because I can’t help what is happening.  It just is. 

The enhanced magic is emerging from a very, very deep place within.  It’s bringing me to a “becoming” of an even more powerful aspect of my Self and that is exciting to know.   

The Third Rite came up over the past year into this year and everything worsens, heightens, intensifies all that has happened.  It becomes too much.  The tough thing is realizing that women get a bad rap when this happens.  We are crazy, insane, hysterical, a bitch, too angry, too whatever and no one understands this that has not been through it and yet we are still “Not Enough” for those around us who feel us pulling away.   I don’t remember what I was like when I started my moon cycle at 12 or 13 but what I have felt even recently and how I respond to myself feel awful.   I thought my expression was due to other things because I never felt the need to throw stuff but alone well, I did and do and it feels good. I have a good arm too so luckily no one has been around when I go there. Now that it is warm I can throw as many rocks and skipping stones as I want.  My sister and I loved to take recycling and smash the bottles in the bins.  It’s satisfying to hear a crashing sound!  Anything helps to release in a safe but effective way.    

It’s crucial for partners of women going through this to understand their part.  So many male partners do not understand what is happening since they don’t have the same fluctuations as women do.  There are different kinds of men.  Knights, Princes, and Kings. It takes a certain kind of man to actually be able to walk this intense but powerful path with a woman.  To hold her in a way physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically and spiritually that helps her through each moment.  You need to be strong.  Really strong!!  Sometimes she needs you there and other times she wants you to stand back so she can move through it all.  There seems to be an influx of Knights and Princes, a few Jokers too but mainly in our society especially Knights and Princes and not so many Kings.  Knights want to help slay the dragons (work/success) and save the Princess and be the hero til the next dragon comes along.   A Prince wants his Princess to continue to give to him in the way she did, to look the way he wants her to look, to be that person who does everything without questioning what is being asked because it is “her job”.  Either version will tend to run away on a new adventure or to a new person hoping to find a new Princess to replace the power that is growing with the woman right in front of his face when she rebels and rejects what has been going on.  As she turns away, to go within to find her true self, these men turn away too but not for the same reasons.  Sadly, all they will find is this same situation over and over again.  For some it is just a stage in life and is needed to grow, so that I understand, but for many it is a lifestyle that perpetuates patriarchal views of women and “their place” in society.

Kings, well, they hold space, and I mean really solidly hold some very Sacred Space!  It becomes a part of their Divine Rite to stand ready to help when asked but know when not to overstep and do the process for her.  They hold the sword, point down into the earth to help ground the energies and up in defense at times to ward off anyone who comes to disturb this transition into the next level of Queen as she sits and sorts out the heavy stuff on her barge that is weighing her down.  That King will emerge, from this, more powerful, in his own rite of passage, as he walks with her, allowing her to feel safe in her time of transition and growth.  He knows not to take it personally.  He knows how to listen to her heart so that she will emerge even better and more powerful than before. I know how difficult it can be because I am in it. Balancing work and home life with what is happening is not always easy but those times she wants to be isolated are good and give each other a rest and time to do what needs to be done outside of what is going on.  The support for her growth is important and again more balance is struck.  If you don’t turn tail and run then you get to witness a transformation that empowers both.  The Gratitude and Love that comes forth after her journey is deeper and stronger than before and the bond intensifies because you chose to stay.  I am journeying this one alone but have seen friends whose boyfriends, husbands and lovers really stand by them and that is beautiful to see. 

The Fourth is the Quest for Holiness.  This is where you start to unload the Barge.  I can’t take this stuff with me because the story is changing and I don’t want to.  Some lies deep within my body and I don’t even realize it’s been there.  I have done a ton of personal spiritual work and I am still here on this journey.  From what I read I am actually reviving the inner prepubescent girl that was. The funny thing is, back in late December, early January I kept seeing a vision of an infant girl dressed in a onesie and a pink hat that you see them wear in the hospital after they are born.  At one point when it first flashed in a dream I saw my hand go down on to her sleeping warm back as she was snuggled into the mattress and rubbed her back gently saying “Wake up sweetie...”  Yeah, this is exactly how my journey is going.  When February hit, toward the end of it, I saw her with a dark, heavy blanket over top of her.  I could lift the blanket and all that was good and light was with her under it but still she was “cloaked”.  That was when I was in a fog of emotions and that was a bit unnerving but I was grateful I could lift that blanket and make sure she was ok.  I see her in a hazy mist right now but she is growing within it. I decided that I as I unload my Barge that I will be creating an Excalibur like Sword from all that I release into the Lake.  Let the Lady of the Lake and the energy of the Faerie world transform this baggage to create and hone my sword with each aspect that is being let go of.  When it is ready then it will rise from the Lake as a gift.  It will have a name and this will be used for many aspects of my life.  I have forged a sword before.  It is not easy and takes a lot of strength.  It is worth it though.

Part of this process is in watching my dreams right now.  They’ve been a little wacky since I allowed all of this to happen.  Interesting and listening to what I feel in them.  I will probably add those here on this place because it’s part of my journey.  My dreams are pretty vivid and lucid.  I also decided to get some help with this.  I want to be sure that this is all done in a healthy way so I have chosen to speak to a therapist as well. I had done some group therapy sessions last year and they were helpful and allowed me to share my gifts from tougher times with other women.  This therapist suggested working with EMDR to help with any of my past traumas.  I am very over looking at any of it because I have for a while now.  I know my “stuff” so I am hopeful this will be quicker.  We went through my medical traumas and I never realized how much of that was there.  Things I remember from when I was really, really little.  Much I have forgiven but can sit in the body energy too long.  We still have to look into the past in the next visit this week but I actually am excited to see how this will work out.  I am eager to throw these any of it off the barge to create my sword.  I am not about to take it with me when I go back into the world that’s for damn sure!  She feels it will be an effective and fairly quick way to release more and help me move into the outer world standing in even more of my power than before.   The Fifth Rite is Bathing in the Waters.  Yep, I cry....sometimes a lot or in a short spurt and then move on.  I allow it.  I am not a crier but have learned to allow for that over the past few years.  I never cried much as a kid for fear of being called a cry baby. I learned to realize the value of my tears.  Water is essential and I drink a lot of it from my local springs here.  I appreciate that this water is coming up purely from the earth and that it is helping in the healing.  I have water from the Red and White Spring as well as the one from Bath and all are healing.  I use them every so often to spritz or cleanse.  I never got a chance to bathe in the White Spring when I was in Glastonbury but I will next time.  I know I will go back at some point because I need to see more of the UK.  I resonated so much with it.  It’s in my DNA and I feel it literally in my blood. The Sixth Rite is Holding the Blood within.  I never thought about it this way but I see now how the blood I use to release or that helped my child to grow is now being held within me fully just circulating through my being.  That is powerful really.  It courses through me and any woman who has gone through this (even after a hysterectomy) and we become the Chalice or the Holy Grail.  It’s kind of an amazing way of looking at the self.  All of that blood that was given now is held within.  It helps us to know when to give and when not to.  I have become very choosy of this part of myself.  I see it now.  I see how I needed to stop a lot of my life and rest to get to here.  I know once I get past a few more things that when I give it will be enhanced even more in it’s power and that is so important.  I am wiggling my way to here but have some more unloading to do.  This is what is driving me to move forward.  To see what gifts I will be bringing into the Outer World once I emerge.  

