General Attitude Towards Progesterone
Why are we unwilling to address the escalating hormonal problems afflicting women and men today?
Women are discovering across the globe that progesterone is proving to be the missing link to their hormonal health and wellbeing in general. And this excitement and newfound knowledge is contagious. More and more, women want to share this revelation with their fellow sisterhood.
There is, however, a resistance out there despite the fact symptoms appear to be associated with ‘estrogen dominance’ - a term coined by the late Dr Lee where progesterone levels are inadequate and estrogen dominates the hormonal environment. This can be caused by synthetic HRT, obesity, eating habits, fatty liver, lifestyle, or exposure to toxins in our environmental.
Our society has given rise to the ‘quick-fix’ approach, where we reach for a tablet to rid ourselves of pain or excess weight, get rid of, regulate or halt menstruation, protect against fertility or remove any likelihood of pregnancy the morning after. We are a society that has learnt there are quick, easy solutions which ultimately remove us from the responsibility of dealing with, and perhaps preventing these health problems.
With the advent of HRT, multi-national drug companies have ever-so-cleverly conditioned us to view menopause as a ‘disease’ we can ’side-step’ completely with the aid of a tablet .. and look better into the bargain. In many cases, we’re given HRT as the standard form of treatment where no treatment may be required!
What women fail to realise when contemplating this ‘one size fits all’ treatment of menopause and menopausal symptoms, is that at the end of the day huge health problems continue to plagued women. HRT hasn’t provided a solution, but rather generated ‘repeat sales’ for the drug companies and GPs who’s business thrives as a result of the follow-up consultations and medication prescribed to treat secondary conditions that exist because women have been encouraged to take HRT in the first place.
If a woman is serious about embracing natural hormonal balancing techniques that include progesterone therapy then she is going to have to do the investigative work. Hormonal health and wellbeing takes hard work, commitment, time and responsibility for the part you play in keeping yourself well. There is no quick fix or magic bullet on the immediate horizon.
And it’s not much different for our teenage children.
Mothers contact our website looking for answers. Acne, irregular and/or painful periods or the absence of periods, sudden weight gain, daughters presenting with symptoms that indicate polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis, or who are exhibiting huge androgen effects in their body as a result of their eating habits.
By the time these mums find us, some have already tried putting their daughter on The Contraceptive Pill only to experience further problems. Or they just don’t like the idea of giving their child synthetic drugs, especially at such a tender age when reproductive organs are still maturing.
When it’s suggested these symptoms may indicate hormone imbalance, it comes as an absolute shock to the mother and her daughter, and the following comments are not unusual, “but I’ve had her tested out”, “the endocrinologist says she is fine”, “there is no reason for her to be going through all this”.
When women approach this website with a history of migraines and PMS, we suggest it may be a peri-menopausal symptom, perhaps estrogen dominance, or the result of hormone imbalance subsequent to a tubal ligation, etc. Or, if a menopausal woman comes to us after HRT failed to provide relief, or she is actually suffering debilitating side effects because of HRT, she’ll turn around and say, “This isn’t right, my doctor said that I wouldn’t have to go through menopause“, or perhaps “I thought I was through menopause“.
There seems to be a general lack of awareness and knowledge about our reproductive health. A tremendous gap in education that makes it rather difficult to help a woman make sense of the various hormonal changes occurring within her body throughout her life. Bodily changes during puberty is taught in sex education classes at school. It’s now common practice for a mother to teach her daughter all about the developmental stages of her young life - getting her period, the rounding of her body shape, growing boobs, having babies and contraception - but no one out there teaches a woman that the ebb and flow of her hormones will continue throughout her lifetime. And can be markedly influenced by the chemicals and toxins in her environment, her eating habits and poor nutrition, her state of mind, her sedentary and somewhat stressful lifestyle, all of which can create endocrine disruption to the body.
It is little wonder then that when we mention the word ‘menopause‘ or ‘hormonal imbalance‘, women automatically make the association, “Oh my God, that doesn’t happen until you’re in your fifties and sixties”, drawing the conclusion that its some form of unwanted disease or unwanted stage of life to be avoided at all costs. In some people’s mind, it’s a barometer that they are over the hill and heading down the pathway of osteoporosis and redundancy.
There seems to be this pervading sense of embarassment and social myth surrounding women’s hormonal health that we suspect is driven by big drug companies to keep women in the dark for monetary gain. Sadly, we wait until we are met with a health crisis in our life before doing something about it. It usually takes some life threatening situation or confrontational issue before we’ll actually change our life or change our style of living and with it, our eating patterns. And for this to occur, it usually takes a tragedy rather than from being generally well informed. What smoker doesn’t know about the risk of lung cancer, and yet may wait until she has emphysema or a life threatening disease before she actually considers giving up the cigarettes. We find hormones are very much similar to that. Women generally contact our website at the point which they have exhausted all options and have got nowhere else to go.
Over a period of time we have witnessed some fantastic, remarkable things occurring throughout the network that connects women with friends and relatives. Women are helping women. They are educating others purely by spreading the word gently. Often women ask the Natural-Progesterone-Advisory-Network.com website, “How can I get my mother or how can I get my sister to use progesterone?” The fact is, you can’t. All you can do is make the information available and leave it with her. Because when the time is right, when she needs it, she will come back to it. The seed is sown. The only thing a woman needs to do is offer her mother, her sister or her friend an ‘opening’ to learn more beyond what they are currently aware of.
One of our greatest joys and challenges has been the advocation of natural progesterone to every woman we come into contact with such that each has an opportunity to embrace a more natural, safer form of hormone replacement therapy.
We jump at every opportunity to help educate young teenagers because it is the younger generation we are most concerned about. More and more, we are seeing problems emerge where girls and boys are entering puberty earlier, where they are battling uncontrollable weight gain and in some cases severe hormone problems. Cases of infertility are doubling, there seems to be a growing risk of breast cancer, endometriosis, ovarian dysfunction. Menstrual problems that require synthetic HRT (The Pill) are on the rise. Basically, adolescents are suffering hormonal imbalance like never before in history.
We’ve seen hormone disruption across all age groups, not just the aged. We have seen it from as early as 9-10 years of age, right through to 80, but unfortunately the problem seems to be accelerating. There appears to be a correlation with our fast-paced lifestyle and reliance on fast foods, refined sugars and carbohydrates. We have been trained to accept that there’s a drug out there to fix all our problems. But there is always a high price to pay for quick fixes.
So, if someone is resistant to your suggestion of progesterone, don’t be offended by it or put off. Pat yourself on the back and say, “I’ve paid it forward”. When these women are ready, the right information will present itself, or they’ll come back to you asking for more details.
Let your own good health speak for itself. It will be your own results that shine through. It will be your renewed hormonal health that will be the proof of the pudding, not your words. In effect, “Walk the talk”. Don’t make the mistake of lecturing in the blind hope you’ll reform the world. Instead, just take responsibility and reform yourself. Take some action in protecting your environment, your immediate health and family, and news will spread. And when there are enough women out there doing this, a paradigm shift will occur. But we cannot instigate change until we make the change within ourselves.
Every day, we see more and more women making this internal change, which gives us faith and hope that the future might yet promise optimal health for our grandchildren.
