Did You Know?
Mobile Phones Raise Blood Pressure
Magnesium: The Amazing Discovery
Aspartame and Phenylalanines
The Enteric Nervous System: The Brain in the Gut
Perimenopausal / Menopausal Symptoms
Mobile Phones Raise Blood Pressure
Radio frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF's) emitted by mobile telephones cause an increase in blood pressure, concludes a new study conducted by Dr. S. Braune and his colleagues of the University Neurology Clinic in Freiburg, Germany and published in the British Medical Journal, Lancet (8-26-98)
Dr. Braune found a significant elevation in both systolic and diastolic blood pressures after exposure to EMF's compared with the unexposed session. They concluded that the increase in blood pressure resulted from constriction of the arteries caused by the radio-frequency electromagnetic fields and that such an increase could have adverse effects on people with high blood pressure.
Order your Cell Phone Diode to prevent the above from happening to you.
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Magnesium: The Amazing Discovery
Why calcium can potentially cause more problems than any it seeks to solve, and what causes magnesium deficiency.
What Depletes It?
These factors dramatically speed up the depletion of your body's magnesium storage, and make it necessary for much more magnesium to be consumed: mental stress, coffee, sugar, high sodium diet, alcohol, cola type beverages, tobacco, high perspiration, medical drugs of all types, low thyroid, diabetes, chronic pain, diuretics, a high carbohydrate diet and a high calcium diet. Calcium? yes, Can too much calcium be a problem? More than you ever thought in your worst nightmare.
The Calcium Problem
Excess calcium is a vastly widespread problem, as Excess calcium depletes magnesium from the body, and as a result brings about all of the symptoms of magnesium deficiency. At this point, it will be unimportant how much magnesium you consumed, but how much is left in your body. If you feel your body is out of balance and isn't functioning right (with some symptoms manifesting), I would suspect excess calcium especially if you have been supplementing it. Remember, calcium and magnesium need to be in the correct proportions for your own needs, otherwise the calcium turns from a nutrient into a pollutant causing heart disease, arthritis, hardening of the arteries, senility, osteoporosis and calcification of organs and tissues that eventually completely degenerate.
For this very reason excess calcium can become a real problem, while excess magnesium, on the other hand, is not of any concern. Unlike calcium, magnesium does not build up in the body, as excess is eliminated.
Take the following example: What country has the highest rate of pasteurized milk consumption? That's right: America. Now, what country has the highest rate of consuming calcium supplements? Correct again: America. So, America must have the lowest occurrence of osteoporosis (calcium loss & bone fragility) of all countries? Right?..
Wrong! We have the highest rate! Why? Excess calcium combined with low magnesium. A lethal combination indeed. Taking more calcium will not fix a calcium deficiency, which is quite evident from the statistics. It is magnesium that will handle the calcium deficiency as well as the magnesium deficiency itself (it will dissolve any excess calcium from the body, while helping any needed calcium to assimilate).
PMS & Osteoporosis
PMS is mostly a magnesium deficiency. Too much calcium and not enough magnesium causes PMS. Instant relief can be obtained by taking the magnesium drink. When it comes to Osteoporosis, magnesium is crucial in regulating bone density, as it is magnesium, which allows calcium to assimilate. Calcium taken alone is useless and potentially harmful. For instance, kidney stones can be caused from calcium build up.
The Heart Connection
Did you know that without sufficient magnesium you would actually die? Your heart will stop beating and the doctors will then call it "a heart attack" (#1 cause of death in America). Never do they say, "He died from a Magnesium Deficiency." This is how critical it is to have proper magnesium levels in the body. The early signs of such terminal extinction are racing heart-beats, or any unusual change in heart beats, angina pains, collapsing from exhaustion after heavy physical exercise or work such as playing football or basketball, or running a race. Due to lack of magnesium the heart muscle develops a spasm or cramp and stops beating. This is because there is insufficient magnesium to relax the heart ready for the next contraction. Irregular heartbeats are also caused by magnesium deficiency. Drink some magnesium and it will go away.
