for NOVA re: can you believe. . .

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 22/06/2006 19:14:04 GMT Daylight Time,

Zdamask@... writes:

Hi Hollis

Hi, Nova. My comments are interspersed in blue below.

Congrats on unearthing the test results so quickly. I'm impressed!

I am impressed myself! lol This just does not happen to me. Well it does

now!

Well, i'm much more familiar with serum test numbers than with

the saliva, but your figure is obviously quite low. ARE you

menopausal?

Post-menopausal Hollis. I am 58 this year and my menopause was about ages

49-52ish.

It's not just the individual levels of e & p that

are important, but probably even more so the ratio between

the two. And in that respect you're obviously very unbalanced.

I have liver disease and it has been suggested in an earlier post liver

dysfuction can cause progesterone levels to rise.

I hadn't been aware of that before. That's interesting.

Also, keep in mind that no matter what your endocrinological

" age, " (pre-, peri-, or post-menopausal) " age, " (pre-, peri-, or post-

fall below a certain point you lose all of estrogen's great benefits

to skin, bone, heart, brain, and the uro-genital area.

What is that certain point Hollis? Am I there?

For blood serum levels, that point is about 90-100 pg/mL of estradiol.

Anything under that and you'll most likely lose some or all of e's

beneficial effects. I have no idea how that translates to the saliva

tests. Sorry.

Val's

experience with estrogen helping with bladder control is not

just some individual fluke -- estrogen provides elasticity and

strength to tissues throughout the body, including the bladder.

I suppose I have been thinking that as I age my levels of oestrogen will

lower and that this is natural and normal. It is confusing. In what

situations

is it OK to supplement with oestrogen? In this case because of the unbalanced

nature of the two hormones? Should I take oestrogen and then test in a year

or

so?

Yes, i know. It's EXTREMELY confusing. I think part of the problem is

that people forget that not that long ago at all women rarely lived past

menopause, if even that long. So, i suppose that one way to look at it

is that, yes, letting nature " take its course " after menopause sounds

nice and nature. But if you're living two, three, or four decades PAST

menopause do you really want to spend that time possibly suffering

tremendous health problems when so many of those problems could

be ameliorated or eliminated by bio-identical hormone supplemenation

as needed? I look at it the same way as i look at natural porcine thyroid

supplementation: if you need it, you need it.

Situations in which estrogen supplementation would be appropriate would

be: incontinence, pain with sex, increased urinary/bladder problems,

increased pain/fibromyalgia, memory problems, bone loss, depression,

heart problems, loss of skin elasticity and muscle mass, lack of " umph "

(for lack of a better term) and a whole lot of other things i can't think of

right now. It's a very, very important hormone to have proper amounts of.

I'm in the same situation that you are: way too high p. and low e. I've

been searching with little success to find literature on ways to right that

imbalance and the best i've come up with is to be very careful about the

use of skin care products which might contain hormone-disrupting chemicals.

Because my estrogen levels have fallen dramatically over the last 10

months (from 67 to 33, which is concerned near-menopausal range), i've

started using an estrogen patch at my gynecologist's suggestion (and

my original desire!) I hope that will help balance out the high p. effects i

deal with (tremendous pre-period bloating, very sore nipples, headaches,

and fatigue). We'll see. After all the research i've done and all the

positive stories i've heard, i'm hopeful that it will.

Is it possible for you to get serum blood testing of your progesterone and

estrogen levels? If you do supplement with estrogen, it's recommended

to recheck your levels within a few months so you can monitor how things

stand and adjust accordingly. Of course, you could use the saliva results

as a guide as well.

I have an idea. Dr. Mark , who has a website, does phone consultations

for women using Diagnos-Tech saliva testing as a guideline. You might want

to get in touch with him if you're interested in pursuing this. Just google

his name.

I personally feel that blood testing is more accurate for sex hormones than

saliva

(there's a lot of controversy about this), but i have talked with Dr.

and think

he's knowledgeable, as well as being very nice. However, i'll warn you: he

does

have supplements that he's been involved in developing (though he didn't

particularly

push them on me and i didn't get them).

Of course, this is only if you don't have access to a good doctor where you

live.

Was diagnosed with inflammation of the ligaments in my foot yesterday.

Cannot remember the latin name. I am wondering if this could be connected to

the

elasticity to which you refer?

It's certainly possibly that it's a contributing factor. Estrogen,

progesterone,

testosterone, DHEA, thyroid, cortisol -- it's important to balance ALL of

them for

good health. They're all important and they're all inter-related.

Hollis