The Seventh Rite is the Crowning of the Crone.  A celebration and a way to bring my wisdom from this time to other women.  It’s already starting.  I share that I rage at times or have depressed moment or say no or whatever and when women say “I am so glad you said this!”  I realize it allows them to be free.  That they are not going crazy and that they are whole in this part of their being. I will also be posting more about what I am using to help with the hormonal changes because I want to share what is working and what doesn’t at least for me on my journey.  Some do Hormone Replacement Therapy in different ways. Everyone’s chemistry is different so mine will be based on how I am rolling along with it.  I am going at it as cleanly and holistically as I can at this time.  I have a bit more to go but can feel I know at least I am heading in the right direction as I now walk through this part.  

[hainlineelim92]

Bacterial Vaginosis Medscape Marvelous Cool Ideas

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What Happens If Bacterial Vaginosis Goes Untreated Yeast

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Bacterial Vaginosis On Wet Mount Trichomonas

Acidophilus are also sometimes very helpful when you are stressed out.To be effective in managing the condition.Strain out the simple fact that it was something else.There are several different varieties out there.The main idea of what might have a BV cure process.

If you are working on a doctor's visit, he or she will acquire sexually transmitted disease is not sufficiently strong to ward off BV.That's when you have more visual problems.Bacterial vaginosis can also be accompanied by a BV infection.In addition limiting the amounts of vaginal bacteriosis.There are four reasons why you now have bacterial vaginosis, I've tried numerous bacterial vaginosis is caused by the Bacterial vaginosis happen when there were no conventional medicines makes them ineffective because the 3-day plan advised doesn't involve any antibiotics or other traditional medical treatments are easy to use, and better for a good way.

[gethealthy18-blog]

312: Moving Through Menopause: What to Expect & How to Prepare With Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs

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312: Moving Through Menopause: What to Expect & How to Prepare With Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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This podcast is sponsored by XPT. You might have seen me mention this on Instagram as it’s something I’ve been implementing lately and here’s why. If you’re like most people you set a New Year’s resolution to be healthier, go on a diet or to start working out. We do things like lift weights, run, bike, hike, and watch what we eat. But, most of us will overlook the most basic activity of all, BREATHING. Validated by top fitness experts, performance breathing is the most overlooked activity that can do more to help you get active, perform better and recover. And I’ve got the easy solution for you in just 5 to 10 minutes per day and it’s the XPT Life app. Inspired by the training techniques and lifestyle habits of big wave surfer, Laird Hamilton and former Pro-Athlete, Gabrielle Reece. The XPT Life App is rooted in the most basic, yet powerful human trait: your need to breathe. It’s that simple. The average human takes 23,000 breaths per day, so wouldn’t it make sense that we should learn to breathe the best way we can to perform the best you can? It brings together best techniques from around the world to improve recovery, resilience and performance in both mind and body. XPT is offering you access to this revolutionary program for FREE. With the new XPT Life App, you will quickly feel less stress, more focus and improved performance and I’ve noticed a big difference. Just go to xptlife.com/wellnessmama to download the app. Many health and wellness experts are predicting XPT Life and performance breathing to become one of the hottest new trends in 2020.

Katie: Hello and welcome to the ”Wellness Mama” podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And I’m here today with Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs, who is a board certified family medicine physician with 22 years of clinical training and experience in functional medicine and urgent care from the Cleveland clinic. Her practice is focused on listening to her patient’s needs first, then keeping them involved in every decision along the way. As a mother of three and a Yogi, she loves to travel in her free time. She’s accepting a limited number of patients across the country through SteadyMD where she’s a personal online concierge doctor. You can find out more about that in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm or by going to steadymd.com/wellnessmama. And in this episode we tackle peri-menopause, hormones, menopause if you are in that phase of life, how to get through it with the least discomfort possible, what you need to know about hormone replacement, how everything else can come into play during that time of life. So if you are in that phase or close to that phase, stay tuned. This episode is going to be a great one for you.

Dr. Lyla, welcome. And thanks for being here.

Dr. Lyla: Thank you so much for having me, Katie. I’m glad to be here.

Katie: I’m so glad to have you here because you are an expert on a topic that I get a lot of questions about that I don’t know how to answer, which is perimenopause and menopause and how to navigate that in the best way possible with the least discomfort possible. And I know that’s something that you are very much an expert on. So to start broad, can you explain exactly what perimenopause is and why there’s such a wide range of ages in which women experience that?

Dr. Lyla: Right. It’s kind of an interesting concept because we talk about menopause like it’s this really long period during life when in actuality perimenopause probably takes up more time. A woman can become peri-menopausal, which means around the time of menopause, as early as her, you know, early to mid-40s. And this can go on until, depending on how late she stops having her periods for up to 12 months, which is the definition of menopause. She might go till 52, 53, 54. So it can take quite a long period of time that you’ve actually fit into that category. And it really depends on the woman and a whole host of factors. Like when did she start menstruating? How many pregnancies, if any, did she experience? How long did she breastfeed?

And so it’s a very interesting time and the symptoms can be confusing. The height of the symptoms where, that we’ll get into a little bit, I’m sure, itself may only last a couple of years though. But women will start to notice some changes in their periods mostly as early as their mid-40s moving forward. So this wide range of ages leads a lot of women… I’ve even heard women in their late 30s describe themselves as feeling like they’re in the perimenopausal period. Sometimes we can tell with hormone testing where people are, but most of the time these are clinical kind of diagnoses based on symptoms that people come in with.

Katie: Got it. So when it comes to like technically defining peri-menopause, it’s not like there’s an age cutoff or even like a hormone test that defines it, but it’s more symptom based. Is that, am I understanding? So like how would one know that they might be in perimenopause and might need to like keep an eye on these things or address things?

Dr. Lyla: Yeah, exactly. That’s a really good question because menopause is a little bit easier to define. It’s the definition of menopause is not having had a cycle for a full year. If you don’t have a period for 12 months, you’re considered menopausal regardless of what your FSH is, which stands for follicle stimulating hormone. However, with peri-menopause, it is true that there’s really no lab test that can diagnose that and there’s no specific age for it. Like I mentioned earlier, you can begin to have some erratic periods, you can have breast tenderness, you can start having some weight gain and some mood changes when you start entering the perimenopausal period of time. You might even have a little bit of hot flashes because this is a period when estrogen levels are fluctuating from high to low, high to low. But progesterone is often quite low. Progesterone starts reducing much earlier than estrogen levels, maybe about 10 years earlier. Maybe in the early 40s, progesterone levels start going down. So that kind of heralds the onset of perimenopausal symptoms.