Headaches, Diabetes, High Blood Pressure and Misc.
Asthma, headaches, migraines, seizures, pregnancy related symptoms, depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, hyperactivity, ADD, arthritis, kidney stones all get worse when sufficient magnesium isn't consumed. Supply the magnesium and they will improve. Some of these conditions will improve instantly: others will need some time.
Diabetes - Insulin is the hormone, which helps with the regulation of glucose (sugar) metabolism. Magnesium has been found to improve insulin's response to dietary sugar, and improve the action of insulin in regulating blood sugar levels.
High blood pressure - Magnesium is needed by anyone with high blood pressure. Water-soluble magnesium has proved vital & highly effective in many cases.
The Solution
The solution is to take the magnesium in a form where it is completely dissolvable in water. In this form the magnesium assimilates fast into the body producing almost instant relief. Natural Calm is a product, which was developed especially for that reason. It handles the excess calcium in the body and gradually dissolves the calcium deposits and the calcified body parts giving a new lease of life. Natural Calm is a water-soluble magnesium power, and provides the most assimilable, effective, fast-acting magnesium available. You make it fresh each time and it works better than any other form such as tablets or caps.
Magnesium can be taken on its own without side effects or liability. Magnesium taken on its own without any calcium will help you feel younger, more energetic, stronger, and give you a multitude of other benefits all as a result of the magnesium being present to do its job. To handle a magnesium deficiency it is best to take the magnesium on its own without any calcium. Then, only when the deficiency is handled, go back onto calcium and magnesium together. Stay alert for any need for extra magnesium or better yet take some on a regular basis.
Fast Results
I am sure you will find many examples of magnesium deficiency around you. There are many people out there who have had magnesium deficiency for the last 10-15 years. No one has been able to tell them what's wrong, let alone how to handle it. Since magnesium introduces balance into the body. I recommend Natural Calm for almost any condition as such balance is essential for any condition to get better. Get them onto Natural Calm and you will notice the difference it makes. Almost like a miracle. But you and I know the difference, don't we?
This product also assists people who are on a low carbohydrate diet like the Atkin's diet with mineral supplementation.
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Aspartame and Phenylalanines
Aspartame, an intense source of excitotoxins, is a sweetener made from two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartate. It should be Avoided at all costs. Aspartame complaints account for approximately 70 percent of ALL complaints to the FDA. It is implicated in everything from blindness to headaches and convulsions. Sold under dozens of brand names such as NutraSweet and Equal, aspartame brakes down within 20 minutes at room temperature into several primary toxic and dangerous ingredients one of which is DKP (diketopiperazine). When ingested, DKP converts to a near duplicate of a powerful brain tumor-causing agent. One must then ask, what happens to the sweetener in soda pop sitting on the truck in the hot summer sun during the day? Thanks to Dr. Dan Duffy, Sr. (Taz) for providing us with this information.
If you would like to really get the whole truths about aspartame, type the word aspartame into your search engine...see what happens...it is sickening. Watch out for this product in all gums, mints, sodas, and it doesn't always say sugar free or contains aspartame. READ YOUR LABELS, this is a sneaky ingredient. Any phenylalanine is dangerous to your health.
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The Enteric Nervous System: The Brain in the Gut
The gut has a mind of its own, the “enteric nervous system”. Just like the brain in the head, researchers say, this system sends and receives impulses, records experiences and responds to emotion. Its nerve cells are bathed and influenced by the same neurotransmitters. The gut can upset the brain just as the brain can upset the gut.
The gut’s brain or the “enteric nervous system” is located in the sheaths of tissue lining the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon. Considered a single entity, it is a network of neurons, neurotransmitters and proteins that zap messages between neurons, support cells like those found in the brain. It has a complex circuitry that enables it to act independently, learn, remember and, as the saying goes, produce gut feelings.
