Healthy Tips For Better Live

Archive for March, 2009

Do alternatives for hormone replacement therapy exist? Yes! Available alternatives for hormone replacement therapy consist of two primary forms — synthetic therapy and natural hormone replacement therapy.

The synthetic hormone replacement therapy drugs are not the same as natural hormones that occur in the body. Since substances occurring naturally cannot be patented, drug companies alter the molecular structure and create new substances that are patentable and therefore protected for business purposes. Examples are Premarin, Prempro and Provera — these synthetic drugs are different in their molecular structure from the estrogens and progesterone found in the human body.

But alternatives for hormone replacement therapy using synthetic drugs may not treat your symptoms of menopause safely! And the problem with synthetic drugs is — since they are different from what occurs naturally in the human body, the body treats them differently, and the result is often harmful side effects. Synthetic hormone replacement therapy risks may exceed the benefits based on numerous clinical trials such as the Women’s Health Initiative studies!

On the other hand, natural alternatives for hormone replacement therapy use natural estrogen and/or natural progesterone hormones. Natural hormones are also referred to as bioidentical hormones. Using safer natural alternatives for hormone replacement therapy is recommended by numerous physicians since the body is able to receive, use and eliminate the natural hormones as needed. Most women may not need synthetic drugs with related side effects to regain health and eliminate symptoms of hormone imbalance.

The two primary hormones for a woman are estrogen and progesterone. Both are needed to function normally and for good health. In a healthy woman and normal menstrual cycle, estrogen is the main hormone produced for the first 10-12 days following the previous menstrual flow. With ovulation, the body begins producing progesterone that continues for the next 12 days or so. If pregnancy does not occur, estrogen and progesterone levels will drop at around day 28 and menstruation begins. However, if there is no ovulation, progesterone will not be produced by the body that cycle. This event is called an annovulatory cycle, and it is happens frequently today for women in their thirties and forties — no ovulation and no progesterone.

What this means is the woman will be deficient in progesterone with an excess of estrogen, which will likely result in symptoms of hormone imbalance. Progesterone balances or opposes many actions of estrogen. Without suitable progesterone in the body, symptoms of hormone imbalance will likely be experienced. The symptoms of hormone imbalance can be signs that your body isn’t getting the support it needs.
If the woman has had a hysterectomy, surgical menopause means the body produces little or no progesterone, creating hormone imbalance. And in postmenopausal women, the production of progesterone ceases as ovulation no longer happens. However, even after menopause, estrogen production will still be 40 to 60 percent of what it once was.

How does a woman know more about appropriate natural alternatives for hormone replacement therapy? One way is to work with a naturopathic doctor who is schooled and trained in both conventional medicine and natural alternative medicine. If you are currently on synthetic HRT and want to change to natural HRT, you should consult with doctors experienced in the use of natural hormone replacement therapy. Naturopathic physicians are medical doctors that work to restore and support the body’s systems by using medicines and techniques that are in harmony with natural body processes. A naturopathic physician will prefer treatments which keep harmful side effects risks at a minimum.

Another way is to take the online hormone health test provided by a leading women’s health clinic. The online test takes just a few minutes and is free. Find out more about your health, symptoms, what the symptoms may be telling you and what to do about it based on your answers to important questions. And read more about hormone imbalance and physician-recommended natural alternatives for hormone replacement therapy.

Copyright 2005 InfoSearch Publishing

Are you displaying the signs and symptoms of anxiety depression? Do you have panic attacks, feeling stressed out or depressed? If so, you may be suffering from Anxiety. Read on to find out about the most common signs and symptoms of anxiety depression and how to deal with and treat anxiety.

