For several years now I have curbed my holiday gift buying and instead spent what money I could spare on a donation to the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation. http://www.kanziuscancerresearch.org/

I'll let the video on their website explain how the technology works, but the bottom line is that this has the potential to actually eradicate cancer everywhere in the body...without harming the rest of the body!

Think about it: All current chemotherapy treatments work by damaging the patient's body in the hopes that the cancer will surrender before the patient's body does. But many chemotherapy drugs are known carcinogens!! So they may treat one kind of cancer, but are just as likely to cause another. The same is true with radiation: radiation is known to mutate DNA.

And drugs like Avastin--which has recently been withdrawn from the market because research shows it does not extend patients' lives--work by preventing the processes that healthy cells need to thrive and repair themselves. A friend's husband was miraculously cured of his leukemia by the wonder drug Gleevec. Unfortunately, the Gleevec put holes in his lungs and he now has only 30% lung capacity. I don't know about Gleevec, but Avastin works by preventing the formation of new blood vessels. Yes, tumors grow by forming new blood supplies, but normal tissues continually break down and regrow and they need blood supplies as well. If they can't grow new blood vessels, they can't repair damage, and you can end up with holes in important organs...like your lungs or heart or brain! 

Trying to fight cancer this way is like saying tumors need oxygen to grow so we should suffocate patients to deprive the tumors. That sounds ludicrous, but only because it is a quicker and more obvious way to kill a patient. But drugs that harm healthy cells as well as tumors are indeed a poor choice at best.

That's why I wish everybody who contributes to any type of cancer organization would instead route their contributions to the Kanzius foundation.

HOW IT WORKS

The Kanzius technology begins when they flood your body with microscopic gold nanoparticles via intravenous injection. These particles are tagged with the genetic code for the type of tumor you have. The particles flow through your body and stick to any tumors that have genetic codes that match the tags. Then you go into a machine--which is like being between two giant cell phones--and the radio waves pass harmlessly through your body. That energy is just enough to make the gold particles vibrate. That vibration produces a little bit of heat. And because tumor cells can't stand any kind of heat, they die and are flushed out of your body. That's it. Healthy cells stay healthy.  

This technology is currently in development at MD Anderson in Houston as well in Pittsburgh. The primary hold-up is funding. The researchers need equipment and perhaps most important, they need more researchers. They are most advanced in their work with the most deadly type of cancer: pancreatic cancer. But for each type of cancer, the team needs to identify the genetic markers so they can create tags for the gold particles to home in on.

BIG PHARMA WON'T BE HAPPY

The one fear I have is that as soon as the technology begins human clinical trials and proves its success, the big drug companies will come in with guns balzing, trying to crush the technology under a mountain of lawsuits and propaganda campaigns. After all, chemotherapy drugs...which kill people as surely as the diseases do...are Big Pharma's cash cows. If the Kanzius technology cures cancer, then what will these drug companies do to feed their greed?
 
PLEASE HELP

If you want to eradicate cancer from the face of the planet in your lifetime, I urge you to contribute whatever you can to the Kanzius foundation. http://www.kanziuscancerresearch.org/

It takes long enough to bring a therapy to market with all the hoops the FDA requires the patent-holder to jump through. But we can accelerate the process by ensuring these researchers have enough money to progress as fast as the process will allow.

One day you or a loved one will face a cancer diagnosis. Do you want to be looking at the same old barbaric treatments that offer little hope? Or would you rather know there is a gentle and vastly more effective therapy available that can simply flush away the tumors and let you get on with enjoying life?

Wishing you all health and happiness in the new year! 

If you are prone to getting urinary tract infections (UTIs), sometimes referred to as bladder infections, you know why the subject warranted a blog post here. A UTI can shift the entire focus of your life onto that screaming pressure in your belly that says you have to pee like a racehorse and the simultaneous fear of knowing that actually doing so will burn so bad you'll think your body is filled with flaming jet fuel. And as soon as you're emptied, you'll feel that pressure to pee again, except there's nothing you can do now to relieve it.

The good news is that there are things you can do about UTIs...to prevent them, and to treat them once they hit. 