The gut’s brain is reported to play a major role in human happiness and misery. Many gastrointestinal disorders like colitis and irritable bowel syndrome originate from problems within the gut’s brain.
Details of how the enteric nervous system mirrors the central nervous system have been emerging in recent years, according to Dr. Michael Gershon, professor of anatomy and cell biology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. He is one of the founders of a new field of medicine called “neurogastroenterology.”
The gut contains 100 million neurons - more than the spinal cord. Major neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, norephinephrine and nitric oxide are in the gut. Also two dozen small brain proteins, called neuropeptides are there along with the major cells of the immune system. Enkephalins (a member of the endorphins family) are also in the gut. The gut also is a rich source of benzodiazepines - the family of psychoactive chemicals that make up the ever popular drugs such as valium and xanax.
In evolutionary terms, it makes sense that the body has two brains, said Dr. David Wingate, a professor of gastrointestinal science at the University of London and a consultant at Royal London Hospital. "The first nervous systems were in tubular animals that stuck to rocks and waited for food to pass by," according to Dr. Wingate. The limbic system is often referred to as the "reptile brain." "As life evolved, animals needed a more complex brain for finding food and sex and so developed a central nervous system. But the gut’s nervous system was too important to put inside the newborn head with long connections going down to the body." says Wingate. Offspring need to eat and digest food at birth. Therefore, nature seems to have preserved the enteric nervous system as an independent circuit inside higher animals. It is only loosely connected to the central nervous system and can mostly function alone, without instructions from topside.
This is indeed the picture seen by developmental biologists. A clump of tissue called the neural crest forms early in embryo genesis. One section turns into the central nervous system. Another piece migrates to become the enteric nervous system. According to Dr. Gershon, it is only later that the two systems are connected via a cable called the vagus nerve.
The brain sends signals to the gut by talking to a small number of "command neurons," which in turn sends signals to gut inter neurons that carry messages up and down the pike. Both command neurons and inter neurons are spread throughout two layers of gut tissue called the "myenteric plexus and the submuscosal plexus." Command neurons control the pattern of activity in the gut. The vagus nerve only alters the volume by changing its rates of firing.
The plexuses also contain glial cells that nourish neurons, mast cells involved in immune responses, and a "blood brain barrier" that keeps harmful substances away from chemical factors that might monitor the progress of digestion, determining how the gut mixes and propels its contents.
As light is shed on the circuitry between the two brains, researchers are beginning to understand why people act and feel the way they do. When the central brain encounters a frightening situation, it releases stress hormones that prepare the body to fight or flee. The stomach contains many sensory nerves that are stimulated by this chemical surge - hence the "butterflies." On the battlefield, the higher brain tells the defecate, according to Dr. Gershon.
Fear also causes the vagus nerve to "turn up the volume" on serotonin circuits in the gut. Thus over stimulated, the gut goes into higher gear and diarrhea results. Similarly, people sometimes "choke" with emotion. When nerves in the esophagus are highly stimulated, people have trouble swallowing.
Even the so-called "Maalox moment" of advertising can be explained by the interaction of the two brains, according to Dr. Jackie D. Wood, chairman of the department of physiology of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Stress signals from the head's brain can alter nerve function between the stomach and esophagus, resulting in heartburn.
In cases of extreme stress, Dr. Wood says that the higher brain seems to protect the gut by sending signals to immunological mast cells in the plexus. The mast cells secrete histamine, prostaglandin and other agents that help produce inflammation. This is protective. By inflaming the gut, the brain is priming the gut for surveillance. If the barrier breaks then the gut is ready to do repairs. Unfortunately, the chemicals that get released also cause diarrhea and cramping.