1) Types of Anxiety: Panic disorder: panic attacks, which are caused by situations that bring on feelings of anxiety for no apparent reason. Phobias: Agoraphobia = the fear of going into wide open spaces and crowds / Social phobia = fear of meeting new people and worries of what others think of you. OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder includes reoccurring obsessions that trigger feeling of disgust. Sufferers will commonly have issues with germs, resulting in constant hand washing. Generalised Anxiety Disorder/Anxiety Depression: is a long term disorder, where sufferers will experience constant stress and worries (see below for more on the common signs and symptoms anxiety depression). 2) Signs and symptoms of anxiety depression Physiological effects: muscle tension, headaches, nausea, tiredness, trembling, pins and needles, frequent visits to the toilet and insomnia. Signs and symptoms of anxiety depression Mental and emotional effects: increased worrying and tension, restlessness, feeling edgy, easily startled, difficulty concentrating, constantly worried, feeling uneasy, thinking that you are going mad and a lack of control over your actions. Panic Attacks: shortness of breath, palpitations, a pounding heart, chest pains, shaking, hot/cold flashes and dizziness. 3) Causes: anxiety and depression can both be genetic and run in families. Chemical changes in the brain can often bring on depression, but the most common reason for anxiety is caused by ones environment. Stress at work, abuse, death of a loved one, moving or changing jobs or losing a job are often sited as the main causes. 4) Getting help: more than 4 million Americans suffer from anxiety, so remember you’re not the only one in the world who is feeling like this. Getting help for anxiety and depression is easy then ever and there are so many options available to you. Some of the most effective cures are relaxation techniques, regular exercise, a good diet, monitoring your moods, group support, professional help, CBT and medication.
If you have been experiencing the Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety Depression for more than two weeks you should seek some medical advice from a professional. For even more information on Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety Depression click on the links below.

Almost all individuals in some phases of their lives have suffered from insomnia. In most cases, insomnia is sporadic in nature that appears and ebbs off without any reason or warning. However, if an individual persists with insomnia symptoms for more than four weeks, it is a case of severe insomnia and needs medical advice. With this topic in mind, let’s take a look at some important facts about this form of chronic insomnia.

This form can be brought on by a number of situations. However, common examples include never ending demands and desires of life, unrealistic expectations, skyline ambitions, anxiety, tensions, failures in life both in personal and professional arenas and traumatic experiences of life such as separation/divorce can trigger severe insomnia or sleeplessness.

Types of Insomnia:

Depending on the severity of the disease and the duration time of symptoms, insomnia is classified into different forms. Here, is a list of some of the major types of insomnia:
Transient or (short term) insomnia: These can lasts from a single night to a few weeks. Intermittent or (on and off) insomnia which can occur from time to time. Idiopathic insomnia is a life long problem that some people have in initiating and maintaining sleep. It can cause serious impairment in daytime functioning. Psycho physiologic insomnia: In this case the bedroom becomes a dreaded place for the patient. The more the patient focuses on the ability to sleep harder it takes to sleep. Paradoxical insomnia: This is a situation where a person feels that he/she is not able to sleep properly. On the contrary, the situation is not real. Another major form of insomnia is chronic or severe insomnia, a complex health condition that causes considerable damage in our life.

Any person suffering with severe insomnia lacks enthusiasm; ability to work diminishes, becomes irritable causing considerable damage in both professional and personal life. Furthermore, the lack of concentration can go to the extent of meeting with accidents or even contemplating with suicidal tendencies. Due to this reason, one should never neglect chronic insomnia symptoms.

Causes of Severe Insomnia:

Severe insomnia results from a combination of factors. One of the most common reasons for chronic insomnia is depression. Even long lasting physical ailments like arthritis, kidney disease, heart failure, Parkinson’s disease, and hyperthyroidism can lead to chronic insomnia.

Treatment of Severe Insomnia:

Severe insomnia creates havoc in our life. A person suffering from severe insomnia becomes desperate to come out of it. Now-a-days, different techniques are used to improve the patients sleeping conditions such as controlling and changing sleeping habits of the patient, drinking warm milk just half an hour before sleeping, taking a warm bath, etc. Avoiding excess coffee, tea, alcohol helps in controlling insomnia. Relaxation techniques such as meditations, yoga and messaging bring us calmness and tranquility which induces sleep. However, all these methods are effective only when they are supported by some proper insomnia medications.