WHAT CAUSES UTIs?

Although UTIs can occur when any kind of bacteria get into your your urinary tract, they are most commonly caused by natural bacteria (like E. coli) from your digestive tract. E. coli is actually an important bug to have in your gut because it kills off harmful bacteria, and it should never harm your body as long as it is confined to the GI tract where it belongs. However, we get into trouble when the E. coli bacteria that exit your body in each bowel movement somehow make their way forward into your urinary tract.

How does that happen? Well, there are several ways. The most common are not wiping properly after a bowel movement, wearing tight-fitting pants/underwear and sex. In each case, the circumstances cause gut bacteria to be picked up from your anal area and moved forward to your vaginal and urinary tract areas.

Doctors even have a special name for the UTIs women get from having lots of sex: honeymoon cystitis. Not only can sex transfer the bacteria from back to front, it can go the extra mile to make sure those bacteria are repeatedly shoved up into the urethra where they can colonize your urinary tract, potentially going all the way up not just into your bladder but into your kidneys where they can do permanent damage if not treated properly.
 
HOW TO TREAT/CURE AN EXISTING UTI

If you already have a UTI, you are ready for an answer immediately if not hours ago. So here goes... 

1. Drink Lots of Water 

I know you're thinking I've lost my mind, but until you can get chemicals into your body to manage the symptoms and start killing off the bacteria, the best thing you can do is drink a lot of water. The water does several helpful things: (a) It dilutes your urine, which means there are fewer bacteria per unit of urine to irritate the tissues of your urinary tract; (b) It flushes some of those bugs out of your system; and (c) It gives you something to actually pee out when you feel that maddening pressure to urinate.  

2. Take Pyridium/Azo to Relieve the Symptoms

The second thing you should do is run to the nearest drugstore and get some Azo (standard). You may also want to take a bottle of water with you too, or buy one there, so you can take your first pill immediately. The Azo contains a substance called phenazopyridine hydrochloride (or pyridium) that essentially numbs your urinary tract. It will also turn your pee orange, so don't freak out.  

If you get recurrent UTIs, you may want to keep some Azo in your medicine cabinet at home and take it with you when you travel.

3. Try D-Mannose for a Cure

NOTE: If you want to hedge your bets, go ahead and make an appointment with your doctor (Step 4) now, in case this doesn't work. But if it's a weekend or you are feeling just the slightest hint of symptoms, you may want to try this home remedy first.

Go to the nearest health food store and pick up a big bottle of D-mannose capsules (1000 mg). (And you may want to keep some of this in the house at all times, along with the Azo.) Then take 3 to 5 capsules (3000 to 5000 mg) every 3-4 hours with lots of water until bedtime.

D-mannose is a natural type of sugar that gut bacteria happen to love, but which cannot be easily metabolized by your system, so it passes through your body virtually unused. In fact 90% of what you take will end up in your bladder, ready for elimination, within an hour of your taking it. (D-mannose products may also include cranberry extract for additional urinary tract benefits.)

The bacteria feed on the sugars they find in the lining of your urinary tract. What happens when you take the D-mannose is that the greedy bacteria abandon the lining of your urinary tract and jump into this virtual river of sugar where they are carried on through and out of your body the next time you pee.

Try this for just a couple of days, taking 3 to 5 capsules every few hours while you're awake. If you still have symptoms while taking it or after stopping it, go see your doctor.

4. See a Doctor, Take Antibiotics

If you have a rip-snorting, full-blown UTI, the D-mannose remedy may simply not be up to the challenge. In that case, you will need antibiotics. Your doctor may want to culture your urine to find out what kind of bacteria are colonizing your urinary tract, and to find out if the bugs you have are resistant to any antibiotics.

He or she may start you on a broad-spectrum antibiotic even before getting the results, in hopes this is just a garden-variety E. coli from your own gut. As with any antibiotics, be sure to take the entire bottle as directed, even if you think you've already gotten rid of the infection.  