Katie: That makes sense. So I’m curious, just like to understand biochemically what is happening during perimenopause with regarding hormones and physiologically? Like I get the overall idea that the body’s preparing to stop menstruating and to go through menopause, but what hormones are changing and tend to go up or down?

Dr. Lyla: So initially, like I said, you’re gonna get a reduction in your production of progesterone. Progesterone is produced primarily by what we call the Corpus luteum within the ovary. And this happens after ovulation every month. As you become peri-menopausal, you have more cycles where you don’t actually ovulate and so you’re not secreting as much progesterone as you were earlier in life. So you’ll start seeing a steady decline of progesterone. Your estrogen levels can be great and they can continue at pretty high levels up until the time you stop having periods. And this leads to a problem called estrogen dominance and we’ll talk about that I’m sure during the course of this podcast. So you’re gonna see decline in progesterone, steady or normal estrogen. As you approach closer and closer to the menopause itself, you will also see a sharp reduction in progesterone beginning.

In addition, you’ll start seeing testosterone levels going down. And that also plays a role in some of the symptomatology, especially libido issues and energy issues. But we’re not gonna talk a whole lot about testosterone today, but do know that that is one of the three major hormones that are affecting or bringing about some of the symptoms we see.

Katie: That makes sense. And I would guess based on my understanding of hormones more just from me, the pregnancy and just monthly cycle side, it’s like they are so interdependent. Like if one goes up or down, it typically has an effect on the others in some ways. Is that true also in perimenopause?

Dr. Lyla: Yes, that is absolutely true. And, you know, other things like body weight can kind of impact the severity of symptoms during the perimenopausal and menopausal period of time because remember, fat cells will make estrogen in the body. And so, you know, one of the ways that you can keep your estrogen levels a little bit more steady and try to avoid some of the estrogen dominance that’s at least preventable is by trying to maintain a healthy body weight.

Katie: That’s good to know. And I know that applies to hormones, like for people with PCOS or other hormonal-related issues that can be really beneficial as well. To circle back to something you said at the beginning, just sheerly out of my own curiosity, you mentioned that like pregnancy and nursing and how many babies and how long can affect potentially that the age at which someone starts to enter this period. So I’m just curious to understand for my own benefit how that works and whether that makes you more or less likely to go through it at an earlier age. Because I’ve had six babies and I started having kids pretty young, so I’m just curious for my own sake.

Dr. Lyla: Yeah. So the number of pregnancies and how long you’ve nursed is important because remember we were born with a certain number of follicles in our ovaries. And whenever you’re pregnant, obviously, you’re no longer ovulating and having monthly cycles during the pregnancy. In most, you know, in 99% of cases you’re not ovulating or having a period during a pregnancy. And then for most of the time where at least if you’re nursing enough, you know, there’s that window where if you go below a certain amount of minutes per day nursing, you also won’t ovulate. That’s why women don’t get their periods immediately. And they can often go up to a year without having a period. The lucky ones, can go up to a year without having a period if they’re nursing sufficiently.

So those two things, pregnancies and nursing, help reduce the amount of actual periods that you have, the amounts of time that you actually ovulate. So then you can go longer into your lifetime, if that makes sense, having more periods. So if you never had a pregnancy, obviously you probably didn’t nurse. If you never had a pregnancy and you started your period relatively early, you’re probably gonna enter menopause a little bit earlier and vice versa. It doesn’t always follow that rule book, okay? But these are just kind of generalizations and that’s how those two things can affect the time at which somebody might enter perimenopause and then menopause. Does that make sense?

Katie: Yeah. That does, that makes perfect sense. And yeah, good to know that those factors would be really could influence that. You mentioned estrogen dominance a minute ago, and I know this is a word I know in the context of like PCOS for instance. So I’m curious, can you, for anyone who doesn’t know, define technically what estrogen dominance is and then how this affects women in that perimenopausal menopausal period and like what’s going on there?

Dr. Lyla: Well, remember I mentioned earlier that progesterone levels start going down and estrogen pretty much stays the same. And in some women, their estrogen levels may be higher than normal. So there’s a few scenarios that can lead to estrogen dominance. One of those is you’re not producing enough progesterone, but you’ve got normal amounts of estrogen. When you look at that ratio, even though your estrogen levels look normal because the progesterone is low, it throws the ratio off and so you have too much estrogen. Another scenario is when you have high estrogen and either normal or low progesterone, again, that will lead to a picture of estrogen dominance. And then the third scenario is if even if you’re almost menopausal or you’re in the midst of being, say you’ve not had a period for nine to 18 months and your estrogens already become low, you can still be estrogen dominant with a low estrogen because your progesterone is even lower. It might even be almost non-detectable because you don’t have any more Corpus luteum being produced. And so you’re still gonna be estrogen dominant.

And it’s interesting because now the more I’ve studied about this, the more patients I’ve seen in this period of their lifetime, the more I’m finding that that’s the predominant picture that we see is women with estrogen dominance. And the symptoms that you’re gonna see are, you know, those tender breasts, fiber cystic breasts, those irregular menstrual cycles., mood swings. You can see a lot of mood swings because these rapidly swinging estrogen levels. We call them basal motor symptoms. These are your hot flashes and hot flushes, weight gain, especially around the abdomen. Sometimes the hips as well can be involved. And also we can see an increase in uterine fibroids. Those typically tend to get a little bit better as estrogen levels completely go down because they’re sort of, for lack of a better word, fed by the estrogen. So these are all the symptoms and there’s several more, but these are the main symptoms that people will come in. Sometimes low libido. A lot of women complain of brain fog during this time period.

Katie: Okay. So if I’m understanding estrogen dominance is actually all about the ratio. It’s not like men can just take a test and have an estrogen number in a vacuum and a doctor say, “Okay, you have estrogen dominance.” It’s about in relation to progesterone.

Dr. Lyla: That’s correct. So you can get estrogen levels as well as progesterone levels drawn. And you know, there’s debate out there about whether saliva, blood spot or serum levels are best. I typically use blood levels. You know, I send someone to the lab and I’m gonna get an estradiol level and I’m gonna get a progesterone level and I can do the math to figure these out. And it’s easy to find if a woman is… especially if you see that her progesterone comes back really, really low. Ideally you want a ratio of about a hundred to 200. And I’ll be honest, most women that come in that are in this period of time typically do not have a ratio of 100 to 200, and they’re usually pretty symptomatic by the time they see me. So that’s probably why we’re seeing this.