Severe insomnia lasts for longer periods. Hence, treatment of severe insomnia often necessitates the temporary use of tranquilizing drugs and other hypnotic medications such as Benzodiazepine sedatives like Restoril, Dalmane, Halcion, Estazolam, Ativan, Clonazepam and non-benzodiazepine sedatives like Lunesta, Sonata, Ambien, Melatonin and Ramelteon. Medical practitioners even prescribe some antidepressants like Amitriptyline and Trazodone for the treatment of severe insomnia in patients who are also suffering with depression. However, a bit of care is essential while taking in any of these pills. Most importantly, all these medicines cause drug tolerance, thereby becoming ineffective after some time. Also, these drugs must never be taken without proper consultation from the doctor.

By keeping this information in mind, you should begin to have a greater understanding of sever insomnia. We recommend you research the issue further to get an even greater understand to help you or your loved ones get the relief they seek.

If there is a diagnosis or strong suspicion of ovarian cancer, immediately go find a board certified gynecologic oncologist. This is a gynecologist who has undergone years of extra training and examinations to become board certified in the care of women with gynecologic cancers. This includes performing surgery, giving chemotherapy and recommending whether or not radiation is required. Note that radiation is rarely used in ovarian cancer treatment.

A board eligible oncologist who has completed fellowship training is an option as well. This means they have completed training, but are required to practice a few years before being allowed to take the final board certification exam. These energetic, recently trained oncologists are usually in practice with more senior physicians so you will often receive team based care in such private or University practices.

If you are under the care of a gynecologic oncologist who does not inspire confidence or does not present some kind of positive outlook, go find another one. This is not to say that they should be painting a rose garden picture. However, it is reasonable to expect your main physician to be objective but encouraging if at all possible. The treatment is hard and the outcome may not always be the best, but you do have a fighting chance and you should feel that your gynecologic oncologist is in your corner, providing personal attention and state-of-the-art information throughout.

Do not let anyone, including friends, family physicians, general gynecologists, surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, or any other doctor convince you that their team is just as good in the absence of a gynecologic oncologist. You absolutely, positively need a gynecologic oncologist as part of your team!! Again, do not let anyone convince you otherwise.

You can find help and a list of gynecologic oncologists in your area at www.sgo.org (Society of Gynecologic Oncologists) or www.wcn.org (Womens Cancer Network). To my knowledge there is no comprehensive and accurate international directory. However, you might try contacting the International Gynecologic Cancer Society at www.igcs.org, who may be able to help you find a gynecologic oncologist in your country.

Your gynecologic oncologist may or may not work closely with a medical oncologist instead of administering chemotherapy his/her-self. A medical oncologist is a doctor who specializes in giving chemotherapy to patients with all different types of cancer, gynecologic or not. Most do not see as many patients with ovarian cancer as a gynecologic oncologist, but can be very important members of a team approach in treating your cancer. In centers or medical groups where treatment is regularly delivered by a multi-disciplinary team, medical oncologists play a critical role in administering the chemotherapy, working in conjunction with a gynecologic oncologist.

Who else do you need? First of all, don’t forget that YOU are a team member! The doctors you work with will give you options, opinion, information, treat you etc., but you must be an active decision-maker because we are talking about YOUR body here. You also have to be aware of what to look for in how your body responds, so that you can relay that information to your doctor(s). They cannot guess what might be going on with you. Make sure that you feel comfortable with your doctors. You should be able to ask questions, and relay fears and concerns.

When you visit your doctor(s), make sure you have all your questions lined up and write them down if you need to in order to stay organized. Some doctors will let you record your visits, others will prefer that you don’t. An alternative is to bring a family member or friend to help you hear everything.

Other members of the team might include:

Primary Care Doctor – Your Primary Care Doctor is hopefully the one you already know and trust for your basic medical care. Usually, this doctor is a Family Practitioner by training, but may be an Internal Medicine doctor or a Gynecologist. They will often stay involved to take care of your health beyond that of cancer care and help in situations where medical management is required around the time of surgery.

Surgical Oncologist – Surgical oncologists are surgeons who spend extra years training to surgically take care of cancer patients. They are not a substitute for a gynecologic oncologist, but may be very helpful when your surgical needs go beyond that of a gynecologic oncologist. For example, while gynecologic oncologists are trained to perform surgery in many areas of the body, a surgical oncologist may be involved when a large part of the liver needs to be removed or chest surgery needs to be done.