I'm not sure why this is, but the last time I had a UTI, my doctor's office did not detect it, at least not from their in-office tests. It may be because I was taking D-mannose at the time and drinking a ton of water, which may have diluted my urine and fooled the tests. I don't know. But by the next day there was no doubt in my mind I had a major UTI. Fortunately, the doctor had already prescribed a typical course of antibiotics, with the intention that I could use the pills one at a time as a preventive measure. I ended up taking the whole 2 weeks' course to kick the active infection. 

Please note: If you do get UTIs regularly (especially if you're not doing anything that might cause new UTIs), consider the possibility that you may not be getting separate UTIs but may simply have the same one you've never gotten rid of. In this case, you should definitely encourage your doctor to do a urine culture to identify the specific bacteria causing your problems and to find out which drugs can kill it. It is possible to get a drug-resistant bacterial infection for which you will need a specialized drug to knock it out once and for all. 
 
PREVENTING UTIs

Clearly, no woman who has ever had a UTI wants to get another. So here are some tips to help you prevent them.

a. Improve bathroom habits.
Always wipe front to back when you use the bathroom, especially after a bowel movement. If you're prone to UTIs, consider using personal wipes or simply wash the area of your genitals and anus with antibacterial soap after each visit to the toilet. If you have a bidet, use it.

b. Avoid crotch-intensive clothing.
Don't wear tight jeans or thong underwear that fit into the crack of your butt where they can access gut bacteria and then rub them around your genital area. 

c. Practice UTI-preventive sex.
Before having sex, drink lots of water, and urinate to get any existing bacteria out of your urinary tract. Also, it can be helpful for you and your partner to wash your genitals and anal areas thoroughly before sex. If you're creative, you can make it a part of foreplay. And then be sure to urinate again after sex to get any bacteria out that may have been introduced to your urinary tract during sex.

d. Take D-mannose after sex.
On the chance that you may have gotten bacteria into your urinary tract during sex, you might want to go ahead and start on the D-mannose, taking 3000 mg every few hours afterwards and do so for a couple of days. If you are having sex frequently, should you be taking D-mannose every day? That's a good question, but there's no single answer. Some sex acts or positions have little risk of transferring bacteria unless you or your partner did not clean properly after having a BM. But other encounters may be very active or prolonged so that no matter how clean you and your partner were to begin with, you inevitably wind up with fecal bacteria in the mix. The good news is that the D-mannose should pass through you with little or no effect, except to lure the bacteria to leave your urinary tract. So other than the cost, there should be no downsides to taking it preventively.

e. Take an antibiotic after sex.
Those of you who have stubborn, recurrent UTIs resulting from sex may want to ask your doctor to prescribe a common antibiotic so you can take one antibiotic preventively after sex. You would only need to take one pill in a given day, even if you made love multiple times that day. These are typically sulfa drugs like Bactrim, but some people are allergic to sulfa drugs or may become allergic to them over time. There are other antibiotics your doctor can prescribe if you are allergic to sulfa. But keep in mind that the antibiotic treatment is a last resort, and you should not do this unless all other preventive methods have failed. 

f. Take cranberry daily.
The research is mixed on the benefits of cranberry juice and cranberry extract. However, when benefits are shown, they are always more pronounced for prevention than for treatment of UTIs. So if you are prone ot UTIs, it can't hurt to take some form of cranberry product every day.

And BTW, not all women feel the classic urgency, pressure and burning when they have a UTI. My daughter gets abdominal pains and then nausea (because pain makes her nauseated) without the other symptoms. It's usually not until her doctor does a urine test that she realizes she has a UTI. So just be aware of your own body, how it reacts and how it communicates with you.

And as always, be sure to check with your doctor before implementing any health related regimens. 
 

Maybe it's because I talk to so many people now about their health and feelings of wellbeing, but it seems as if nearly everybody today is struggling with depression or anxiety. Yes, I know the economy sucks, we're all polarized by the media and politicians to believe we hate and/or fear each other, oh, and the world's supposed to end in December of next year, "...but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" Yes, we have real issues to be afraid of or feel bummed about, but I can't help feeling there's something else going on.

That "something else" I suspect may be the drug soup we're all swimming in every day, whether or not we deliberately take medications.

