Use your BRAIN! Estrogen, Testosterone and Dementia; Supplementing Bioidentically versus BigPharmaceutically

I very much appreciate Dr. Spurlock writing this piece and hope that it will, at the VERY LEAST, be read by many people and acted upon by those who feel it resonates for them to at least go further and look into more information.  I'm pleased to say that after it was posted here for about a year, I'm now amending my Comment to include information from compounding pharmacists, since, well, they're part of the TEAM when you look at integrative, functional medicine, and are increasingly being demanded by consumers.  

Last year in 2010 when I wrote this comment initially, I wrote about my experiences in the past when I was given birth control pills which at some level I suspected / felt / sensed were not right for me.  Not once, but TWICE, I had my significant others get vasectomies in those years when I was post chronic fatigue syndrome and onset of the more 'fibromyalgia' phase.  Just this past weekend (in 2011), I had the unplanned pleasure of talking with a woman about my age who had no medical background at the time she was found to have a stage 1/2 breast cancer and hear her story of what she went through and what she has done since to up her game related to nutrition, etc.  Part of what she said included a similar 'sense' that BCPs had been part of what contributed to her issues.  We naturally have no way of knowing, but I also know that for ME, my sense about biologically identical hormones is positive (which BCPs are not, you cannot get a patent on something found in nature as you have to have invented something unique and hence that difference is the 'fly in the grease' so to speak'.)

I want to include in my story here, as it might help someone else who is way far back in my path of trials and tribulations and expenses and PAIN, that I ended up resuming BCPs in my mid to late 30s because my face was breaking out in unbelievably bad ways (and had done it ONCE at age 20, by the way, I've never quite figured out what that was about except a blip on the radar screen of the impending collision.).  I was going weekly to expensive and time consuming facials and after a couple of months she said 'if your skin doesn't do this when you're on birth control, why not go back on them?'  HENCE, as Lani Wallace and any esthetician who has medical background (or those that don't even) will attest, I am adamant about having estheticians aware of the outward signs and symptoms people go to them with which indicate a hormone or food allergy problem so they get properly treated.  And in my book, properly means becoming equally aware of biologically identical and pharmaceutical routes of care and prescriptions.   

Sadly, while I could wrap my head around paying an esthetician $75 a week for a facial, I couldn't wrap my head around paying out of pocket the hundreds of dollars to see a non-insurance based provider.  By that point I had been prescribed by one provider in the past a topical progesterone, as my hormones in my mid 30s had indicated a progesterone deficiency.  Sadly, that provider quit the field of gynecology due to the increased costs of doing business in that field and I had moved an hour away to Denver.  About that time I became an OT and was working crazy hours and my exercise/nutrition regime/flow fell apart and then so did my health and I was constantly in the doctors office simply working on infections, popped ribs from coughing, low energy/fatigue, and the focus went off of anything to do with a little hormone irregularity and I merrily took the BCPs my insurance paid for and my providers knew how to prescribe.  

I wish I could go back and do that era of my life over again and see what would have been different.  BUT had that been the case, things would not have lead me the way they have, and you and I would not be sitting here writing or reading Lumigrate.  

Time after time, I can look back on my medical care and see how many unfortunate mis-turns were made.  I also have had several VERY GOOD doctors and providers who have helped me put things back together again, and I continue to learn now, mostly from the providers who are writing on Lumigrate as featured experts, just like you read and learn here! 

I really encourage people to find Ms Somers' books --  'Ageless' is the one I have on my shelf. I also suggest people to keep reading and recognize that there are differing opinions within the field of hormone replacement related to the amounts to prescribe.  I've been surprised by one of my doctors (osteopath Ilene Spector) who said that her experience has been that while most people do best with biologically identical hormones, some people's bodies just do better with the molecularly similar (but not identical) pharmaceuticals that are therefore patented.  She is an expert in the field of osteopathy that The Cranial Academy is about and can feel/sense/interpret all kinds of things in a person's body, such as how the pituitary or hormone system is functioning altogether.  There's just always more to learn as we go down the rabbit hole, so to speak! I very much encourage you to do what I used to teach my patients with chronic illness on their first day with me, as we typically had lots of learning to do about the occupation of being a proactive medical consumer: get centered with deep breating and meditation so that you're in touch with what is going on inside you, because THAT is your truth place, and you'll be better able to know what you should be doing with yourself and the information and provider options that come through your world. 

While not everyone has access to a provider that has that ability with their 'hands on', everyone does have the ability to develop their sense of what is right for them, their intuition about themselves and other things surrounding them.  That starts with deep breathing and mindfulness and there are many resources here on Lumigrate to point you along that path.  Everyone's BEST doctor is inside!  