Katie: Gotcha. So then if it’s about the ratio, is it as simple as raising progesterone or is it more complicated than that?

Dr. Lyla: Well, that’s a good question. And I think you’ve kind of hit the nail on the head. And there’s a lot of ways we can do that. It doesn’t automatically mean giving somebody progesterone, but in many cases that is what we do. There are some other things that you can do to reduce the estrogen dominance. You can give oral micronized progesterone. Typically we use, the studies have shown about 200 milligrams per day. In women that are still menstruating, you can give it during the last half of their cycle. So usually it’s day 12 or 14 until they begin menstruating. And women that aren’t menstruating, we can give it throughout the cycle. We can give it daily. But some other things before going to progesterone, especially in women that are concerned about taking any hormones, these are for sure bioidentical hormones. However and it’s the correct form of progesterone. It’s not the same progesterone you find in oral contraceptives. But some women still wanna try other things first.

So one of the biggest things that I like to encourage are dietary changes to start with. Things like increasing your fiber intake because fiber is going to help remove some of the excess estrogen that’s recirculating through our intestinal tract. If you have very low fiber intake, what will happen oftentimes is you’ll reabsorb some of the estrogen that would otherwise pass out through your stool. So increasing fiber will help bind some of those estrogen molecules up and carry them out. Cruciferous vegetables, one to two servings a day, I highly recommend. And one of the reasons is because they contain nutrients. One in particular called Indole-3-Carbinol, helps to detoxify estrogen. And so, especially for women that have what we call a ICOM T mutation, it’s a type of a genetic mutation that some women have that can make it more difficult for them to detoxify their estrogen.

And we won’t go into a whole lot of the forms of estrogen that are toxic versus non-toxic, but cruciferous vegetables and certain supplements like DIM, Diindolylmethane will help detoxify estrogen and also allow it to pass out through the stool. Also, exercise and stress reduction. I can’t talk more strongly about the importance of stress reduction. Things like yoga and meditation and breath work. All of these can help reduce or eliminate excessive estrogen and what we call Pregnenolone Steal, which is kind of a siphoning off of the components that you need to make progesterone where it is due to stress, kind of shuttled over to make cortisol as opposed to making progesterone and then therefore resulting in a reduction in your circulating progesterone levels.

Acupuncture is also helpful and can help with a lot of the basal motor symptoms that women suffer from. Which by the way I haven’t mentioned tends to be the biggest complaint that women come in with but not necessarily the most dangerous aspect of menopause. And, you know, those would be cardiovascular, risk of bone loss. And I’ll just leave it there. Bone loss and cardiovascular risk factors. Also, changes and alterations in the cholesterol profile. We’ll see that happen with reductions in estrogen levels.

Katie: I love that you addressed some of the food based ways because that’s my background in nutrition and it’s like as if any of us needed even more reasons to eat green vegetables. But they’re so beneficial in so many ways. And I’ve also read that green vegetables are high in magnesium, which I personally found and I think a lot of women find helps lessen symptoms of like even like PMS or cramps for me. And so I would guess there’s maybe like a beneficial effect there as well. And I also love that you brought up the cardio and boneless side because you’re right, I think hot flashes are what we stereotypically associate with menopause. But from what I’ve read, at menopause, women’s risk of cardiovascular disease rises almost to the rate of men. And I’d love to explore a little bit of why that’s the case and if maybe like is iron an aspect there because women are losing iron each month by bleeding. Are there other factors involved and how can we counteract that? Because obviously that’s a huge problem in our society and it’s on the rise. So what can women do knowing that going into this to help protect themselves?

Dr. Lyla: Right. Well, we know that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the United States and it’s rapidly becoming the number one killer throughout the world. As we explore our food habits and fast food chains to other parts of the world, we’re seeing just everybody catching up with us. That being said, estrogen is protective for women. And so premenopausal women have a much lower risk of developing heart disease than men do. And so what ends up happening is when we no longer have that protective factor circulating in our blood to the levels that we had as premenopausal women, then we began to look like men to some degree as it relates to our cholesterol profile and our propensity to develop heart disease.

The interesting thing about that is that estrogen, what we found in the Women’s Health Initiative, which was a study back in the very early 2000s, I believe, 2001 was when it was published, caused the panic in the medical community because, you know, at that point in time, almost every menopausal woman had been put on some form of hormone replacement. They were synthetic hormone. Well, let me put it this way. The estrogen component was Premarin which is derived from mare’s urine, horses urine, pregnant horses urine and a synthetic progestin. What that study showed was that women’s risk for what we call VTE or Venous Thrombosis Events went up drastically as did their cardiovascular events. And so it did not protect them against the things that we thought they should be protected against by giving them those components. However, and this is a big caveat to that study and to the interpretation of that data, there were a lot of women in this cohort that were more than 10 years out of menopause. So they were over age 60.

They were naive to estrogen for that entire time. Many of them, or most of them, hadn’t been on any estrogen during those interceding 10 years or so. And also the third piece of it was these were not the same type of products that we are gravitating to now in terms of, you know, using Estradiol as opposed to conjugated estrogens from horses urine. And the progestins I mentioned were different than the oral micronized progesterone that we use now, which is more bio-identical. And so the interpretation of that study really scared a lot of people off from using either if you can call it hormone replacement therapy or menopausal hormone treatment because they were interpreting the results appropriately, but the patient that were in the clinical trials were not the patients that we’re trying to target now that are the most symptomatic and that are within 10 years of starting or having been in menopause.

So I can clarify that a little bit more if you have specific questions, but just know that those…it can get very muddy, right? Because we’re saying, “Okay, you’re gonna treat cardiovascular risk by replacing someone’s estrogen, but wait a minute estrogen and progesterone or progestins caused more heart attacks and clotting events. Where’s the disconnect?” That’s the disconnect. We’re using different forms now of these products and we’re trying to start women earlier.

Katie: Got it. That makes sense. Okay. So I’d love to go deeper on hormone replacement therapy because I know that there are several different kinds. You’ve mentioned a couple of them. And that’s an option that’s often presented to women at that age. And I know that there’s also like the functional medicine approach differs a little bit than maybe the straight conventional medicine approach. So I’m curious for when a patient comes to you who’s in this phase, who’s maybe having some symptoms what are the options available to her and how do you evaluate which one’s best?

Dr. Lyla: At the outset I’d like to say that, you know, women, we’re all individual. And so the nice thing with this is that you can really sit down and talk to a woman and find out what’s bothering you, what are your symptoms. And that’s really what I try to gear my treatment at is what’s interfering with your quality of life. And then in most cases, like we talked about earlier, it’s a lot of the time it’s basal motor symptoms, the hot flashes, the night sweats, etc. So for somebody like that, we do know that as long as the woman is within the first 10 years of her menopause and she’s under the age of 60, the risk benefit ratio is gonna be in her favor to do some form of estrogen replacement. Also, remember that if you have an intact uterus, in other words, you’ve not had a hysterectomy for whatever reason, then you must take progesterone if you’re taking estrogen.

