Going Grey -- A HOT Topic with More Magazine and with Me!

This was a blog I wrote on Memorial Day weekend 2010 which is about a topic that has come up over and over so I wanted to post it here as well.  I did a few modifications to it to make it more 'current' related to who and what of Lumigrate.com

On Friday I ran into a friendly colleague at the health food store (Vitamin Cottage/ Natural Grocers which has a link from the "Products" tab here at Lumigrate.com) and we both had time to go get nourishment via food, drink, and conversation, and since she hadn't seen me for a while she said 'I notice you're needing your hair colored .... but are you letting it go grey?', which I thought was interesting that she quickly thought that I might WANT it this way.  And I'd noticed tons of women in the last year with lots of roots, letting it grow out grey I presumed or discussed with them.  I joked that I wanted to be blond like a woman we know mutually who I met and knew for years with white hair with some dark mixed in (and is beautiful), and one day she said 'I still think of myself as a blond'.  We had the BEST laugh about that, but in a way she was one of the people that likely influenced my opinion about grey hair in my late 40s. 

I turned fifty recently and last fall when hearing a seminar by local naturopath Christopher Lepisto, ND (seen on several Lumigrate videos if you go to the 'Videos' tab), it just resonated for me when he talked about the most prevalent vocation he sees in his practice being hairstylists because of the chemicals they are exposed to, I that moment felt like a switch clicked over where I decided that one more thing I could do to be better to the Earth and it's people, including myself and my stylist and the water that is ultimately affected from our waste water systems, is to give up trying to not look grey. 

For years as my roots were getting quite a lot of grey, I was irritated more often by having to sit in a salon -- it was two hours every month and then it started looking 'rooty'.  It cost money that at the very least I'd rather put into something else that would make me feel and look better from the inside out.  I figured fall was a perfect time to make the switch and did it in a transitional way with getting some dark foiled in initially so there wasn't a 'line' of 'before and after' "the change".  And as the winter and spring wore on, one by one the women I know would comment or I'd bring it up when I saw them.  They guys, interestingly, didn't seem to notice or care. 

So it was REALLY interesting to me today when one of the morning shows on TV had a segment with the author of Going Grey (Anne Kreamer) and two other women this morning (link below to the segment FYEase if you want to follow along).   One of the other women is with More Magazine, who said the #1 topic in their forum at More.com is about letting your hair go grey or not. (Link to their website below as well, with a bit of comment from me about my impressions of More.com.)

Anne Kreamer, author of Going Grey, who is married, did an experiment on Match.com with her photo of herself grey or earlier when it was colored and THREE TIMES AS MANY MEN in several cosmopolitan US cities responded to her profile with her hair grey!  She joked and they had a good chuckle that her husband had suggested that perhaps the men perceived her as desperate, but if you saw how lovely she looks -- and in a wholesome, sincere, congruent way -- you'd know why that WAS funny! 

It's been my opinion, since I've taken lots of classes or have read on my own about how the brain works and how people work, that our brains are geared to assess a persons face and hair and put them in categories (going back to when we were in tribes) and when something adds up, it resonates as 'real' and now 'confusing'.  

Women were saying they felt it represented their personal strength to go against the tide of our society which is so geared to make us feel like we need to look like 25 year olds.  Many, like me, were irritated with the time of covering the roots and how it didn't look good for half the time even when you do lots of maintenance.  And while women want to appear "viable" they recognized in the segment, it's my personal opinion that perhaps we're in a changing time today where SOME people recognize that it is the older people with life experience who have a particular value to the 'team' of what we are all experiencing here in the world today.  

The show included a segment with four women meeting on a patio and having what appeared to be healthy beverages and celebrating their being part of "The Silver Sister's Club".  I have a friend who is about to turn fifty and I hear she has wanted to become part of the Red Hats when she turns 50 .... we ALL have such different ideas of what we want to be 'when we grow up', but it appears that we generally have been giving some thought to how we want to age and have our 'crone' years be. 

Perhaps these are times to think differently about our budgets for health care. If a person is lucky enough to have health insurance but the company doesn't pay for such hormone treatments YET (I believe it's going to change more and more in that direction as the public is figuring out how the insurance company/ pharmaceutical industry / physicians knowledge game has worked in the past), why not at least consider transferring the money you'd spend on your hair color to doing something from the inside out that is known as 'anti-aging'?  I've always questioned that term, but it's basically now the name of a well-known academy and movement and what they teach does have to do with making the aging process as health-FULL as possible.  So maybe it's easier to start adjusting what WE think of as 'aging'.  From the top down and the outside in! 

At Lumigrate, beginning in 2010, we had William Marcus Spurlock, MD, providing information about things related to hormone replacement from his perspective, which is from his training with the A4M, American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.  Early in 2011 we added ITC Pharmacy to our providers at Lumigrate related to hormone supplementation and nutrition supplementation because when their providers, who are in-house contracting NP with MD supervision, prescribe, they utilize a "physiologic" dosing protocol/philosophy instead of "hyperphysiologic" which is what the A4M subscribes to.  Many people only hear of the A4M way since Suzanne Somers has written many books and done many TV shows about her belief in and use of the A4M protocol.  She actually speaks at their conferences I believe.  (ITC purchases copies of a book from Canada about physiologic hormone replacement and provides copies to seriously inquiring prospective patients/customers by the way.  Look for them in our Forum areas in areas related to hormones, supplementing nutrition, gut health, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue).  