Nurse Practitioner - Nurse-practitioners are nurses who have gone beyond the basic RN degree and received extra training in healthcare. They may assist your doctors by performing examinations on you and may or may not be authorized to write prescriptions for medications you need. This depends upon the State you live in.

Oncology Nurse – Oncology nurses are RNs who have specialized, and are often specifically certified in, cancer care. Most often you may have oncology nurses helping administer chemotherapy to you; something that they are specially certified to do.

Social Worker – Licensed social workers are your connection to broad range of support networks in your medical facility and surrounding community. Social workers may intervene by providing individual, couple, or family counseling, offering group education or support, and by working with community groups in the development of resources to assist patients in meeting their own needs.

A psychosocial assessment provides the basis for the social worker intervention. This assessment includes evaluation of patient resources, strengths, and support systems, such as:

past coping behaviors family support living arrangements education level employment leisure interests financial situation The social worker also addresses the patient’s emotional response and reaction to the illness, the impact of the disease upon the family, the effect on the patient’s relationships and roles, and other personal or social problems. Alternative or Complementary Practitioners – Many centers have integrative medicine programs, or have at least some practitioners who represent alternative and complementary approaches to cancer care. The most proven options are those which help control your symptoms, help support your strength and possibly your immune system. These practitioners may have various degrees including PhD, naturopathy(ND), chiropractic (DC), or may have no degrees but with extensive experience in massage therapy, music therapy or accupuncture/accupressure. Rather than shopping for unknown practitioners with uncertain skills, the best strategy is to ask for a referral from an enlightened mainstream medicine practitioner. There is a lot of misinformation and misguided people out there, whose advice can harm you and cause you to lose your best chance of a cure.

Finally, the following are some general questions you might want to consider in setting up your team and selecting your main physicians.

Are you fellowship trained and board certified or board eligible? Who will be my main doctor in coordinating treatment? Do you believe in discussing options with me, including possible research alternatives? If I have problems during treatment who do I call and how do I reach them? Is this the same on weekends? What costs are covered by my insurance and who do I talk with about this? What kind of support services are available to me and where do I find them? If you are interested in complementary and natural aids, you may want to ask if your doctor would be willing to consider or discuss complementary and alternative options, or refer to a colleague who can. To your victory!!

The first message that she was dying came by bicycle. Sean Patrick rode up the steep trail on Smuggler Mountain, Aspen, Colorado, on a cool, pre-fall day in 1995. She had spent many summer afternoons biking through the Aspen groves, enjoying the late sun shining patchwork on the trail. Normally energized from the strenuous workout and her daily 15- to 22-mile rides, Patrick was shocked when she became so out of breath that she had to get off the bike to avoid throwing up.

“It was radical,” she says. “I couldn’t get up.” At first she thought she had over trained or suffered from exhaustion from too much traveling. Confirming her ideas, Patrick’s doctor suggested that she slow down and get a hobby. “If you can’t’ slow down,” he said to her, “I can always give you a prescription for Valium.”

After weeks of still not being able to ride or rock climb—her favorite sport—Patrick returned to her doctor, who did blood work, but found nothing obviously wrong. He told her not to worry. It wasn’t until 1997 that she finally found out that she had a rare form of ovarian cancer called Micropapillary Serous Carcinoma. After the late discovery, Patrick endured seven surgeries and, at one point in 2001 after being flown to a hospital via flight for life, doctors told her she wouldn’t live past six weeks.

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Patrick did live, and she says, in large part it was due to her experiences in the mountains. She was strong from regularly biking and lifting weights, and she was mentally balanced after decades of rock climbing. The wilderness and leadership skills she gleaned in places like the Rocky Mountains prepared her for the greatest challenge of her life—surviving that six-week ordeal in the hospital.

While on her deathbed in the ICU, a doctor inserted a blood gas line in her body, and it hurt like hell, she says. “I snapped and got angry, and at that moment I came back into my body.” She likens the feeling to being really scared after a rock climbing fall or when she has been stuck on the side of a mountain on a ledge in a thunderstorm. “I would get scared and then angry, and that would act as a catalyst to get moving. I knew if I did not keep moving in the face of my disease that I would not make it.”

