I’ve been talking about the book Hormones, Health, and Happiness: A Natural Medical Formula for Rediscovering Youth with Bioidentical Hormones
I am continuing to work my way through the book, though by the time I get through commenting on it as I read through it, I will have essentially completed a formal book review. What can I say. It’s just my way. I think out loud.
Anyway. So, earlier this week I dialed into Dr. Hotze’s radio program. You can find information about it here at his website. Dr. Hotze was having a discussion with Dr. Erika Schwartz who is also a champion of bioidentical hormones for the treatment of menopause. The discussion was lively to say the least and very informative.
I’ve said often that I find myself a bit perplexed with all of the conflicting information on bioidentical hormones versus traditional hormone therapy. Because how frustrating is it when credible physicians – and when I say credible, I mean physicians who have graduated from reputable medical schools and hold all of the appropriate medical degrees and have practiced medicine in our medical field as we know it – vehemently and strongly disagree with one another on the topic?
I understand medicine is an art. I also understand that medicine evolves and that everything we accept today as “common medical knowledge & practice” began, at some point, as a new idea. Case and point: Today, heart transplants and surgeries are common place. In the 1960′s they were not.
In the early 1990′s, I worked for a young heart transplant surgeon in Louisiana. At the time, there were no heart transplant programs in any of the hospitals in Louisiana. Though he wasn’t a pioneer in the field he was certainly at the forefront of the medical research and heart transplant procedures at the time.
I saw things that opened my eyes to medicine in ways that I had not really understood. Here was a brilliant surgeon who was basically “practicing” heart transplants on anyone and everyone who walked into the door of that clinic.
It seemed to me that many of the people that came to him were nothing more than guinea pigs for a young and zealous doctor trying to gain federal funding for his program. Unfortunately, many of those patients died. He did too. Of a heart attack. Major Karma.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that because bioidentical hormones are new and they are evolving out of an industry that maybe most physicians do not take seriously (the natural and holistic approach to health and wellness) I can understand the pushing and shoving that is going on. There are educated, informed people on both sides of the debate who disagree. Wow. There’s something new.
I am not an evangelist for anything. I never presume that what is good for me is good for you. Because of that, I have tried to be very balanced here in my blogging. In other words, I know there are people who read my blog who use traditional hormone replacement therapy. I have no plans to run them off.
But, I’m going to come clean here, folks. As I continue to read this book, give it more thought and continue to learn, I am leaning more and more in the direction of bioidentical hormones.
I also appreciate the notion that Dr. Hotze and Dr. Schwartz believe that listening to a patient and taking into consideration how they feel is a big part of how they approach helping them achieve wellness. These are important factors when it comes to medicine and it gets tiring when you feel like your physical health is like a crap shoot. How many times have you been to a doctor for something and they shrug and go….”I dunno. Try this?”
Me? Pretty much all the time. Now, I respect doctors. I trust they have knowledge and skill that I do not have. They are not, however, God. So, bearing that in mind, I will be reading more and educating myself on the topic of bioidentical hormones.
You can also catch me next week on Dr. Hotze’s radio program. I will be interviewed for half an hour on the topic of bioidenticals, perimenopause, women’s health issues and blogging as an advocate for women’s health. I hope you’ll join in. As with my interview with Eileen last week, I will definitely link to the program and you can catch it on your own time if you can’t make it.