I plan to get a copy of Going Gray and look forward to continuing this discussion.  And I'd better go hide from my hairstylist friends who are going to say 'you're taking away more than half of our revenue!'.  Hmmmm, sounds kinda like what some medical providers have said when presented with the idea of 'anti-aging strategies' and preventive medicine.  Naturally, any philosophy in medicine needs to be thoroughly investigated and I'm going to provide a link below to something Dr. Spurlock wrote which includes his suggestion of who and what to read related to anti-aging. 

I also want to mention that yesterday Lady Gaga was on Larry King Live and I'm so 'old' I really don't know who she is or what she's about, so I watched.  He asked about her having lupus and she'd already said she was needing to take a break from working so hard but was going to keep working and hope to 'die on stage' or something to the effect.  So when I heard her say she has a major genetic/family history with lupus and that her lab work indicated some things of concern but she 'does not have lupus', I got to thinking about the Three Doctors Interview about Integrative Approaches for Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue that was Lumigrate's collaborative effort for Fibromyalgia Awareness last month (and had LOTS of reads, I'm very pleased to say).

Dr. Marc Spurlock and Dr. Jerry Rand of Bay Recovery who were lead in the hour long teleseminar by Dr Deirdre Rawlings discussed how something starts somewhere and is on a continuum, and once it gets BAD it is given a label and then you can treat it with allopathic medicine's model.  If the allopathic community has given it a billing code, that is.  

I believe everyone involved (myself included), would agree that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" and I think back on how I didn't heed warning signs in the past when the downhill cascade of my health was occurring and I truly TRULY wish I would have had better information and pulled myself aside and implemented what my own doctor inside of me was telling me to do instead of what society plugs you in with (which was lots of stress and chemicals in my first year of the top-rated occupational therapy program at Colorado State University). 

I'll provide a link to the Three Doctors Interview information on Lumigrate (it's currently in the Fibromyalgia Section, in a forum on Fibromyalgia Awareness and it's likely appropriate to be transferred to a NEW forum so it's surely to be seen by anyone who comes to Lumigrate initially, as it is a WONDERFUL hour of information).  I added a note today in it as new developments about our providers of content surfaced and I wanted to address it appropriately so please read before you hop on the names I've provided in this post.  

As always, I look forward to any comments from providers or the 'guest consumers' at Lumigrate.  As for my personal aesthetician and hair stylist, who have seen my skin and hair problems that occurred in the past due to food allergies and hormone irregularities before I was treated with biologically identical hormones, they happened to both be there when I got my hair cut last and basically they had a quick conversation about my grey and then said 'doesn't she look great?  I haven't seen you look this good EVER'.  And considering that was my FIRST haircut in my 50s, I was THRILLED.  (However, now, almost 2 years later, it's been an ongoing 'controversy' by people who think I should color and look younger an others who think it's GRATE to be GREY.) 

Fifty's the new 40 they say! And I believe my generation of women and those ahead of me are going to be blazing some trails of change.  What do YOU think? 

Link to Dr Spurlock's piece about hormones and the brain/aging/dementia (which is currently located in his Forum in the Fibromyalgia section at Lumigrate.com but is certainly appropriate for us to ALSO include in this Forum on Anti-Aging as 'it's time' to put more focus in this area it appears -- books coming out and groups like The Silver Sisters Club as seen on today's morning network news/entertainment show). 

www.lumigrate.com/forum/use-your-brain-estrogen-testosterone-and-dementia-supplementing-bioidentically-versus-bigpharm

Link to Lumigrate's collaboration with three of our medical experts (Two MDs and one ND) related to integrative information related to chronic illness prevention and treatment (it really is applicable to any chronic illness or those wanting to stay 'chronically well').  www.lumigrate.com/forum/three-doctors-webinar-addressing-fibromyalgias-pain-insomnia-fog-n-fatigue-integrative-approac

 (This will give you information on all of us involved in the collaboration and then link you to Deirdre Rawlings' website where the interview is hosted and it automatically starts playing for you --- EASY! 

And with a preface that there is advertising on More.com that is from the established over the counter drug companies and all their sources are allopathic it appears, I still like the information very much at this website.  For being inside the lines of convention, it's right at the line from what I can see.  Example: I looked at their piece about osteoporosis and it does talk about supplements and estrogen and NOT about BigPharma's medications they promote on television and magazine ads for how to cure bone loss with a weekly or monthly expensive (and after-the-fact) approach. So More can be for the 'aflluent' .... I'm happy with Lumigrate being for those looking for answers no matter what they're financial position, as long as they are the type of person who will do what they can with their resources to get to or maintain 'chronic wellness'.  So please check out More (the magazine OR the website's link:  www.more.com/)

Link to the area of The Today Show's website about this story is:today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29647902/ns/today-today_fashion_and_beauty/