Women’s stories
“Nothing had helped me.”
Lisa is 54 and menopausal. She had used high-dose Premarin for the past eight years to help with her symptoms, and it had been effective. But this year her doctor advised her to stop HRT — pronto.
His advice was to wean off her Premarin in only a month. (Not recommended!) Her symptoms returned as soon as she began to reduce her dosage. The only option her doctor offered was the antidepressant Paxil, but Lisa refused. She knew she wasn’t depressed and didn’t want the side effects.
A month after stopping her Premarin Lisa felt like she was coming apart. She suffered severe hot flashes and sweats day and night, and could hardly sleep at all. She tried other products, such Estroven, to no avail. The final straw was that her vaginal tissue became extremely dry and uncomfortable, leaving her with no interest in sex for the first time in her life.
Lisa began to search for alternatives. She read Suzanne Somers’ book, The Sexy Years, and began to search the web for information. That’s when she found us. She joined the Personal Program immediately.
Within a month Lisa’s hot flashes and night sweats were almost gone, and she was sleeping through the night. There was new hope!
A couple of weeks later her advisor at the Personal Program called to see how she was doing. Lisa said she was very pleased but only wished her vaginal dryness would go away. We told her about our Vitamin E vaginal suppositories.
About a month later Lisa spoke with one of our nurse–educators. She was feeling even better and loved the Vitamin E vaginal suppositories. We explained that sex drive — and vaginal tissue — can take a long time to recover after weaning off a powerful estrogen like Premarin.
We encouraged her to keep using the vaginal suppositories in the meantime, and be patient with herself. We recommended she read How to Make Love the Way We Used to – And Better, by Harvard physician Dr. Alan Altman. And we told her about the bioidentical estrogen vaginal creams that she could request from her doctor if she didn’t feel she was making progress fast enough with the Program alone.
Lisa was grateful for the choices we gave her, but said she preferred to give her Program time to work first. She promised to call us back in a couple of months to update us on her progress and talk about next steps.
You may be interested in two in-depth articles here on our website:
What to expect when you’re getting off HRT, and
Low sex drive in women
Click here to return to “Women’s Stories”.
Our Personal Program is a great place to start
The Personal Program promotes healthy hormonal balance with nutritional supplements, gentle endocrine support, dietary guidance, and optional phone consultations with our Nurse–Educators. It is a convenient, at-home version of what we suggest to our patients at the clinic.
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- A personalized, at-home program for hormonal balance based on our natural approach. We’ve helped thousands of women feel like themselves again. To learn more, click here or call us at 1-800-798-7902.
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Last Modified: 04/29/2008