So what we typically will do is offer what we call transdermal estrogen. And that is a patch. And, you know, historically the, you know, there’s been…we’ve had patches for a long time, but the technology that’s around now that allows us to provide very, you know, reasonable amounts of estrogen absorbed through the skin so that it doesn’t have to pass through the liver, makes it a much safer form and also a very effective form. That’s gonna be the most effective for those hot flashes. And then progesterone would be delivered in a tablet or a capsule, typically. Other options are vaginal estrogen in a cream form. That’s gonna be great for some of the vaginal dryness and thinning of the vaginal tissue, but it’s not gonna help so much typically with the hot flashes. You need something a little bit more systemic to help with hot flashes.

For women that have any contra-indication to estrogen therapy, will start again with some of those things I mentioned. With diet, you know, increase in fiber, increasing cruciferous vegetables, acupuncture, starting somebody on DIM also was very helpful, can sometimes help with those symptoms. If a woman is not having significant hot flashes yet, but she’s having maybe the really heavy bleeding, irregular bleeding that some women get, maybe earlier in the perimenopausal period, sometimes we can do things like chasteberry which is a capsule that you take every day. It’s another name for it is Vitex, V- I-T-E-X. Sometimes that will help regulate periods in women, help make them more reliable. You know, they might come a little bit more frequently and they might be a little bit less heavy. That buys you a little bit of time before you need to start some other type of hormone.

Again, weight loss is important because estrogen production that takes place in the fat cells can contribute to these swings. And other things like evening Primrose oil has been used. Agnus castus, this is another herb that some people use. So there’s a lot in our armamentarium and really what most of us are gonna do is look at the particular woman sitting in front of us and we’re gonna say, “Okay, what are your symptoms? What bothers you the most?” And try to gear our treatment at that. That might mean that we’re gonna do several different things over a period of five to 10 years. So the therapy may change from when she’s in her mid-40s or late 40s to when she’s in her early to mid-50s. A few other things that might be helpful is we do some caffeine intake also abstaining or reducing the amount of alcohol that you drink because alcohol we know can increase Estradiol levels and also decrease progesterone levels. And so that’s gonna exacerbate any estrogen dominance that we’re already seeing at baseline.

And lastly, I would say avoiding plastics and other Xenoestrogens like that. Everybody’s probably heard about bisphosphonate A that’s BPA. So avoiding the use of plastics whenever you can, not just, you know, using them in the microwave but trying not to store food in plastics and trying to drink your water out of stainless steel containers and things like that. Looking at your cosmetics and any Xenoestrogens that might be present in those, avoiding foods with pesticides, so eating organic and non-GMO foods, all of these things can help treat those symptoms before even moving on to giving somebody progesterone and or estrogen.

Katie: Yeah, I love that and I think it’s so important what you said about taking that whole body approach and looking at the woman’s sitting in front of you. And I am so glad for functional medicine and for this like really this rise and understanding about functional medicine. Because I think when you’re talking about any life change or health condition, it’s so much more effective to work with a doctor who’s taking everything into account and just like in this how hormones, you know they all affect each other and if one goes up or down it can influence the others. There’s also, at least from my own experience, things like thyroid function and how that can influence perimenopause or any hormone aspect or if there’s gut stuff going on. You know, if people have other conditions instead of just trying to look at estrogen in a vacuum and is it too high or too low, it’s taking the whole body approach and testing all of those things and then working with the patient to figure out how can you as the person where you are right now, change your lifestyle, your diet and is there a need for things like hormone replacement so that it’s a whole body approach.

And that just, I found that was the key for me with thyroid disease and with so much else. An you work with SteadyMD, which is a company I love and my doctor is also a SteadyMD. So I just wanted to mention that for anyone looking for a functional medicine approach who may or may not have a local doctor this is a great way that people can connect with doctors like you, including you and work through all of these things, not just be looked at as a symptom in a vacuum. I also love that you brought up plastic because that is one of those topics I love to write about and educate about and I think is so important. I write about it especially from the kids’ perspective and when they’re young and they’re still, they haven’t even gone through puberty yet, how important it is to minimize plastic, but you’re so right. I think we also have to think of that for ourselves and especially when we’re going through any hormonal period. It’s so, so important. And I think people often discount just how important that could be.

I know for myself when it comes to hormone changes, and again, I haven’t been through perimenopause, but I have worked on balancing my own hormones, I’ve also found that things like sleep is drastic. If I don’t get enough sleep, my hormones will be off. And also for me, sunlight. And I’m curious if this is something that you found as well, but if I get up and go outside in the morning and drink tea or water or just be outside early in the morning, I find that it not only gives me more energy and helps my sleep at night, but that over time my hormones including cortisol, but also estrogen and progesterone have all seemed to get into better ranges. And I’ve done other things as well. But I’m curious if that’s something that you look at with your patients as well.

Dr. Lyla: Oh, absolutely. And thank you for bringing up just the intertwined nature of our organ systems and our hormones because you’re right that all of these hormones are important to understand your thyroid. You know, you can’t do this in a vacuum. You can’t treat someone in menopause and ignore what’s going on with their thyroid. It doesn’t always mean that something’s wrong with their thyroid, but we really need to rule that out as a contributing factor. As it relates to the last thing that you said surrounding the importance of sunlight and sleep, absolutely. So you know that not getting enough sleep causes in and of itself just that alone can cause stressors on the body, which are gonna increase cortisol. And remember I mentioned earlier in the podcast that when the need for cortisol production goes up because of chronic stress, including sleep deprivation, that you’re gonna be pulling away from the hormone cascade that makes progesterone. And so that’s gonna cause a problem right there.

So minimum, ideally of six, ideally more like seven to nine hours of sleep. And what we know is that DNA changes occur after just one night of getting less than six hours of sleep. And these DNA changes lead to an upregulation of your inflammatory what we call cytokines or inflammatory chemicals in your body and downregulation of the anti-inflammatory cytokines. And so what ends up happening is you have an inflammatory picture going on when these genes change. So you’ve gotta get enough sleep first and foremost. And then also the stress piece. We talked about that a little while ago. You really have to keep stress under control. And that means different things to different people. Sometimes it’s meditating. And I recommend all my patients to meditate. We could do a whole podcast on meditation. Sometimes it’s breath work. Sometimes it’s, you know, a walking type meditation, something that’s gonna calm your nervous system. So anything that brings you calm and comfort, you should do that every day for at least 20 minutes.