There also is an interaction between the gut brain and drugs. According to Dr. Gershon, "when you make a drug to have psychic effects on the brain, it’s very likely to have an effect on the gut that you didn’t think about." He also believes that some drugs developed for the brain could have uses in the gut. For example, the gut is loaded with the neurotransmitter serotonin. According to Gershon, when pressure receptors in the gut’s lining are stimulated, serotonin is released and stimulates the receptors in the gut's lining, serotonin is released and starts the reflexive motion of peristalsis. A quarter of the people taking Prozac or similar antidepressants have gastrointestinal problems like nausea, diarrhea and constipation. These drugs act on serotonin, preventing its uptake by target cells so that it remains more abundant in the central nervous system.
Gershon also is conducting a study of the side effects of Prozac on the gut. Prozac in small doses can treat chronic constipation. Prozac in larger doses can cause constipation - where the colon actually freezes up. Moreover, because Prozac stimulates sensory nerves, it also can cause nausea.
Some antibiotics like erythromycin act on gut receptors to produce oscillations. People experience cramps and nausea. Drugs like morphine and heroin attach to gut’s opiate receptors, producing constipation. Both brains can be addicted to opiates.
Victims of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases suffer from constipation. The nerves in their gut are as sick as the nerve cells in their brains. Just as the central brain affects the gut, the gut's brain can talk back to the head. Most of the gut sensations that enter conscious awareness are negative things like pain and bloating.
The question has been raised: Why does the human gut contain receptors for benzodiazepine, a drug that relieves anxiety? This suggests that the body produces its own internal source of the drug. According to Dr. Anthony Basile, a neurochemist in the Neuroscience Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, an Italian scientist made a startling discovery. Patients with liver failure fall into a deep coma. The coma can be reversed, in minutes, by giving the patient a drug that blocks benzodiazepine. When the liver fails, substances usually broken down by the liver get to the brain. Some are bad, like ammonia and mercaptans, which are "smelly compounds that skunks spray on you," says Dr. Basile. But a series of compounds are also identical to benzodiazepine. "We don’t know if they come from the gut itself, from bacteria in the gut or from food, but when the liver fails, the gut's benzodiazepine goes straight to the brain, knocking the patient
unconscious," says Dr. Basile.
The payoff for exploring gut and head brain interactions is enormous, according to Dr. Wood. Many people are allergic to certain foods like shellfish. This is because mast cells in the gut mysteriously become sensitized to antigens in the food. The next time the antigen shows up in the gut, the mast cells call up a program, releasing chemical modulators that try to eliminate the threat. The allergic person gets diarrhea and cramps.
Many autoimmune diseases like CROHN'S disease and ulcerative colitis may involve the gut’s brain, according to Dr. Wood. The consequences can be horrible, as in "Chagas disease," which is caused by parasite found in South America. Those infected develop an autoimmune response to neurons in their gut. Their immune system slowly destroys their own gut neurons. When enough neurons die, the intestines literally explode.
A big question remains. Can the gut’s brain learn? Does it "think" for itself? Dr. Gershon tells a story about an old Army sergeant, a male nurse in charge of a group of paraplegics. With their lower spinal cords destroyed, the patients would get impacted. "At 10 a.m. every day, the patients got enemas. Then the sergeant was rotated off the word. His replacement decided to give enemas only after compactions occurred. But at 10 the next morning everyone on the ward had a bowel movement at the same time, without enemas." Had the sergeant trained those colons?
The human gut has long been seen as a repository of good and bad feelings. Perhaps emotional states from the head’s brain are mirrored in the gut's brain, where they are felt by those who pay attention to them.
Reference: Taken from "A contemporary view of selected subjects" from the pages of The New York Times, January 23, 1996. Printed in Themes of the Times: General Psychology, Fall 1996. Distributed Exclusively by Prentice-Hall Publishing Company
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PERIMENOPAUSAL/MENOPAUSAL SYMPTOMS
SIXTY-SIX PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS:
These are very real physical changes and conditions. Some symptoms alarm a woman that she may be suffering from a serious disease. Perhaps you know the more common ones related to menopausal symptoms in this list. But many of these may surprise you, as they have not been typically associated with this normal physiological transformation.