The first culprit has to be the birth control hormones. Granted, we have a lot fewer unwanted pregnancies, and these hormones in fact reduce the incidence of certain cancers later in life by taking these drugs. But are they also having an unwanted effect on women's moods, making them feel dull and lifeless, or triggering fears and anxieties?

And, of course, there are all the hormones and drugs in the food and environment: steroids given to meat animals to fatten them up, plastic containers that leach synthetic estrogens into food and water, misguided health-conscious folks who want to sneak plant estrogens like soy into everything we eat, and of course the myriad prescription drugs that are flushed down the toilet into our water supply or dumped into landfills where they eventually make their way back into our food or water.

Then there are the drugs for ADD given to children from the time they're in grade school. And the antidepressants and antianxiety drugs themselves... How many people do you know taking such drugs?  How many people are on these drugs who really shouldn't be?

And what is the lifetime impact of these drugs on a person's ability to manage the day-to-day stresses in life? By relying on drugs for so many psychological issues do we ultimately lose our coping skills? More important, are we physically and chemically changing our brains to be less effective in dealing with life? Are we de-evolving? 

I'm not saying these drugs and hormones aren't helpful in many ways. But what I am saying is that maybe if the drugs companies weren't making obscene profits on our desire to find easy solutions we might actually discover healthier ways to deal with the real challenges in our world. 

Just something to think about... 

I have just completed a letter to a friend's physician discussing the issue of hormone levels and what constitutes "normal." Sigh... I keep fighting the same battle over and over again.

As I explained to my friend's doctor, nobody in their right minds would tell us it's normal for a car's oil to run dangerously low after 20,000 miles, so you shouldn't replace it, or if you do replace it, just add a tiny fraction of what the engine needs to run properly. Yet that's exactly what the medical establishment tells us about our sex hormones...which, by the way, are about a whole lot more than sex. They keep our brains, hearts, bones and muscles (among other sexy bits) healthy and vibrant.

If we're talking about dull, boring hormones like cortisol, thyroid, or insulin, the answer to deficiencies is almost always to supplement the hormone until it reaches an ideal or optimal level and your body once again is operating the way it's supposed to. But when it comes to the sex hormones, the medical community behaves as if we were talking about recreational drugs, rather than substances our bodies were designed to run on.

The first place we get into trouble is with the definition of "normal." We typically get some kind of test, perhaps a blood test or a saliva test. The results come back and the lab flags any values that were either above or below their "reference values" as being abnormal. So that implies that anything within the reference range is normal.

But how do they determine the reference range? They test a bunch of presumed healthy people and set the highest and lowest scores as the top and bottom of the reference range. 

This seems like a reasonable thing to do, until you get into the touchy subject of sex hormones. And then the labs add a little twist: they set their reference ranges according to a bunch of "healthy" people in your age group. What that does is reset the numbers to show what's normal for people your age. But what if "at your age" most people are deficient in that hormone? Now the lab test is telling you that it's normal to be deficient. 

That's exactly what happens with hormones like estrogen, testosterone and progesterone. 

But even if they include all age ranges, they are still going to show that it's "normal" for some otherwise healthy folks to be at the bottom of the tank sucking fumes.

So when my friend's doctor told him his testosterone levels were good, he was comparing them to the reference values for men over 65...which are virtually always deficient! Instead he should be comparing them to the optimal values for the healthiest men in their prime.

What's equally important is the question of what's normal for you...or rather what's optimal for you.  In a perfect world, we should all have our hormones tested at various times in our lives, especially when we are at our healthiest, so we know what our body's chemistry looks like when we feel our best. Then as we get older, we can use those levels as benchmarks to know what we need to get back to.

But even that may be misleading, because, for example, research shows that the average testosterone levels in men of all ages have declined over the past few decades, presumably because of all the estrogen-like substances in our food supply and environment. So even at your youthful best your hormones may have been low or imbalanced.

Which brings us back to defining optimal ranges, and that may take a certain amount of art as well as skill to determine.  

