Do you ever yearn for a hamam? You know a place to go once a month? The red tent? The menstrual hut? As modern women, we have lost this tradition of honoring ourselves during our menses. No wonder so many suffer from premenstrual syndrome. Knowing you are going to face life severely challenged by your lack of hormones every month is enough to send you over the edge. What is tolerable on a daily basis—fussy children refusing to get ready for school, your spouse’s dirty clothes tossed on the floor instead of in the hamper, telemarketers calling when you're already running late—becomes absolutely intolerable. Futilely you try to entice the kids from their warm beds, then tripping over your husband’s dirty clothes, your voice rising as you gather his mess up to toss in the garbage, the phone rings and you hurry catching your bare toe on the edge of the door...down for the count.
You need a break from your life.

Well once upon a time women gave each other a respite by taking over for their “sisters” once a month. Our hormones mirror one another so women who live and work closely together start cycling as one, so what happened when all the women were in the hamam at once? The men floundered, the children found their grandmothers’ laps most inviting and the menstruating women were truly appreciated.
Absence does make the heart grow founder.

Years ago, I began wearing a red gypsy skirt during my cycle. Although not getting massaged by my “hamam sisters” while pouring my woes into sympathetic ears and feasting on sweets without a care, I got respect from my family. So much so that my pubescent daughter yearned for a “period skirt” and when that special time finally came, we celebrated heartily, dancing about in our beautiful skirts, eating chocolate, fixing each other’s hair and nails. Ecstatic to be like mom, my daughter appreciated being pampered a few days a month. And I loved reawakening the lost tradition of the hamam. Have a happy moon cycle :)

Welcome to Hormones in Harmony!

Why is your brain in a fog? You might be hormonally challenged.
If you ever “lost” something you just put down or entered a room and forgot why you went, you have experienced brain fog. It’s common when the sex steroids—specifically estrogen—decline whether that be briefly in the premenstrual period or permanently at menopause or andropause (the male equivalence and yes, male testosterone is converted to estrogen which enhances memory and mental acquity).
Lush hormones keep young brains bright and juicy— neurotransmitters float through a watery matrix to initiate electrical impulses in the brain. When hormones are properly balanced, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
My hormonally challenged patients are often overwhelmed with information at the first consultation, but once we get their hormones harmonized, they retain the “endocrine 101” lecture material well enough to teach their friends about the importance of balanced hormones. Many of my fifty plus patients return to school to pursue graduate degrees, work on their doctorates, even start new careers once their physiology is optimized with individualized combination of bio-identical hormones and nutritional hypothalamic support.

“It’s not a hot flash…It’s a power surge!” Menopause can be the worst of times or the best of times. Why not use this hormonal transition to empower yourself? Although still basking in the joys of perimenopause, on that occasional night I wake up over heated, the dream I just had is profound, sometimes a premonition, but always insightful. Menopausal women are some of my most insightful patients. Their hormonal swings serve to highlight life’s lessons and those who receive the blessings of such a profound transition journey far on their soul path. I love how eloquently hormones color the canvas of our lives. These tiny biochemical messengers have the power to transform us.

One of my dearest patients shared her menopausal moments with me. Time spent tuning her system with transdermal bio-identical hormones highlighted the void in her life. She had shut down the creative energies in her root chakra by refusing to use her gifts—a talented artist who spent most of her life pursuing what she believed to be more stable means of making a living. My goal in providing hormonal support is to use the bio-identicals to “sing” with the patient until her glands remember the tune and can perform a’capello. In that light, I recommended that this patient begin taking the nutraceutical I developed to balance the hypothalamus (the maestro of the entire neuro-immune-endocrine system). Within months of adding Genesis Gold® to her regime, this repressed artist emerged from hibernation with her own well balanced hormones and creative works multiplying in her office. Today she has her own studio and is one of the most beautifully vibrant women in my practice.

When my mother complained that she’d rather have uterine cancer than suffer with depression induced by synthetic hormones, I searched for natural alternatives. Thus began my coronation as The Hormone Queen. Women began flocking to my practice for botanically derived bio-identical hormones to harmonize their imbalanced systems. Like fine tuning a musical instrument, I experimented with different doses and delivery systems. The transdermal creams made by experienced compounding pharmacists worked like a charm for the majority of my patients and for the rest sublingual troches provided relief.
In the mid-nineties, I got lots of experience helping patients with root chakra issues—ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids, menstrual irregularities, infertility, cervical dysplasia— and became so adept at inserting and removing Norplant contraceptive devices that for a few years I was known as the Contraceptive Queen. Although my practice has expanded to include treating every known hormonal imbalance, root chakra issues are so common that it’s often the first issue that must be addressed. And it isn’t just imbalanced women who come to me for help but men suffering from prostatitis, erectile dysfunction, and more subtle signs of testosterone deficiency. Truth be told, there isn’t enough bio-identical hormones to dip these patients in if they are unwilling to accept the psycho-spiritual nature of their ailment. So I spend a lot of time counseling my patients.
Like the other day a perimenopausal woman recently diagnosed with uterine fibroids came to me for alternative therapies. We discussed her options—natural progesterone to balance the estrogen dominance, Ic3 indoles to enhance less inflammatory estrogen metabolism and healthy doses of Coenzyme Q 10—but only when I suggested that the fibroids mirrored her recent hibernation of creative energies did the true healing begin. She broke down and cried. (Kleenex is a precious commodity in my office)
The recognition of how her beliefs had influenced her health was the first step in releasing the congested energies. We ended the session by expressing gratitude for the wisdom of her body in showing her soul the way towards healing.

So who is this colorful lady with the funny shapes from her root to her crown?
Meet Princess Chakra.
Chakra is Sanskrit for wheels of energy, each rainbow shape depicts the endocrine system—the glands which produce hormones.
If she is Princess Chakra, then I am the Hormone Queen.
Since giving birth in 1984 to a very hormonally challenged baby, I have been immersed in the intricacies of the endocrine system. Doesn’t it seem like the eye doctors wear the thickest glasses? Well, we all have our impetus to serve the world and mine was my son. Perhaps his story shall be revealed in another blog. (what a funny word…is it short for weblog, like a ship’s log in which the captain records where his vessel has sailed? Hmm!)
But for now I celebrate my initiation having set sail on the sea of blogging.
The time is ripe to share the secrets of health and happiness each foreign port with joy.