This is a critical story I tell many of my patients to shake them out of our natural tendencies to just accept the cards we are dealt by life. It is not the most medically acceptable or proper phrase, but it helps create a vivid and realistic image that I hope will inspire you to change how you think about how you control your health. And how you are TOTALLY in charge of how you age.
With the end of our reproductive years comes the natural decline of our sex and thyroid and growth hormones that progressively deplete us of health and youth until we all become, in essence, road kill. It may start with hot flashes and night sweats that we fight through (Far better than men would ever deal with) and suppress them as best we can until that phase passes. It follows with insomnia and loss of sex drive which we soldier through as well, the invariable 20 pound weight gain no amount of dieting or exercise help correct and that is pretty much when the real problems begin.
We, sadly, begin to accept the signs of getting older as the only way to go forward. We believe we have no options. The creaky bones, the skin that is not as supple as it used to be, the growing bottles of sleeping pills, pain killers, antidepressants in our medicine cabinets, etc.
As our hormones continue to decline they are the root cause of most of our aging problems. We know scientifically, clinically and personally the loss of hormones is the source of our problems of aging and yet our entire culture and health care system focus solely on treating the symptoms caused by the loss of hormones. Chronic illnesses, arthritis, heart disease, hypertension, osteoporosis, high cholesterol levels and countless other ailments of aging are directly linked to the loss of hormones in our body. As our hormone levels drop, every cell in every organ of our body is starving as they lack the youthful healthy effect of hormones.
Too many people simply accept this situation without seeing alternative options and get sick, old and frail. They become road kill. The truth I am here to tell you is this: YOU DO NOT NEED TO BECOME ROAD KILL!
Who decided that it is not acceptable or normal for you to have the hormone levels of a 30 year old at 60? And beyond? Does your health have to go into a rapid downward spiral when your reproductive years are over? The answer is NO. And the decision is yours.
When I went through menopause I found myself asking this very question: Do I have to accept that just because I am no longer bearing children I have to get old and sick? As a practicing internist, unlike many of my colleagues, I knew it in my bones there had to be a better way than simply getting one diagnosis after another treated with one medication after the other, enduring ever increasing discomfort, pain and misery and feeling worse every year, losing my enjoyment of life and my ability to share the wisdom I accumulated because I would become old and useless. It took me five years to figure out the miracle of hormones, to study the science behind the hormones, treat myself and my patients with bioidentical hormones and write the seminal books for the public and the articles for the physicians that changed the way thousands of patients and patients enjoy their post reproductive years.
Seventeen years later I feel great and I religiously take my thyroid,estradiol, progesterone and testosterone biodentical hormones. I follow my Hormone Friendly Diet and exercise every day. Tens of thousands of patients and hundreds of physicians have chosen no to be road kill and now enjoy the same miraculous and rewarding results. We all maintain our hormone levels naturally using bioidentical hormone creams or gels or patches in dosages that suit our needs. The protocols I developed over the course of the past 17 years are now followed by hundreds of physicians nationwide. When your hormones are in balance with bioidentical formulations prescribed by a well-informed and conventionally trained physician you feel better and thus have no cravings or aches. As a result you can eat right and exercise. The people I am referring to have decided they want to feel great, vibrant and energetic at every stage of their life.
You may tell yourself (like some less open-minded physicians I’ve met before) that you do not believe there is a fountain of youth or that by staying healthy with the help of hormones you are somehow cheating Mother Nature. Respectfully, I disagree with this defeatist attitude. I believe in this case it is your fear that is running your life. This is the fear about changing the narrative of your health that you have grown comfortable with. Resigning yourself to accepting that getting older must mean getting sick and useless. It is fear based on unwillingness to change for the better, fear based on skepticism which only stops progress and fear that hurts instead of the courage and optimism which empowers and frees us to enjoy every moment of this life.
Naturally maintaining and balancing your hormone levels is no longer some fringe, snake oil idea. It is deeply researched since the 1800s and most large pharmaceutical companies now produce their own bioidentical (natural) hormones (although they don’t use the term bioidentical but rather 17- beta estradiol and micronized progesterone for instance). ALL are FDA approved and used by millions of women who may not even know they are taking bioidentical hormones. They just know they don’t want to give in to the possibility of becoming road kill. They realize the simple wisdom of maintaining youthful hormone levels for the rest of their lives.
It seems simple because it is. So, I challenge you to chose how you want to feel as you age. Nobody else can or should make that decision for you. Not your doctor, not your friends and not the media. But, when you do decide to try bioidentical hormones and find the right doctor to prescribe the right ones for you, it will literally change your life and the satisfaction you get out of it no matter how many summers you have seen. It has changed mine for decades.
It’s your turn. Road kill or not? It is only a choice you can make. Do the research. Challenge your family and friends to do the same.
Don't Be Road Kill!