The bottom line is that if you want to restore your body's chemistry to optimal levels, seek out a doctor who understands what that means and is willing to deviate from standard practice...in a responsible way...to get you back to where you need to be, both objectively and subjectively. And if you already have a doctor you really like and trust, encourage him/her to think outside the box. Perhaps print out this article for your next office visit. 

Life is too short to do things half way.  

You may be curious as to why I included certain physical conditions and a birth control hormone product in a post about hormone-related moods. Actually I hadn't planned on it, but as I thought about the subject--and my own experiences with it--I realized these things can all be related.

Despite what you might hear or read, high testosterone levels can fuel anger and sometimes rage. Or perhaps, like everything else, it may be more appropriate to assume this is about testosterone that is out of balance with the other hormones. I don't think we can say for sure at the moment, because to my knowlege nobody's researching the effects of hormone imbalances on moods.

When I was younger (before menopause), I had a terrible temper and I hated it. When my hormones went south during perimenopause, all my passions went away...including my anger. What's most important here is that when I tried supplementing testosterone, I did indeed get my creativity and passions back, including anger. I can remember the exact moment the testosterone kicked in: I was driving home when suddenly I felt what I used to call "ambient anger" (which I'd felt virtually all the time) suddenly come over me. Anger that was there for no reason at all...which I constantly had to fight to keep under control.

When I was even younger, and when all my passions were in high gear, I also had bouts with ovarian cysts. The condition is now called PCOS, or polycystic ovary syndrome. This too can be a symptom of excess (or unbalanced) testosterone.

And here are the last few pieces of the puzzle: I had seen ads on TV for the birth control pill called Yaz (or Yasmin). It claims to help not only prevent pregnancy but also reduce PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or really bad PMS) and mild acne. Well guess what: high (or imbalanced?) testosterone is associated with acne and bad moods. If Yaz reduces PMDD and acne, maybe it does so by reducing testosterone (or increasing the offsetting levels of progesterone and/or estrogen).

And the last piece of the puzzle: The ads warn that those taking Yaz may end up with excessive potassium levels...which can cause leg cramps. Most online sources attribute this effect to the fake progesterone, drospirenone, in Yaz. And that may indeed be best place to attach the blame. However, I suspect it is less about the fake progesterone and more about how Yaz (and its fake progesterone) effects testosterone levels in your body. But since nobody's studying the connection, we don't know.

What I do know is that in using the exact same amounts of progesterone and estrogen every month as I've used for some 7 years, once I changed my hormone regimen to apply my estrogen in a spike once every 2 weeks, suddenly my testosterone levels went up on their own. I got some of my passions back...AND I started getting foot and leg cramps (the way I did when I was younger and passionate and angry and had bad acne).  The T wasn't terribly high and I didn't get angry or break out in zits all over, but the cramps have now become a regular part of my "cycles."

As it happens, when my cramps occur I can take a potassium supplement and the cramps subside. So you may be wondering how I connect my increasing testosterone levels with muscle cramps that seem to be caused by LOW potassium, when I've just said that Yaz may cause HIGH potassium levels that cause muscle cramps.  Well, as it turns out, potassium, like other electrolytes in your body, needs to be within a certain optimal range. Too high OR too low can cause many of the same symptoms, including muscle cramps. 

Bottom line: If you are young and still ovulating and have a bad temper and acne (and possibly leg/foot cramps), you may have too much testosterone and could be at risk for PCOS. To resolve this problem, you can try a product like Yaz if you need birth control anyway.  However, be aware that Yaz (and any other birth control hormones) can have their own side effects, including risk of blood clots and varying effects on your moods.
 
I hope that one day, doctors may be more knowledgeable about the impact of varying hormone balances and will be able to manage those balances to keep them in their optimal ranges. Until then, at least know you are not alone....

First, let me say there is no clinical definition of this "needy" state. But I suspect every woman knows what it feels like and nobody likes it. It takes away our independence and self-confidence and reduces us to babies...clingy, sometimes desperate, sometimes crying and inconsolable babies. To make matters worse, we may get angry when the need is not met.