Sunlight, you brought up. I’m sitting here in front of my light right now because even though it’s still sunny and the weather is still not too bad in Ohio right now, I wanna get ahead of the game in terms of it’s gonna get dark here really soon. It’s gonna start getting dark early. It’s gonna be dark when I wake up. And so trying to get exposure to the sunlight if you can, that would be ideal because if you’re out and you’re walking, you’re getting exercise and you’re getting sunlight. However, for people that live in areas where it’s not as amenable to that type of activity every day, you can get yourself a light that provides at least 10,000 Lux, that’s L-U-X. And use that 20 to 30 minutes sometime shortly upon awakening. If you can get it in within the first four hours upon awakening, that would be great. And that will also help not only your mood, I don’t know that there’s any studies that will prove that lights like this will or sunlight, it in fact helps with hormone levels, but I think you’re onto something when you say that this has helped you because if it helps your mood and it helps your stress levels, then it’s by definition going to help balance your hormones.

Katie: That makes sense. And like you said, if it helps your sleep as well, like sleep is so, so key for, I find that more and more for every aspect of health. And also the stress component you mentioned. That was the one I ignored for a lot of years because I just thought I could power through and as long as I ate really clean and exercise and did all of that, I could just kind of power through the stress and the emotional side of things. And it wasn’t until I really dove in and addressed those things that I really started seeing those internal shifts and then also the physiological shifts that come with them. A few kind of a followup questions related to things we’ve talked about. So, so many of the things you’ve mentioned related to perimenopause sound like things I also hear from women with PCOS and I’m curious if there is any type of connection there and if people who have PCOS are more or less likely to experience symptoms more in perimenopause or to go through menopause earlier.

Dr. Lyla: So women with PCOS have a little bit of a different milled of symptoms. A lot of them, have because of the fact that they have so many it’s called polycystic ovarian syndrome because they have an increase in the number of cysts. They’re producing more testosterone. And so that testosterone is what kind of monkeys up, monkeys with their hormone kind of picture. I don’t know, honestly whether or not women with PCOS tend to have more symptomatic or less symptomatic perimenopausal periods. My gut instinct would tell me that they probably do only because most people with PCOS have spent decades with hormonal aberrations. And so why should it be any different during the perimenopausal and menopausal period of time? They also tend to have problems with blood sugars. And when you have blood sugar issues, that tends to lead to you know, weight discrepancies or having too much weight on board, which as we already talked about, can lead to increased production of estrogen and that estrogen dominance becoming again a problem.

So yes, the symptoms can sound very similar. And, you know, let’s face it, a lot of the symptoms that we’re talking about are sometimes sort of vague symptoms that a lot of us complain about. Fatigue and moodiness and, you know, acne and these kinds of things. So, you know, we’re gonna see them across the board in women with different reproductive type conditions. We can treat them very similarly. People that come in with PCOS though I’m gonna have probably a different mindset as it relates to, “Okay, which hormones do we wanna treat here?” And it’s also gonna depend a lot on their age.

Katie: Gotcha. And then as another followup to that I’m curious about different methods of birth control and how they might impact people and their experience in peri-menopause and just hormonally overall. Because I know there’s a lot of options out there and I get a lot of questions from women about this and I have no idea, and I’m not a doctor, so I don’t answer them. But I’m curious how, if they do come into play, how they come into play?

Dr. Lyla: Well, so the interesting thing is what we often see is that women that enter this period because they’re having these irregular periods, oftentimes very heavy periods because of the high levels of estrogen and the anovulatory cycles that they might experience because of the low progesterone or as a result of low progesterone. We’ll see them get recommended to have, say a Mirena, which is a progesterone eluding IUD placed. Because that will help provides for a local installation of progesterone in the area of the uterus. It can help reduce bleeding and oftentimes just stops periods altogether which can by women a few years before they actually enter menopause. So it can really reduce the amount of bleeding and blood loss that women experience.

Some women are treated with low dose oral contraceptives. Because remember when you’re perimenopausal, you’re still capable of becoming pregnant because you do ovulate sometimes and if you ovulate and you have intercourse, you can become pregnant. So some doctors will use various types of oral contraceptive, usually combination contraception. However, women that are over 40 and or women that smoke may be more at risk for blood clots if they’re on oral contraceptives. So that’s less and less common. We see that less and less commonly nowadays. And that’s certainly nothing that somebody in functional or integrative medicine probably would recommend.

I think it’s definitely worth, especially for the women out there that don’t tend to go to the doctor a lot. If you’re on an oral contraceptive, you may not really see a lot of these changes because you’re gonna be getting a pretty constant dose of estrogen and progesterone throughout, you know, the days that you’re taking your tablets. So you may not get as much of the hot flashes and your periods are gonna be regulated. However, it might be worth for sure a visit at age 48, 49 to start discussing how to manage these symptoms or how long you should continue to be on the oral contraceptive therapy. And I say that because of what I mentioned a minute ago about the risk for blood clots, especially if you have a family history of blood clots. It may be advisable to come off of that and to choose another course of therapy.

You definitely wanna wait until you’ve been off of your oral contraceptives for a period of time, at least four to six weeks before checking hormone levels because clearly if you’re checking them while you’re on those types of hormones, it’s gonna throw off the results. So having an appointment 48, 49, no later than 50 to discuss, “Okay, I’m entering this age range where most likely I’m gonna be entering menopause.” And the average age in the US is 51 for women becoming menopausal. And so while there is a range of typically four to five years on either side of that, I think going to the doctor no later than age 48 would be advisable to see if there are some other ways to manage this period of life in the safest way possible.

Katie: That’s, yeah, great advice.

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Katie: For me personally, I’ve never been on any form of hormonal contraceptives at all, but I track my cycle using several apps actually in NFP and body temperature. I hope I still have quite a bit of time before peri-menopause. But I’m curious for those of us who do track our cycles, you mentioned that like cycles can space out. Are there other changes that we would begin to notice if we were actually like watching for fertile signs? Would like a certain phase of the cycle tend to lengthen? Would it be like the luteal phase or what would we see there?

Dr. Lyla: Yeah, so typically your cycles are gonna get the time between your cycles, say your typical period might be every 28, every 29 days. They tend to get a little bit shorter. And that variation tends to be the luteal phase where that’s actually shortening. And that’s what accounts for the change in the overall cycle length. More often than not, you’re gonna see women that have heavier bleeding maybe more clots. And it can be a little off putting. Women often will come in iron deficient at this point in time because they’re having such heavy periods.

You know, it’s interesting to know that the average woman should typically only lose about 35 MLs of blood per cycle, and that would equate to about 70 spoons of blood. Women that are in the perimenopausal period can lose that in a day or in two days of their cycle or even shorter than that. So you’ll find that maybe you’re going through more tampons or you’re going through more pads, or if you use a menstrual cup, it’s filling up within a few hours as opposed to the 12 hours they say that it’s supposed to last you. Those are indications that you’re probably beginning to have lower progesterone levels and entering perimenopausal time. Another symptom would be of course the hot flashes and sometimes they’ll only happen at night. You might just wake up a little warmer than you typically would. So those are probably the main kind of alerting symptoms that you’re gonna see. So, you know, watching those cycle lengths on your apps can be the first tip off before you’ve even gotten any breast tenderness or anything like that.