1. Change in Menstrual Cycle, Cycles may get closer together or farther apart, lighter and shorter in duration or much heavier, lasting longer than one has been accustomed to. Menses may seem to take forever to begin with dark spotting for days until you actually flow, or you might feel like you have your menses every two weeks.
2. Menstrual Flooding can come on with sudden onset and feel like you may hemorrhage to death. Or it can be a gradual build up just when you think your menses will end and you start gushing for days. Flooding commonly accompanies the woman with uterine fibroids as she transits into menopause.
3. Headaches, Migraines, especially before, during or at the end of your menses debilitate and radically interferes with normal functioning.
4. Decreased Motor Coordination, Clumsiness, almost begins to make the woman who experiences this feel like she is a bit spastic, certainly less than graceful during perhaps an already awkward period in her life.
5. Lethargy, a persistent feeling sluggishness physically and mentally, that seems to negate ones ability to do much.
6. Physical Exhaustion , and Crushing Crashing Fatigue that can come on so suddenly and grip you into feeling like you will collapse unless you stop this instant.
7. Exacerbation of any Chronic Illness or Existing Condition transpires as hormones decline or deviate from their normal balance.
8. Insomnia, this includes a new or unusual pattern of either difficulty falling asleep, or dropping off to sleep for a few hours and then awakening with the inability to return to sleep.
9. Sleep Disturbances sometimes are from nightmares, night sweats, or just a vague sense of restlessness keeping you up or disrupting your precious revitalizing retreat from this realm of responsibilities.
10. Night Sweats often begin between a woman’s breasts, initially a night or two before her menses, waking her from sleep, later more profoundly disturbing with up to total body saturation, followed by damp or sweat drenched chills.
11. Interference With Dream Recall interrupts the sense of normal sleep, if you are someone accustomed to vivid or at least some detailed memory of your dreamtime.
12. Muscle Cramps can occur anywhere in the body from legs to back to neck, and sometimes reflects the need for more calcium, or simply that your progesterone levels are too low.
13. Low Backache often worsens before or during menses, but if your hormones remain at low levels, you can experience it on a regular basis.
14. Gall Bladder Symptoms of pain, spasms and discomfort felt in the right upper abdominal quadrant under the ribs, which may be accompanied by belching, bloating, and intolerance to certain foods reflect the increased liver load with declining hormones.
15. Frequent Urination, or sensations that mimic urinary infections is a disturbing symptom often unrelieved by actual urination. It is often experienced as the sensation of needing to urinate all the time, even immediately afterwards.
16. Urinary Incontinence, the uncontrollable and spontaneous loss of urine, or the Urge for Incontinence, can occur suddenly or feel continuous, and not only in response to coughing, sneezing, jumping or running.
17. Hypoglycemic Reactions happen when suddenly your blood sugar crashes and you must have food now.
18. Food Cravings, often for sweets or salty foods, but can include sour or pungent foods.
19. Increased Appetite, especially at night and after dinner contributes to that unusual and unwanted weight gain.
20. Dark Circles Under Eyes can also be caused by adrenal exhaustion and thyroid dysfunctions, but no amount of sleep seems to eliminate it.
21. Joint and Muscle Pain, Achy, Sore Joints, Muscles and Tendons, which sometimes develop into actual carpal tunnel syndrome, or give rise to the questioning of other disease possibilities.
22. Increased Tension in Muscles demonstrates itself in those hunched up shoulders as you work or talk about anything uncomfortable, along with promoting lower back pain and a stiff neck.
23. Increased Hair Loss or Thinning anywhere on body, including your head, armpits, pubic area.
24. Increase in Facial Hair especially under your chin, or along your jaw line. It may be defined by generalized hair growth, or a specific and coarse single strand of hair that pokes out, even curls.
25. Unusually Hair Growth, around Nipples, between Breasts, down your back, places where your hair was finer, less coarse.