For me, the neediness feels like a kind of ravenous emotional hunger. A hunger for validation, for love, for a sense of wholeness and value as a person, maybe even more specifically as a woman. The first time it happened to me (in my "Life 2.0" after 10 years of feeling dead), the sweet man who was with me had that deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes. "I don't know what to do," he said. He wanted desperately to help but felt completely incapable of doing so.

What I've learned now, over several recurrences of this mood, is that when the neediness happens there IS NO satisfying the hunger. It is bottomless.  

And it seems that the very best those who love us can do when this happens is simply to be there, to actively show and express their love, their concern and caring, until it passes. 

For those who are lucky enough to have romantic partners who love them and are willing and able to help them through these moods, maybe continuous lovemaking would suffice to fill the need or at least quiet the craving temporarily. But for some of us, even that wouldn't be enough. Even given the most tender and passionate affection, we would still need to hear different words, we'd need different actions, we'd need "something other" than what we have, something more...we would still be drowning, grasping for the life preserver because this crazy sense of need cannot be quenched.

The good news is that if it is hormonally fueled, we can at least wait for the particular combination of hormone levels to pass. And if we are manipulating our hormones through birth control methods or hormone replacement therapy, we may be able to adjust our regimens or switch to other forms or dosages that minimize the neediness. 

In tracking my hormones, I have found that my needy days typically come when I do not have enough estrogen in my system to properly process my progesterone. (Our bodies need a spike of estrogen in order to ensure that our cells can take in progesterone.) In the case of my first psycho-needy day, I had accidentally used 1/3rd less estrogen than usual, then I used the normal dose of progesterone. My other, milder, needy days seem to come around the same general "time of the month" when progesterone levels are highest and when I may not have gotten enough estrogen. 

If you are still getting periods, that time would probably coincide with the middle of the luteal phase of your cycle, or about a week before your period. Whenever it occurs, if you see that it comes and goes with certain phases of your cycle, all you have to do it wait and it will pass. 

If you are on birth control hormones (whether the pill or a product like the NuvaRing or hormonal IUD), the challenge is a lot more complicated. You may be feeling needy because the combination of hormones that is keeping you from conceiving is also keeping your hormones in an unnatural balance. If you struggle with a lot of needy days and they are ruining your life, you may want to consider a different kind of birth control.

If you are post-menopausal and are using HRT, you may have a little more control. Like me (and with your doctor's supervision), you may be able to calm these needy periods by ensuring you get that initial surge of estrogen before you add your progesterone.

Be aware, however, that many doctors may say you don't need the progesterone at all if you've had a hysterectomy. That's not true. You still need progesterone for your brain, bones, muscles and heart, and to calm or prevent autoimmune conditions. But perhaps most important, you need progesterone to balance the effects of estrogen in your body. For example, estrogen promotes the clotting of blood; progesterone thins the blood. Estrogen build cells that bring fluid into the breast; progesterone builds cells that drain fluid away. Estrogen promotes rapid cell division; progesterone slows it down.

In any case--whether or not you happen to be in a position to alter the underlying conditions, whether or not you can "out-last" the mood--I think it helps to at least know this "need" you feel is chemically/hormonally induced. You are not crazy. You are not psychotic, though you may feel that way as you grab and grasp looking for that one last thing that will make you feel full, satisfied, safe, or whole.

And in the meantime, you can try to manage your moods through natural means like diet and exercise, meditation, self-talk or even acupuncture, or by directly altering your hormones.

Just remember that this extreme neediness seems to be related to an overexpression of progesterone, the primary hormone of pregnancy. And in evolutionary terms, this neediness may have served to make females cling to their mates during pregnancy to ensure a provider would be there for the baby.

I know, it doesn't help evolved creatures like ourselves, especially when the neediness is likely to drive away all but the most devoted and patient of males. But if you can expose your own patterns, discover what times of the month are most likely to send you into those needy moods, and figure out how long they last, you may be better able to prepare for them and to help you and those who care about you to cope with them.

Following a battery of psychological tests and an EEG, my 27-year-old daughter, M, was recently diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder (ADD). When I heard that her therapist--whom I respect and trust--had raised the possibility, I admit I worried a bit.  Would M latch onto this and see it as a "magic bullet" that could solve all her issues...only to be ultimately disappointed?

