The Natural Superwoman: A Mothertalk Book Review
I just read The Natural Superwoman by Dr. Uzzi Reiss. The book is based on finding natural ways to deal with many of the common complaints from women such as depression, weight, energy levels, libido, etc. He offers very good, sensible advice on how to eat, focusing mainly on cutting down on calories while still eating a meal that is satisfying. He also spend much of the book focused on bioidentical hormones, which unlike the Premarin and Provera that has been headlining in the news of late as cancer causing, are actually hormones identical to those which the body naturally produces, which make them not only safer but much more effective.
Reiss walked down the list of symptoms that a woman might experience when she has a lack of estrogen, progesterone or testosterone. Many of the complaints on these lists were quite familiar to me, especially in the estrogen arena. However, I am not sold on this.
Do you want to know why? It is because I have spent years going to doctors and telling them that I’m tired, I’m feeling anxiety and emotionally flat, my periods have gone from normal to near hemorrhaging every month, I have headaches and I’m just plain irritable (especially in the two weeks prior to my period when my estrogen is naturally diminishing) and they have labeled me a number of different things, given me the drugs and admonished me to exercise or not, eat such and such, or not, and told me that I WILL FEEL BETTER. And then I don’t. Or they do the blood test and come back with, “Nope, guess that wasn’t it, how about some more tests that do nothing except display your remarkable ability to bruise.”
In the past year I have been told that I have depression. It looks like a cortisol deficiency. It is all in your head. It’s all in your diet. Must be your thyroid. It’s PMS. I have Fibromyalgia. I believe the fibromyalgia- do you know why? Because it is just a label for a group of crappy symptoms with no real treatment and no discernable cause. The basic advice is “you can try all of this stuff, but it probably won’t work. We can give you painkillers and other drugs to mask the symptoms, but it won’t make them go away. Basically, you should just slow down, get some sleep and resign yourself to functioning way below par. Forever.”
So, forgive me, if when I see a huge list of symptoms that are ever so familiar along side a really easy solution (Reiss’s estrogen cream, applied lightly on estrogen heavy days of my cycle and heavily on days when my estrogen is depleted), I am totally skeptical. Oh, I want to believe. I want Reiss to personally work me up and really fix me. Everything he says sounds good. Very logical, cause and effect, and well thought out, and I will 100% agree with him when he said in the book that he is pretty sure that no one is suffering from a Prozac deficiency. I know I’m not.
After years of tracking my cycle and my overall state of being, what he wrote makes more sense than anything else I’ve read, and so I will make an appointment with my doctor and discuss it. Now, the chances that the military medical people will agree to trying out bioidentical hormones- not good. But still, it is worth a shot.
The one thing the book never mentioned was how all of these hormones applied during pregnancy. Many case studies discussed were of women of childbearing age, so I would have hoped to have seen that discussed a bit.
All in all, it was a thought provoking book, and I recommend it.
hi lou.
i am menopausal stage so am interested in the oestrogen cream. might try that myself!!
Comment by chris — January 31, 2008 @ 3:57 am
You are amazing. I wish I had your guts when I go to the doctor and they give me some B.S. “diagnosis” that shows they haven’t listened to a single word of what just came out of my mouth. It’s so frustrating, and I don’t even have fibromyalgia! I need to take a page out of your book and learn to fight harder!
Comment by Mome-rath — February 1, 2008 @ 6:15 am
Hi Lou, I am a retired military wife and just wanted to let you know that even if they don’t carry and can’t prescribe the meds at the military hospital , they can write a prescription for the drug and you can go to your local drug store and only pay the tricare co-pay which should be 9.00 max. I have done this with my kids allergy medicine which they stopped carrying at the mil. hosp. for cost cutting reasons. Hope this helps!
Comment by yanna — February 6, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
I know you don’t know me, but I couldn’t help but respond to this post. I believe in bioidenticals - I found a great Nurse Practitioner who understands the use of them and helped get me back on track. Most MD’s know nothing about them, so it is useless to talk to them about it - they do like to chalk our symptoms up to depression and “being all in our head”. You don’t even have to go with prescription strength to find good benefits. Health stores carry over the counter strength that you might find great help from - the tricky thing is to know whether to try estrogen, progesteren, or pregnenalone. Pregnenalone is a little talked about hormone that is kind of at the root of all other hormone - it can morph into whatever hormone you are short in. I don’t know what you need if you have excess - but I never heard anyone suffering from excess hormones, usually from lack of. I started with progesterone cream, but once I found out about pregnenolnone I started using that and had great success. (However, don’t use it as much as the bottle says - only 2 times a week at the most). The bioidenticals are safe to use while pregnant - in fact many recommend the use of progesterone while pregnant, just because. I currently am pregnant, but haven’t been using any hormones, although I think I have used the pregnenalone a time or two. I kind of got to the point where I could tell if my body needed more and would use it if I “felt” like I needed some. That is what is great about becoming in tune with our bodies and listening to what they are telling us and not just feed them full of drugs because the doctor doesn’t know what else to do for us.
I know this was a long, unsolicited comment, but I hope it helps, I know the frustrations you are experiencing - and there are answers - just maybe not through conventional means - you just have to keep searching and praying (I’m LDS too). Good luck
Comment by Jenni — February 25, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
The reason the writer is sceptical about Uzzi Reiss book is that she is seeking confirmation from conventional doctors who know nothing of bio-identical hormones -all they know is what the last drug rep told them. If you want the correct information regarding what ails you then go to an Anti-Aging or Life Extension doctor. But, you are not going to receive help from a Pharmaceutical Industry educated conventional doctor. It cost me over five hundred thousand dollars to find this out. Uzzi Reiss is spot on!
Comment by Christine — May 28, 2008 @ 7:22 am