The American Academy for Anti-Aging Medicine has a website to look up, naturally, but I wanted to link you to MSN because to my knowledge it's portraying things in an even handed/unbiased yet informative way. Controversy surrounds it's innovative approaches and the providers who embrace it in their communities and naturally doing any form of Search on the Internet will also set you on your way for self-study. 

I encourage people to research always.  Think.  Talk to others.  And mostly, decide for yourself what YOU think makes sense for You, and set out to get a team around you who can provide that. And I hope you keep coming back to Lumigrate as well and realize I'm continuing to work to get new providers and information on the topics people are interested in.  

Here's that MSN article link:  www.webcitation.org/5joHw1pMA

~~  Mardy

Since Dr Spurlock's piece brought up the immune system, which has much to do with nutrition (and thus supplementation for those who subscribe to that philosophy), I wanted to provide the link for the overall section on Nutrition that's 'over' supplementing nutrition and includes foods and recipes and etc, to clarify for people is: 

www.lumigrate.com/forums/preventive-medicine-concepts/nutrition

Also, for those who aren't as familiar with how to navigate around a forum like ours, the links are just above the topic.  Example: At the top of this page, above the title of this topic about the brain, you see Home and then all the 'tree' from the home page to this forum.  The last one will be the one that takes you 'up' one level, two back takes you up two levels, or you can go back to Home, etc.  Hope that helps!  Keep learning!  GRATE Discussion here, thanks everyone!

I very much appreciate Dr. Spurlock's inclusion and credit to compounding pharmacies as a resource, for starters. AT ITC we have been doing BHRT since the late 1990’s and have always felt that estradiol delivered transdermally (thru the skin) in physiological doses does not increase the risk of “estrogen induced cancers” and, like Dr. Spurlock, we feel that estradiol is essential to slow the aging process in the brain, bones, skin, etc.

We also never give estradiol without making certain it is being balanced by progesterone even when a women does not have a uterus because she most likely still has breasts, brains, skin, bones, etc., and all those tissues need both estradiol and progesterone to be healthy.

We also always work to make certain that the adrenal hormone cortisol is within the proper range because both high levels and low levels of cortisol will disrupt estradiol and progesterone’s ability to work properly just as it affects the thyroid hormones from working properly. We feel that you must balance theses hormones and not rely on high doses of any one of them to treat symptoms.

We believe that only physiological (the amounts the body made) doses are proven safe and Dr. Spurlock often uses higher doses because he feels that as long as you do it transdermally it is safe. That is a small difference in opinions, but our prescribing provider at ITC/Becca Slomiany, NP, will not recommend doses that are higher than what a woman would have made when she was a young, healthy, reproductive female because we have not seen studies showing that the higher doses are safe.

I appreciate both Dr. Spurlock and and Gary King's insights into this issue.  I have seen the negative effects of using a synthetic hormone- resulting in breast cancer.  This was sadly, a friend whose husband worked in the pharmaceutical industry producing those synthetic hormones.   I agree wholeheartedly that we all must listen to our own bodies- and that we need to become mindful to our personal needs. 

I do have a good friend who is a local compounding pharmacist.  She is on the same page at Gary King in the use of  transdermally delivered hormones, and balancing all the hormones properly.   My husband, an EPA chemist, has brought information that confirms the great benefit of transdermal treatments- the main research shows that much lower doses are needed when compared to the oral, synthetic doses.   That in itself reduces much of the contraindications. 

Otherwise, I bow to the greater experience of both Dr. Spurlock and Gary King. 

Be well,

Robin

I'm afraid it might go to their ego's too much if you bow, how about a curtsie?   <grins!>

I'm sorry about your friend, as I am sorry for anyone whose health has been impacted negatively from what 'we didn't know' wasn't good for us.  To me, it's part of the growing pains of the unbelievable growth of information and technology that has happened in the last 100+ years, and I have confidence that there is much learning going on and change, and simply appreciate when those who are so very actively part of that come together to make things shift.  

So thank you for being present and involved with Lumigrate, which is my "piece offering" to the puzzle (misspelling / pun intended).  What you wrote here is very impactful from my standpoint so I'll presume it will be to others ~~ Mardy

PS -- and SO amazing what your husband and you have been involved with in the past AND present, and we can only presume future.  Wow.  (I might remind people reading anew here that when I got chronic fatigue syndrome working in a new (government) building from the fumes overwhelming my impaired system, he was on the team that was discovering and labeling 'sick building syndrome', which was slightly different in scope but still, totally interesting 'coincidence' to me.  

I wanted to add a link here to a piece I posted today in the brain forum related to new studies that are pouring out these last weeks of the first month of 2012 related to seeing changes starting in the 40s with cognition in those who develop issues, and there being differences in gender related to onset, development and treatment.  Here's the link: www.lumigrate.com/forum/brain-changescognition-different-menwomen-and-trace-40s-new-info-coming-out 

Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! ~~ Mardy