More important, I worried that the drug treatment for ADD might end up being a minus rather than a plus overall.

Drugs that affect the mind can work miracles. But their miracles can also carry a high price tag.  When a spirited but unpredictable individual becomes predictable and passionless, has a real improvement been achieved? Some would argue that predictability is not worth the surrender of a person's essential spark, their aliveness.

And who really benefits most from the drugs? The person with ADD? Or those around him or her?

I have a friend, a nurse, who has ADD. My friend, B, has tried the drugs. She found that they turned her into a zombie, so she quit taking them. B explained that we all have something we have to deal with, whether it's a bad temper, or overeating or laziness. We can let these things run wild and ruin our lives or we can do something about them. Maybe drugs will work for some people. But if they don't work or if the side effects are unaccepable, you do what people have always done: you find ways to cope. You figure out tricks that work for you, and you apply self-discipline to keep your natural tendencies from getting out of control.

So M called me yesterday, having taken her first dose of Adderall. She had been terrified that maybe the diagnosis was wrong and the drug (an amphetemine) would act directly as a stimulant on her system, rather exert the kind paradoxical calming effect it promises people with ADD. When I answered the phone M said, "I think I'm high" and giggled delightedly.

She actually sounded normal to me, except for a faint sense of unusual "lightness" about her. She described the feeling as being "more present" in the moment. And to me--someone only a few months into Life 2.0, someone whose mantra is "live in the moment, seize the now"--this declaration of hers was indeed a good sign. If she could be here in the moment, fully and patiently, rather than buzzing around worrying, and sampling, and processing madly, then maybe this could be a turning point for her.

It's way too soon to tell, of course. The drug's effects are cumulative. Which means its side effects are liable to add up as well. The good news is that she treasures her ability to feel things and to experience life intensely, so she is not likely to give up those essential aspects of herself in exchange for the centeredness a drug like this offers...not without a fight anyway. And she has a wonderful husband who will be watching to makes sure the M that he loves never fades too far from sight. 

So I will keep you posted as the experiment progresses.

Carpe modo!

My idea of what an ADD sufferer's brainwaves look like on an EEG:

Today is July 4, and all around me friends and neighbors are celebrating the independence of our great nation. 

But this day is meaningful to me in another way...because this is the first year in over 12 that I have been free of a crazy affliction that started when my hormones went south at the time of menopause. It is also the first year in over 12 that I have felt truly alive.

This affliction is something I call the broken record syndrome, or auditory memory loops (AMLs). You may know it as simply having songs stuck in your head, or "ear worms." And for most of us, it's nothing but an occasional nuisance. However, for others of us (and I have learned that I'm not alone) it is a maddening and destructive phenomenon that can literally ruin your life.

For one solid year I had multiple songs stuck in my head 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They were so "loud" I couldn't hear my own thoughts. I couldn't get rid of the music...ever. I could only "change the channel" and get a different song stuck when one had become so painfully familiar I thought I might jump off a bridge. They played throughout my waking hours and then filled my dreams with insideous torture.

For one solid year, I never had one minute of quiet anywhere in my world. And I now know that many others have suffered even longer than I did. I honestly don't know how they have remained sane.

I have since hypothesized that this phenomenon may be associated with the stress hormone cortisol. However, my efforts to reduce cortisol with supplements have only provided moderate success.

What worked most effectively for me was to keep my progesterone levels fairly low...lower than I really wanted to. After all, like all women, I needed progesterone to balance the estrogen I was taking (and still making in my adrenal glands and fat cells, even after my hysterectomy). But progesterone can break down along either of two paths: (a) toward the sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone, or (b) toward the adrenal hormones like cortisol and adrenalin/epinephrine. For whatever reason, my progesterone seemed to prefer to break down into cortisol. And the high cortisol seemed to feed the broken record syndrome.

The real breakthrough came late last year when I experimented with a new hormone replacement therapy (HRT) regimen. The hypothesis behind this regimen exploited the fact that during a woman's normal 28-day cycle she experiences a surge of estrogen in the middle of the month. This helps her body prepare for and trigger ovulation. But this surge of estrogen also helps prime her body's cells to accept the progesterone that will be coming along right after ovulation.