Since her extraordinary recovery six years ago, Patrick continues to move rapidly forward. Not only does she still climb and play in the mountains—she topped out on the Grand Teton after 22 hours of climbing through blizzard conditions in 2004—but she also decided to make it her mission to raise awareness and money for the cancer that almost killed her. “My life’s goal is to prevent as many women as possible from going through what I experienced,” she says.

In the last few years Patrick has helped create an ovarian cancer website for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, and she regularly travels around the country on speaking engagements. Patrick’s crowning achievement is the non-profit HERA Foundation (Health, Empowerment, Research, Advocacy), which she created in 2002. She organizes Climb For Life events around the country and in Mexico, which bring women and men together to rock climb, do yoga, watch climbing slide shows and films, and, most importantly, learn about and raise money for ovarian cancer.

Friend and Climb for Life volunteer, Deanne Pranke says that Patrick’s climbing events have been incredibly inspirational for thousands of people. “Sean has brought ovarian cancer out in the open and empowered many women such as myself to take charge of our health and educate our loved ones and friends about this kind of cancer.”

Adds Patrick, “The need for perseverance forces women to reach deep inside themselves when they feel like they can’t go further. The lessons you learn from climbing and taking care of yourself in the wilderness translate into successful life strategies on a day to day basis.” In fact, Patrick has never seen a sport as empowering as climbing is for women. “Often when I’ve seen women get to the top of a route in the gym, the transformation on their face is phenomenal,” she explains.

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Sean Patrick’s wide smile greets the climbers as they stream into the third-floor room of REI Denver, spring 2004. Running her hand through a shock of white blonde hair, she says she’s nervous when speaking publicly, but her voice is steady and vibrant as she talks about ovarian cancer and the HERA Climb for Life REI Road Tour (now in its third year), sponsored by REI, Black Diamond, and HERA. She speaks to the audience with the fluency of someone who possesses a vast knowledge of the disease and the politics surrounding it.

After her diagnosis, Patrick became a “research maven,” reading everything she could find on the subject and hounding doctors all over the country. With her energetic and insistent attitude, she’s penetrated the wall of scientific jargon to understand her disease. What she learned inspired her to reach out to others.

Since its inception, she says, the foundation has provided doctors with research grants; provided seed grants to a number of small communities, which have allowed them to offer immediate assistance to aid patients with travel, hotel rooms, and childcare while they are undergoing treatment; and established awareness programs throughout the United States.

Patrick has also convinced thousands of women and men to work with her. Among those women are famous alpinist Kitty Calhoun and Salt Lake City, Utah, resident Hillary Silberman. Both women worked with Patrick to create a video highlighting the HERA Foundation and ovarian cancer.

According to Silberman, making the video and volunteering for HERA changed her life. Silberman’s mother died in 2003 from ovarian cancer, and she says that she felt helpless in the face of her mother’s illness. “My involvement with HERA gave me the tools to work with to deal with my mother’s death as well as people to connect with who understand where I’m coming from.”

By being involved and being proactive, Silberman explains, she has done something positive for others by presenting them with information. “I have also done something positive for myself by beginning to think about what I needed to do to protect myself and get early detection.”

With cancer affecting most of the female members of her family, Silberman is at a high risk for contracting the disease, although she doesn’t currently have it. Her nurse practitioner tried to convince her not to worry, but Patrick and the Climb for Life events convinced Silberman to follow through on her own to seek the medical services she needs for early detection. “The feeling of strength, perseverance and tenaciousness that climbing engenders made me not give up when professionals were telling me not to worry.”

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As with most female-specific diseases, says Patrick, ovarian cancer has typically been ignored by the medical industry. Despite the fact that it kills women of all ages and more women than all the other gynecological cancers combined, many doctors are ignorant of its symptoms and think the disease affects only the elderly. This, explains Patrick, partially results from the medical field’s traditional focus on men and male-specific diseases.