Katie: Okay. Awesome. That’s great to know. And as we start to get towards the end, I’m curious, we’ve talked about a lot of these symptoms and what to look for. Is and I know that the understanding is that women think they’re gonna have these symptoms, especially in menopause, are the symptoms avoidable to some degree or completely if women are willing to kind of take this broader functional medicine approach that you talked about and address diet and lifestyle as well as hormones? Have you seen women go through perimenopause and menopause much more easily by doing that?

Dr. Lyla: You know, it’s interesting because you’ve talked to women I’m sure that have said, “You know, I hardly had any hot flashes. I had the easiest menopause known to mankind.” And they’re not always women that are seeing functional medicine doctors. You know, sometimes it just really depends on the person, their family history, their, you know, obviously diet and things like that. I would say this, I would say that in the vast majority of women that are really symptomatic, seeing the right, you know, practitioner can really, really make a difference. Making these dietary changes, losing weight, sometimes it’s putting on weight. If you’re underweight, sometimes putting on weight will help a little bit. Exercise. Can’t stress enough the stress reduction. All of these things can definitely ameliorate the symptoms of menopause.

And when all else fails, you know, we know that estrogen combined with progesterone will help symptoms. And more and more information actually has come out that even progesterone alone, micronized progesterone, like I said, 200 milligrams daily in a postmenopausal woman sometimes is enough. Sometimes they don’t even need to resort to using an estrodiol. It just is gonna be so individual. And so I really urge people to have that conversation with somebody that they trust. Read, read, read. There are all kinds of… Well there’s lots of things out there that you probably don’t wanna read, but there are really good Christiane Northrup’s book ”The Wisdom of Menopause.” It’s an older book, but there’s really a lot of good information in that book. And I think just really getting to know A, your body and B, paying really close attention to when an intervention is tried taking good notes and really being able to document how did that intervention work for you because it’s not always gonna work the same for every individual. And talk to your physician about the results of any interventions that are tried because if it’s not working, working together, the two of you can figure out something that will work. It may take some trial and error and it may take a little bit of time to get it right, but that’s so important. And don’t hesitate if something’s not working to bring it up and just keep plugging away at it because you can get relief.

Katie: Absolutely. And I mentioned SteadyMD kind of in the middle of the episode and there’s gonna be links to both SteadyMD and to you directly on steadyMD in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. So if any of you guys are listening and you are in this phase of life you can definitely find and work with Dr. Lyla or any of the doctors at SteadyMD. But anything you wanna say about SteadyMD or how people can find and work with you.

Dr. Lyla: Well, the great thing about SteadyMD really is, you know, I’ve found in my past 19 years of practice that one of the biggest complaints of people is that they can’t get in when they need to get in. They don’t have the access that they want or that they need. People are busy nowadays and they really need, if they have an issue, they need to be able to get into their doctor. And sometimes two, three, four weeks isn’t fast enough. So with SteadyMD, you have access to somebody that is aligned with your thought process and your philosophy for health and you have access to them and they’re gonna get back to you. The app is great. The video chat is to me as good as being there in person. And so I feel like I can really help improve access. I can see people from all around the country.

Another piece of it is that, you know, if there’s issues with these types of symptoms, I can order labs and you can take them to your local lab. You don’t have to fly to Cleveland, Ohio to see me. And so I really like the convenience of it. The piece about, you know, they typically, when you sign up for SteadyMD, you take this quiz and this quiz will kind of match you with the doctor that has the most similar outlook or philosophy to yours. And so you’re gonna end up with somebody that you didn’t just pick out of a book because they were on your insurance. You’re finding somebody that’s very aligned with the way you look at the world. And I think there’s nothing better than sitting and talking with somebody that thinks the same way you do. You don’t spend a lot of your visit trying to convince the doctor that this is how things should be or this is what you’re experiencing. So that I think it also makes it a very efficient service.

Katie: I agree. And I think a link to find the quiz is steadymd.com/wellnessmama. So if you guys are listening, it’s really quick, easy quiz and like Dr. Lyla said, it connects you with the doctor who’s gonna agree with you. You’re not gonna have to fight your doctor about nutrition or the fact that you want to take a natural approach. They’re amazing. I love my SteadyMD doctor and I think this was a super, super helpful podcast episode. Like I said, this is an area I don’t have experience with and I love that you jumped in and answered all these questions and provided so much value. So Dr. Lyla, thank you so much for being here today.

Dr. Lyla: Thank you, Katie. I look forward to talking with you again and I hope this has been helpful to your listeners.

Katie: It absolutely has. And thanks as always to all of you for listening and sharing your valuable resource, your time with both of us. We’re so grateful that you did and that you are here today. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the ”Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/lyla-blake-gumbs/

[homelesshaunts-blog]

Homeless Haunts

Family Man by Jeff Gelb

No more big house, but a man has a need for a much smaller house, one enough room for a family man...

Homeless Haunts welcomes you. I'm Lavel Wideman, your Bloghost of Horror.

After his wife dies he's set alone. A man bury's his wife and tries not to think of her, and not so heavily. His mind imprinted of years they spent together in the house. An invitation from his son makes him realize, a move is what his father needs. Maybe a good omen to turn over a new leaf. His search for the perfect house didn't take him long but it's not the house the problem, it's the occupants who live in the house he's found, that are. Previous owners, who may not be able to move away so easily...

The Family Man by Jeff Gelb

After the funeral, I returned to the home Sarah and I had shared for the last twenty-six years. As soon as I entered the comfortable colonial house, I knew I'd have to move. Sarah's presence was everywhere. She'd decorated the whole thing, and spent hours each week keeping it spotless. Whenever I smelled Comet, or Lysol, or furniture polish, I was immediately reminded of her.

And right then, that was something I didn't want. I mean, don't get me wrong--I loved my wife, always have. She and I went back a long way--to high school, in fact, where she was the homecoming queen and I was the class president. It was pretty stereotypical, but somehow it worked. It worked even though we married two months before I was drafted into the Big War. It worked even though we had to live with my folks for the first three years of out marriage, in the attic of a cramped little dump on the wrong side of town...It worked even though our kid Jerry, was a mistake who almost miscarried during a particularly rough pregnancy that kept Sarah off her feet most of the time. After that, we'd decided not to chance a second pregnancy, and I got real good with rubbers till Sarah went through menopause.

Yeah, we were pretty damn good together. Jerry, now thirty-four and living out on the West Coast with a wife and kid of his own, would tease us about still being on our honeymoon after forty years. He wasn't quite right, but he wasn't far from it. It really was a pretty solid relationship...