26. Acne, quite disturbing to any woman who dealt with this in adolescence and never thought it would recur.
27. Infertility causes grief in the woman who postponed pregnancy in her earlier years and now wishes to conceive, carry to term a healthy baby, and discovers she is unable to do so.
28. Loss of Breast Tissue begins with the decrease of progesterone production. Women often feel as though their breast have become empty sacs devoid of their normal fullness, with or without sagging.
29. Breast Soreness/Tenderness/Pain/ Engorgement and swelling, occurs particularly a few days to one week before bleeding actually begins, which usually potentiates complete relief of any pain or swelling.
30. Painful, or tender nipples have been described as this exquisite localized pain only in the nipples and suggests estrogen excess.
31. Cold Extremities feels quite strange especially in the presence of a hot flash, the combination of which is not impossible.
32. Being Accident Prone, bumping into things, not even realizing it until the bruise reveals itself later and then lacking the ability to recall the causative incident feels perplexing and a little scary at the prospect of something more damaging.
33. Hot flashes initially may be described as mild to severe flushes of heat waves, and for some women these evolve into intense outbreaks of sudden heat with sweating and turning bright red all over.
34. Loss of Sexual Energy, our Libido, can be marked by a gradual or sudden disinterest in sex, to the development of an actual aversion.
35. Painful Sex often described as if one’s vagina would tear open at the point of penetration along with feelings of abrasion during intercourse.
36. Vaginal Dryness, Irritation, sometimes accompanied by a consistent unusual discharge - typically odor free, negates a woman’s ability to be sexually active, or able to enjoy or be comfortable in her body.
37. Dizziness, feeling lightheaded and the loss of physical balance, and even a bit wobbling at times, requires pause in movement to prevent falling over or deepening into vertigo or feeling faint.
38. Ringing in the Ears, Tinnitus, can be experienced as a pulsing sensation, a whooshing sound, an almost musical or buzzing sound with a fuzzy sensation.
39. Abdominal Bloating comes on suddenly often after eating, or seems to be all the time, and can be visibly evident making you feel that you look like you are pregnant.
40. Weight Gain disturbs most women, particularly when it seems to happen over a couple of days, settles in the waist, buttocks and thighs, promoting a visceral thickening from the waist down, the classic middle-aged figure.
41. Fluid Retention, Edema, commonly with swelling in the legs and ankles, though not limited to this area and it is unrelieved by urination.
42. Palpitations or Heart Racing usually comes on suddenly, without warning or provocation, and dissipates spontaneously. The experience can be so wild and intense that a woman may become alarmed and wonder if she is having a heart attack.
43. Irregularities in your Heart Rate may feel more like your heart has just done a flip-flop or skipped a beat.
44. Constipation/Diarrhea, intermittent or alternating, results from declining hormone levels, which increase the demands on liver function and alters intestinal motility.
45. Tendency towards Candidiasis can increase, even if you have no prior known history – and if you do, it may worsen.
46. Gastrointestinal Distress, Increased Flatulence, Unrelieved Gas pains, Indigestion, Nausea all can reflect intestinal changes due to hormonal imbalances.
47. Slow Digestion often goes along with the bloat – what previously took four to five hours to digest, now seems to take all night. It seems worse in the evenings.
48. Lack of Appetite may be experienced as more of a lack of interest in food, going to the frig and standing there with the door open and staring blankly. Feeling completely uninspired, you busy yourself with something else and forget that you need to eat.
49. Changes in Body Odor especially disturbing when it seems to focus in the groin area, but can be anywhere on the body.
50. Puffy Eyes, not only from sleep disturbances, but also can accompany low progesterone.
51. Facial Pallor alternating with Facial Flushes is often intermittent with hot flashes.
52. Flare up of Arthritis worsens with low progesterone levels and increase sugar intake.
53. Loss of Bone Density, Osteoporosis, is not only an elderly woman’s disease, though it seems to develop over an extended period and is triggered by the decline of hormone production.