For example, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that “although coronary heart disease (CHD) causes more than 250,000 deaths in women each year, much of the research in the last 20 years on CHD has either excluded women entirely or included only limited numbers of women.”

Additionally, doctors treat women different than men in hospitals. According to a fall 2001 study published in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, “women’s pain reports are taken less seriously than men’s, and women receive less aggressive treatment than men for their pain.” Also, women were “more likely to have their pain reports discounted as ‘emotional’ and therefore, ‘not real.’”

“I have had several experiences with this kind of dismissive treatment by both male and female doctors,” says Patrick. “It is a flaw in how medicine is taught—women complain, men don’t, so they take men’s complaints more seriously. To get the best treatment, you have to find a doctor—male or female (one is not better than another in being more empathetic)—that sees you as a person and not a statistical group.”

Although Patrick seeks to change the way doctors view ovarian cancer and other women-specific diseases, she believes it’s more imperative to encourage women to take control of their own health. Ovarian cancer is not a silent killer, she says, “the disease has symptoms, and it’s important that women are made aware of what they are. Women who go to the doctor with gastrointestinal symptoms must make sure that ovarian cancer is ruled out.”

Through climbing, Patrick believes that women can be taught to stand up for themselves. Not only do these events teach women self-reliance, but they are also “places where we can turn our passion for climbing into a passion for making a difference.”

“I think success in climbing no matter what level you climb at—5.4 to 5.14—translates to successful life strategies,” Patrick says. “I want women who are empowered by the mountains to take this back into everyday life, and as it relates to the medical community, I want them to trust their intuition despite their doctor’s contention that they may not have a problem. In climbing and in life, trust yourself.”

For more information on ovarian cancer and the HERA Foundation, please visit the HERA Foundation Website at [http://www.theherafoundation.org]. Climb For Life events are held regularly around the country. The next 2007 event will be held in Boulder, Colorado. Registration has started.

Like thousands of other women in America, you’ve gotten the devastating news that you have ovarian cancer, a disease that causes the ovaries to produce deadly tumors that attack various parts of the body. To make matters even worse, your cancer has progressed to a point that surgery will not take care of the problem. Your only real hope is chemotherapy. But then after reading up on chemotherapy as well as the overall survival rates associated with ovarian cancer, you wonder if it’s worth going through. Well, this article will help you determine why ovarian cancer chemotherapy is important by explaining more of what is involved with the process.

The first reason why ovarian cancer chemotherapy is important is because it is the only real chance you have at killing the tumors in your body. Chemotherapy works through powerful chemicals that retard the growth of ovarian cancer tumors. These chemicals are usually distributed intravenously, though sometimes oral drugs may be used. Either way, there is the potential that you could get very sick from the treatment. You may also lose your hair. But for many women, these complications are worth the increased chance they have for survival.

The second reason why ovarian cancer chemotherapy is important is because it will help you feel better, even if your cancer is not initially treated. This may sound very odd, especially since chemotherapy has its own complications with it. But if you think about it, things should make sense. Basically, with chemotherapy, even if all of your cancer cells aren’t killed, you are getting enough destroyed that you should feel some relief from the symptoms you might be experiencing. In fact, doctors even encourage more terminal ovarian cancer sufferers to still get chemotherapy. True, there is the secret hope that a miracle will happen, but most of the time the recommendation is made to not only extend whatever life they have but to also make it more comfortable.

The final reason why ovarian cancer chemotherapy is important is because you are giving the medical community a chance to study the best ways of treating the disease. This is especially the case if you are getting ovarian cancer chemotherapy in a clinical trial. Even if you feel your life is ‘over,’ think about the lives of your daughter, granddaughter or any other women that will survive you. You never know what new facts could be found out by your treatment.

In conclusion, there are several reasons why ovarian cancer chemotherapy are important. However, even with these reasons, don’t be compelled for ovarian cancer chemotherapy if you truly don’t want to do it. There are ovarian cancer sufferers that decide to let nature take its course, since they feel they are going to die anyway. There is as much honor and bravery in this course of action as the ‘fighter’ mode where a woman gets as much treatment as possible to survive. It will all depend on your own personal and spiritual perspectives. Let your own heart and mind guide you.