Is this a TMI entry? Maybe? I’m not sure. Dad, read with caution.
I have a few friends who have become amateur hormone dealers. By “hormone dealers” I mean they are becoming experts on the role of estrogen or progesterone or testosterone or chocolate paired with romantic comedies on the female body and, more importantly for our age-group, what happens when their levels drop like the ashes from fifty birthday candles.
Admittedly, I haven’t paid much attention to what my pals have been saying to me because, well, the information certainly did not apply to someone as delightful, zealous, and young as me. Right? I am, after all, a very young fifty-four. I mean, yes, I’m fifty-four on paper, but in real life, I present decades younger, so really, hormones? A bunch of jargon that surely didn’t apply.
Have you ever heard that saying, “If someone offers you a breath mint, take it?” Turns out, it applies to advice on hormones as well.
As mentioned in Am I a Woman Now?, I recently rounded out all those firsts noted in baby books with my First UTI. No, I know, that’s not really a benchmark we jot down next to First Tooth or First Day of Preschool but it did send me to the interwebs where I was given a rather rude awakening. While UTIs are not uncommon, they are more common as women age and as their estrogen starts draining from their bodies and what the actual eff??
Still, this couldn’t apply to me, right? Dropping hormones? When I saw my new primary care physician (who I believe is only 12 years old), I casually mentioned the possibility that I may be meno or even post-menopausal. She correctly shifted her shocked look to a blank stare while asking a few questions about my lady bits before zipping a prescription off to the pharmacy for Estradiol cream.
It was like she was suggesting that my hormones were retired. What? In fairness, I am a tricky case as I had a uterine ablation several years ago that removed the most reliable signal of the arrival of menopause: the lack of monthly cycles. Menopause? But, I’m delightful! Yes, sure, I constantly feel run down, have noticed an increased level of forgetfulness, sometimes think my husband smells funny, and left my libido in 2024 but…I had a lot going on, okay?
Wasn’t it all just the stress of the shit-storm we powered through for an entire year?
Ironically, just after that chat with Doogie Howser, a friend invited me to a seminar at the Intimate Wellness Institute called, “Hormone Harmony.” It was the last thing on the planet I wanted to do on a rainy and cold weeknight but off we went–all the way across the river and past our bedtime! Richmond friends, you understand.
To say the seminar was enlightening would be a gross understatement that is not meant to discount all the things my friends have been telling me over the last year. I just respond to power points and hard data and nerd news, even when it comes to my Sally, and this seminar had it all. Our host, Annie Edwards, offered slide after slide of the same symptoms that I’ve been blaming on grief, empty nesting, surgery, etc. and how drops in hormones were related. Not that the shit-storm struggle wasn’t really but, were my fleeing hormones playing a bigger role?
I paid the closest attention to the major studies on post-menopauseal women and learned that the first, from the early 1970s has since been declared fairly inaccurate since the second, in the early 2000s, used a more appropriate test group. That first study tested post-menopausal hormone therapy on women between the ages of 68 and 75 who were so far beyond menopause that their bodies couldn’t possibly have recognized estrogen as something it should cuddle and protect and love. No surprise, then, that the study’s results were not positive. Many normal, age-appropriate conditions (dementia, strokes, etc) were blamed on the hormone therapy rather than the age of the focus group.
Thankfully, that second study mythbusted the shit out of the first but WHY ARE WOMEN STILL BEING TREATED BASED ON IT?? Yes, you read that right. While that second study took place in the early 2000s, most women are still being treated as if their physicians haven’t had access to it for the last ¼ century and are being sentenced to a late life loss of jelly from their roll, at best.
I zipped back across the river last week for a full menopause-focused panel of bloodwork. I didn’t even know that was a thing. Shouldn’t my vaginalcologist have been doing that annually? Especially since he was the one who ablated my uterus and removed menopause’s bat signal? I learned in that seminar that the typical classroom time for menopause in OBGYN school is (drumroll please): 60 minutes. One hour. What in the actual fallopian tubes??
Labcorp was kind enough to zip me the results of that panel a few days post-blood draw so that I could self-diagnose over a cup of coffee. My very non-qualified conclusion is that my hormones are living in a dumpster somewhere. I’m excited to see what Annie and her team map out for me, my motivation levels, and my muff. I have been taking the Estradiol for three weeks now and have already noticed some changes in the old transmission. It’s like I made a quick stop at Jiffy Lube, if you know what I mean. Do you? Nevermind.
In confirmation that big pharma has yet to catch-on to women’s bodies, two quick stories:
My primary care physician directed me to use the Estradiol every day for two weeks before shifting to two or three times per week. When I picked up the prescription, the box indicated that I should use it once per week for two weeks before shifting to twice. I know now that I was hit by what’s called a “Black List Label” on which pharmaceutical companies continue to use incorrect dosing despite evidence that it is, well, wrong.
Second, (skip this part, Dad) the Estradiol cream is applied into my bowling lane via an internal applicator. At minimum, the tube should last a few months. Any guesses on how many internal applicators I was gifted? If you said “one” you are correct. One. To use over and over and over until that tube runs out. One. I know, I can buy more applicators on Amazon but, frankly, I shouldn’t have to.
I relayed that second story to my dear husband while pontificating about the differences between men’s and women’s healthcare. He himself takes twice-weekly testosterone shots, administered at home. We have a candy-jar size collection of needles for him to choose from, given to him at zero cost. Needles, plural. Not a single needle that he has to store in a plastic bag for the life of the prescription. When I explained how frustrating this was, he quite innocently looked at me and said, “Yeah, but my hormones go inside of me.”
I’m not sure where he thinks that estrogen applicator is going when I zing it up my beaver, but…well, moving on.