54. Dry Hair, Change in Skin Tone, Integrity, and Texture, becomes more wrinkled, and may begin the thinning process.
55. Changes in your Fingernails characterized by easy breakage, bending, cracking and getting softer.
56. Itchy, Crawly Skin with a strange sensation like insects crawling around under the skin – quite different than the dry skin feeling.
57. Muscle tone seems to slack and sag, and loose its previous response to normal exercise.
58. Pelvic Pain can be random and independent of cycles and may feel continuous for some women.
59. Dry, Itchy Eyes felt in the deep posterior aspect of the eye socket, as well as superficially.
60. Teeth Aching or the experience of a strange sensation in one’s teeth or gums, often accompanied by an increase in bleeding gums.
61. Change in the normal Tongue sensation, which can be accompanied by a feeling of burning in your tongue and roof of mouth, malodorous breath or change in breath odor, and/or a bad taste in your mouth.
62. Memory Loss or Lapses in time, makes one feel disoriented and less focused, especially when you go into another room to get something specific and seconds later cannot remember what you went to retrieve.
63. Feeling Faint for no known reason (this does not include standing up too quickly)
64. Tingling in Extremities not only feels weird and like your hands or feet are falling asleep, but if persistent can be a symptom of diabetes, B12, potassium or calcium deficiency, or a compromise in blood vessel flexibility.
65. Sensation of Electrical Stimulation, Prick or Shock occurring in the tissue under the skin, and may signal you that a hot flash will begin.
66. Increase and worsening of Allergies occurs as hormones become imbalanced, so can our immune system.
TWENTY-FIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL & EMOTIONAL SYMPTOMS:
You may feel like you have stepped onto the emotional roller coaster ride of your life without ever giving your conscious consent to the ride. The emotional aspects can be intense and extreme, often described as if feeling stuck in a relentless PMS loop with all the perceptible alterations suffered to an extreme. Most of these symptoms are a result of progesterone deficiency and can be relieved with natural progesterone alone. Some, such as # 2, 9, 11, and 12 may require the addition of estrogens and/or DHEA. Others, if unresolved with phytogenic hormones may necessitate intervention and/or alternate therapy.
1. Crying or Weeping Spontaneously, which may be uncontrollable and either exaggerated for the circumstance, inappropriate or unprovoked.
2. Feelings of Panic, usually without warning and beyond one’s control to change, and may be accompanied by heart palpitations or a racy sensation.
3. Easily Frustrated and having a Very Short Fuse can lead to hasty and sometimes inappropriate reactions and/or decisions, not to mention glass breakage.
4. Feeling Violent, Aggressive or Hostile may or may not be expressed, and when this remains suppressed or inappropriately expressed repeatedly over time, serious disturbances result.
5. Feeling Self-Abusive or Self-Inflicting Injuries requires immediate attention and treatment.
6. Sudden Anger and Angry Outbursts, with greater intensity than a situation may provoke, or completely unprovoked by any known external cause disturbs ones sense of harmony or induce feelings of elation and self-satisfaction.
7. Feelings of Anxiety or Terror, often unexplained or irrational, when unprovoked by outside forces feels extremely disconcerting and if sustained can lead to a breakdown.
8. Verbal and/or Physical Abuse may flare up suddenly and be directed at anyone.
9. Feelings of Dread, Apprehension, again when sustained over time, feels like a relentless weight that catalyzes disturbing behavioral changes.
10. Loss of feeling Normal or general Sense of Well-Being, feeling the Loss of Self, can make one feel disconnected to the fabric of this existence and the meaning of everyday life.
11. Disturbing Memory Lapses can be physiologic in origin, or emotionally rooted. Either one usually responds over time to hormone therapy, unless due to organic brain disease or brain trauma.