Rather than attempt to mimic a full 28-day cycle I tried to do half of that...a 14 day cycle. I have not yet found documentation that tells me just how much E your body needs in order to prepare those progesterone receptors to take in the progesterone. Neither do I yet know exactly what the E surge does. One source says it "creates" progesterone receptors. Another says it "opens up" progesterone receptors.

In any case, my hypothesis has been that perhaps I had plenty of progesterone floating through my system but without the E surge the doors wouldn't open and I couldn't get the P inside the cells. So instead, the P converted to cortisol which powered the crazy jukebox in my head.

Once I started the new regimen, the broken record syndrome went away! Curiously enough, the new regimen also has reduced my allergies, taken away the headaches I'd had, and eliminated a certain pain in my right side that I suspect may have been caused by a bit of endometriosis missed during my hysterectomy.

What's most profoundly important about this new regimen is that along with my ability to enjoy music again, it has given back my aliveness, my passions and creativity. You see, for 12 years I had felt dead inside, sometimes "knowing" a moment or a thing was special but being completely unable to FEEL it. The touch of a dear man's hand on mine a year ago tormented me as I studied it and begged the universe, "Why can't I feel this?"

Now I feel everything again, experience everything in rich detail, and am learning all over again (perhaps with a whole new appreciation I never had before) to savor every moment, to explore every facet of that moment and to be fully present in it. 

So I feel free and today I am celebrating my independence...from lifelessness, from the two-dimensional world that some insisted was to be expected at my age.  I never gave up on that hope of finding myself again, of reawakening the passions in me. And neither should any of you.  

Happy independence day!

For more information about the broken record syndrome, see my other blog at http://brokenrecordsyndrome.wordpress.com/ 

 

A dear friend just miscarried at 22 weeks and has been dealing with dramatic mood swings. She asked if I knew of any natural methods she might try to stabilize the rollercoaster.

The main problem is that during pregnancy your hormone levels skyrocket. And when the pregnancy ends (for whatever reason), those hormones drop, sometimes at differing rates.

Your main form of estrogen, estradiol (E2), can increase 100 times normal levels during pregnancy. Once the pregnancy ends, the E2 levels drop to normal within 24 hours.  Your progesterone increases 300 times and returns to normal within about a week. And the weakest (and thought to be the most protective) form of estrogen, estriol (E3) increases 1000 times normal levels. 

Other hormones-- like cortisol and thyroid--may drop below normal before getting back in the groove after the pregnancy ends.

In my friend's case, her doctor had been supplementing her progesterone using bioidentical (chemically identical to the hormone our bodies make naturally) suppositories that deliver the hormone directly to the womb. This is often done to help a woman hold onto a pregnancy until the placenta begins to produce enough progesterone on its own to sustain the pregnancy.

So although she may not yet have developed the highest hormone levels of a full-term pregnancy, she nevertheless had a surging mix of hormones that took a nosedive when she lost the baby.

As with any post partum dysfunction, the elegant solution is to get those hormones back to normal. But that can take weeks or even months. What can a doctor do to help this along? Perhaps the best strategy might be to test the woman's hormones regularly and then supplement the ones needed to at least reestablish the normal proportions as the levels slowly find their way back down to normal.

In the absence of such a labor-intensive (and test-intensive) strategy, you can try taking SAMe. This is an over the counter (OTC) supplement you can find in most health food stores. I first heard about it from a midwives' group I spoke to. Since then I have seen research that confirms what the midwives told me: SAMe takes effect faster than conventional antidepressants (which take a while to build up in your system) and works just as well...with fewer side effects.

And if you know someone who is now pregnant and might be at risk for post partum depression, suggest that she start now taking high quality omega 3 oil supplements (fish/krill oil, or flax) throughout the pregnancy. These have been shown to protect against PPD for up to 8 months after delivery.

There are answers out there, perhaps more than we ever realized. We just have to ask the right questions.

We are just launching this website and blog so please check back periodically for new information.