But now she was gone, and our beautiful house seemed like it was closing in on me. Funny--in fifty-nine years, I never realized I was claustrophobic...Back at the funeral, Jerry had invited me back to Los Angeles to spend some time with his family, and truth to tell, it was a pretty appealing invitation. Sarah and I had visited Jer once a year every year since his radio career had taken him from Rochester to Southern California some dozen years ago. We'd come to love the area...Jesus, the housing is expensive out here! I had this fantasy the money I'd made off my house in Rochester would pay for home out here and maybe even leave me a little neat egg. Boy, was I wrong.

It was a scorcher of a winter's day in January...I got caught in one of those quintessential Southern California freeway traffic jams...

I knew I'd get lost negotiating surface streets but anything was better than that freeway. So I attempted to fake my way up to Westwood...Kinda nice, too, with older homes that had been well kept.

...Finally I looked at my watch and figured I'd better get on to Westwood if I wanted to talk to anyone about getting work. And that's when I saw it.

The house sat by itself, on a big corner lot, sharing the space with a lamppost and a "Dead End" sign. Behind it was one of those bizarre oil rigs you see all the time in California. State-owned property I guessed. The house itself was colonial, kind of like the home I'd recently sold. That's what caught my eye. That; and the handpainted "For Sale" sign that stood in the tall grass of the front lawn. That lawn needed tending, I thought with a smile. My fingers itched for a lawn mower and a pair of shears.

On impulse, I parked in the driveway and strode up to the front door. As I awaited an answer to my knocking...

A young girl, maybe fourteen, answered the door. Pretty as a picture, too, with delicate features and long blond hair. She looked like she could afford to spend a little more time in the sun. Maybe she'd been ill.

"Uh...hi," I started sheepishly. "Saw the sign out front," I pointed.

"You want to talk to Irv," she enthused, opening the screen door and pulling me inside the house...

"The girl turned, smiling, and yelled up the carpeted staircase. "Irv! Company!"

"Hi there!"

I must have jumped visibly, because I heard the little boy laugh. I turned toward the voice.

"Irv?"

"That's me!" He held out his hand and I took it, almost recoiling. His hand was as cold and slimy as a dead fish...He wiped perspiration from his forehead. "Here about the house?"

"Well, yes, I am. Though, to be honest, I doubt I could afford it."

"Oh, you'd be surprised. Actually, it's been on the market awhile and no one's bet...

"Well..." I was uncomfortable talking money in front of the man's family, but obviously he wasn't.

"Sixty-nine five."

"I beg your pardon?" I asked.

"Sixty-nine five," Irv repeated. "That's what I'm asking."

"...That's quite reasonable, Irv. What's wrong? Got termites?"

"I...I'm getting a divorce." He looked at his beautiful wife and children. "Guess you could say I'm just not a family man..."

"I'll have to think about it," I said...

Irv looked like he'd just eaten a raw onion. "I...have to be out of here by the end of the month. Going back home, to Idaho."

I had the realtor hire some guys to give the house the once-over, and when they came back with their okays, I revisited Irv with my checkbook...

Irv hovered over me like a pesky fly while I signed the check and the papers, and I thought he was going to kiss me as I left, he was so jubilant...

On my way out, Irv's realtor confided that his client "wasn't well," and he pointed to the side of his head, making circles. No kidding, I thought.

...I looked back at the house--at my house, or what would be my house in a week, after Irv and his family had moved out...

I turned the key and let myself in...I took my time walking up the stairs, admiring the finish on the wooden banister. I had to admit, whoever'd rebuilt this place had done a fine job.

I heard a noise from one of the bedrooms. I was about to run like hell to a neighbor's house and call the police when the little boy, Robert, stepped out of his bedroom, holding a comic book. He was beaming.

"Hi!" he greeted me innocently.

I laughed nervously. "Well, I hate to be blunt, but how come you and the children are still here?"

Barbara and her kids sat together, backs to one wall, while I sat on the floor against the opposite wall. No one spoke--it was all very uncomfortable.

She obviously didn't know what to say, and I felt terrible for her.

"Do you need more time," I started, "to get packed up? Because that's fine with me. I'll just come back tomorrow...or next week. Whatever," I shrugged.

"We don't really have anywhere else to go," she finally said.

"...Do you need someone to help you find a new place?"

She shook her pretty head. "We can't resettle," she said. I noticed the kids had stopped playing and were watching us intently. I was starting to lose my cool. "Well, I'm sympathetic, but you have to understand, you can't live here..."

"Well, we don't really live here," Barbara said, the hint of a smile on her face.

Was this whole family batty?..."I think I will take you up on that offer for a beer," I said.

Robert bounded to his feet and ran through the kitchen door. I mean to say, he ran through the damned thing, like one of those haunted house movies...

Barbara smiled and said, "Irv tried, he really did...But he'd never been married before and I'm afraid we were, in the end, a bit much for him."

"Like he said," I recalled aloud, "he isn't a family man."

By now the kids had floated to my side, the three of them forming a semicircle around me. Robert bobbed up and down in the air excitedly.

ALLEY OF FEAR

It's a frightening discovery when the house you just bought doesn't belong to you, not outrightly. Perhaps what you invested in, that nest egg, is a true bonfide haunted house with a family of ghost to come with it.

The house is not necessarily a normal purchase, but the saying goes "we live together, we die together" is a statement that goes a long way.

A house that contains a woman and her children, one boy and one girl, were murdered in this quaint little colonial home; is a house like the old one he's had but smaller and more efficient. Is just right for him to live in without feeling the walls closing in on him. But only one thing stops him from having that homey feel. Is not yet reached when he finds out the house comes with a deal: "You take the house, we come with it" deal."

A family of ghost cannot pick up and go and not so fast. The last guy couldn't take it anymore and wasn't the typical "family man." And hadn't the experience to be a family man. Instead it takes a man who has enough guts, what we call machismo in handling this situation. A man who can complete a circle i.e. " family man."

A house that waits for the right guy to come along and take this position in a world where a house like this sits. And when you can hear floors creak, the doors squeak, the closing of a refrigerator door fetching beer. Making certain in this home, you're not alone.

There are many who don't know where to go or where to call "Home." But in this story I beg the differ...

The Alley of Fear for the time being may be the best place for right now. May not be the deal of a lifetime but the Alley of Fear may beat waiting for someone to complete a family. Especially, if he's not gung-ho about filling a position which isn't his fault and that's the difference.

But however long it takes, we have a family waiting for someone to fill a position in an empty house: a house that sits by the sideway with cobwebs and rickety floors. While they wait it will be in the Alley of Fear and for the time being; they'll wait here for that knock at that door until their story is told.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. In your own homes and if you have one?

Homeless Haunts bringing the world of the poor to your door.

All rights preserved at Boot Productions 2017