12. Inability to Focus or Concentrate, Disorientation, Mental confusion contributes to feeling abnormal and disrupts any focused, mindful activities.
13. Irritability responds to the heightened sensitivities that escort us through this transitional time, and everything from your mood to your skin may feel irritable.
14. Mental Exhaustion and everything becomes too overwhelming to consider, even simple tasks or answering the phone to talk to one you love.
15. Depression, often described as different than other experiences with depression, welling up from deep within the soul, a prolonged dark night.
16. Feelings of Hopelessness, devoid of any sense of inspiration to go on with life, though not suicidal, supports the lethargy so often experienced in the menopausal process.
17. Mood Swings, crying over nothing in particular one minute, feeling elated the next and raging the one after that – the ultimate emotional antithesis of Yin/Yang, leading to #18.
18. Feelings of Being Crazy happens when we cease to recognize ourselves anymore due to all the wild, uncontrollable changes we endure physically, emotionally, mentally and possibly spiritually as well.
19. Inexplicable Thoughts of Doom that may be so severe that one becomes fixated on one’s own death, imagining the details. Effective assistance is just a natural hormone away.
20. Feeling Suicidal or actually Attempting Suicide necessitates intervention of more than hormone therapy if an actual attempt has occurred.
21. Feeling Withdrawn, curling up in a ball on the couch or under the covers works briefly, but really interferes with any sense of normal everyday life. Balancing alone time and hormones transforms perception and seems to expand horizons.
22. Feeling Hysterical or Actual Hysteria, beyond alternating crying jags with episodes of laughing, without provocation, it can also include somatic symptoms emulating any type of physical disease. The term stems from the Greek word hystera, which means uterus.
23. Feeling that Anything Happening is far Worse than it may be in reality, an exacerbation of perception may evolve into paranoia if left unattended.
24. Excessive Use of Alcohol, Drugs, or other Escape Mechanisms, if prolonged beyond hormonal adjustments, becomes a symptom that illicits further investigation and treatment.
25. Feeling in an Existential or Spiritual Crisis or Crossroad when nothing in your life truly makes sense anymore and you know you must change your life because you simply cannot go on living like this, even if the clarity with which to accomplish this eludes you.
PERHAPS IT’S TIME TO STOP POURING TEA FOR EVERYONE
But now that I am in love
with a place that doesn't care
how I look and if I am happy,
happy is how I look and that's all...
Excerpt from the poem, Weathering
Fleur Adcock
That place we want to love is inside ourselves, devoid of the expectations of who we think we were programmed to become, of how we think we ought to be. And we can stop trying to pretend that we must do life the way a culture dictates it, discovering our own way, one of the beauties of embracing our authentic selves. When we welcome our own evolution, including the aging process, we step into grace.
The years work their weathering regardless, and we can soften the lines of time with hormonal balancing. But the real softening occurs someplace deep inside the psyche when we stop trying to pour tea for everyone. We cease to try to be nice all the time and find a greater peace in being real with who we are in our essence. This is self-compassion. And if we are truly to be compassionate with others, we must learn to begin with ourselves. This requires discernment without judgment, and forgiveness of everything that triggers a reaction within us. We discover how to say no, simply and without feeling guilty. We do not need to await a cancer diagnosis, or catastrophic event to step into now as the most important moment. Practice, like establishing any new patter, it takes practice. And if we truly desire to live in a world of peace, we must choose to create it within ourselves first.
Know thyself. We’ve heard this expression throughout the ages. The process and changes we go through during life’s transitions, challenges this beyond our wildest dreams. Through revealing ourselves to each other, we reveal self to self. And contained within this raw truth we create a gateway to freedom, to awakening. And our journeys take us here. These journeys are what matters, not just the goal. Good journey to you.
© Copyright 2002-2006 Saundra McKenna. All rights reserved.
To orderTHE PHYTOGENIC HORMONE SOLUTION, Restoring Your Delicate Balance With Compounded Natural Hormones click on title.
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