Acupuncture
Hot flashes, High FSH, Menopause and Me: My Own Experience
Holy cow. Hot flashes are no joke.
Please don’t get me wrong. I have dealt with women and menopause symptoms since the beginning of my career in women’s health. I thought I had a great deal sympathy regarding all health issues-especially women’s. After all, being human is hard, being a woman is quite complicated. That’s my opinion anyway. However, in continuous pattern with my life the universe decided to send me a good strong message. Hot flashes are no joke.
I first noticed about 48 hours after treating a patient with hot flashes. She was responding quite well to acupuncture despite maintaining her lifestyle. She continued to drink delicious yet inflammatory red wine, jet set across the nation for her exciting career an impressive social calendar, not take the Chinese herbs I had suggested, yet her hot flashes consistently and quickly disappearing. Her symptoms sounded terrible. I was so happy not to go through that. Then, like a lightning bolt, it happened.
“What the hell is happening to me? Is this a hot flash?”
Sounds downright dumb. I know exactly what a hot flash is. I’ve read about them, heard about them and treated them for over a decade. However, I never had one. Within a week I was having hot flashes so severely that I was almost nonfunctional. It went something like this: warmth, extreme heat, burning sensation from every joint to the very top of my body, terror, sweating, chills, nausea with potential to vomit. It was horrifying. And, like any good science minded American I called my doctors immediately. This could not be normal.
Soooo…. let’s back up a minute. I’m a prime candidate for early menopause. History is like this: yin/yang deficiency (it’s mentioned below), high stress lifestyle, possible infertility, cancer, premature ovarian failure (right, my ovaries are not a failure) cancer again, one year of chemo-immunotherapy, some annoying complications and (drum-roll)…. and menopause!
I spent weeks chasing this diagnosis with my Western doctors. With my history there is always an onslaught of questions. Has the cancer returned? Is it staph infection? Is my heart failing? No. Thank God. However, my FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) was off the charts; meaning it was literally higher than any posted reference range even for women of postmenopausal age. Also, I barely had any estrogen or progesterone in my body. A man had more of these female sex hormones than me and so did a six-year-old girl. My doctors were baffled (can you picture them looking at the labs, then me, then the labs again…wide eyed?) They did not know what to do. They had never seen those numbers before. Neither did a Bristol Myers Squibb, the manufacturers of my chemo agent. In a true sweaty rampage my thoughts were like this, “How can any of you over-educated, overpaid medical professionals and scientists not know what to do”? (I however must give credit to my nurse practitioner who isolated the problem and wrote an Rx. She is truly a wonderful and compassionate woman. Her I am grateful for.)
As I sat in my car profusely perspiring on the leather seats it occurred to me that I’m a doctor of Oriental medicine with a fellowship in women’s health and reproduction. Duh. Can I not handle this? In honesty, we always make her own worst doctors. I realized I am my best resource. I also contacted a colleague in Sarasota that I admire greatly for a consult. In less than 36 hours I began to feel relief.
Here was my plan:
- I had to get this heat (yin deficiency) out of my body.
- I had to give my body a coolant (yin) to keep it from getting hot again.
- I had to give my body the resources (yang energy) to stay in a state of homeostasis.
- I had to learn to be patient because it did not happen overnight (years of work, lifestyle surgeries, and treatment led me down this thorny path).
To get the heat out of my body I decided to take the Chinese herbs I suggested to my patients. They really do work magic. I chose the first one for myself as a deemed itself most appropriate. As time progresses, I will switch with different supplement that’s coincides with my current symptoms.
Common herbal formulas for menopause and hot flashes in Chinese medicine:
Zhi bai di huang wan My herb of choice for hot flashes. It is considered a kidney yin tonic that clears fire from the kidneys. It is safe, gentle, and can work miracles if it matches well with the patient’s symptoms.
Other herbal formulas may include:
Da bu yin wan: This formula is for a pattern called ‘steaming bone syndrome’ in which the hot flashes feel as if they are penetrating into the bones.
Tian wan bu xin dan/Celestial Emperor’s Teapill: This formula will manifest with symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety, irritability, thirst, and malar flush.
.Er Xian Tang: Symptoms may include feeling cold with recent onset of hot flashes, low libido, fatigue, and low back pain.
Jei Xiao Yao Wan/free and Easy Wanderer Plus: This formula would include symptoms such as irritability, high stress, red eyes and headaches. I basically should have been taking this for the past 20 years.
Additionally, I have added 2000 mg of MACA to my regiment to reduce FSH and hot flashes. A brilliant tidbit I learned from my recent continuing education course.
To help my body cool off I am adapting lifestyle. I’m getting acupuncture and self-acupressure to help nourish my yin (the coolant). I’ve also omitted some things for my diet (such as red wines and sugars) while added others yin nourishing such as seafood, fresh fruits, and lots of liquids like water and broths.
To give my body the resources to stay healthy I began receiving moxibustion in addition to acupuncture. I also began incorporating small amounts of ginger in my water (to aid in digestion that will give me fuel to repair), a whole food supplement with vitamins and Chinese herbs to support my immune system (it’s called Tonic Alchemy and it’s delicious). I am beginning to take extra methyl B vitamins and a rhodiola and schisandra to stave off exhaustion and give my body strength.
Being patient. Okay, I’m a work in progress and comes to this. Like I would tell anyone else, I took years for my body to get this way. The final immune chemo treatment may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it wasn’t the actual cause that set my body fully ablaze. I am grateful to have the resources to help my body recover and am quite confident when I returned to my allopathic position in July that my FSH levels will have gone down considerably. Already my hot flashes are almost 100% gone (hours in the SE Florida sun or a large coffee and I body will still try have one-but just try.)
So, I must do my due diligence in state that I am not a medical physician. Always consult your physician if you have any symptoms. It is also good to have the actual blood test to see where your hormone levels are measuring. However, a good acupuncturist, herbalist or doctor of Oriental Medicine can guide you and tell you what supplements may best suit your body without you having to second-guess yourself. From my own personal experience, I pleased to tell you that your hot flashes and menopause symptoms are completely treatable under the right supervision. And seriously, hot flashes are no joke.
with love,
Dr. Lorri
The Undeniable Grief of Not Having a Child
Grief and loss are accepted in our society when it concerns the death of a loved one. In my opinion the loss of miscarriage is better understood and accepted than it ever was before. However, there is an undeniable grief that occurs when having a child does not happen naturally… or unnaturally for that matter.
I equate this feeling like telling a diabetic they can’t have sweet dessert or a smoker they must quit smoking cigarettes. However the pain is deeper, much deeper. It’s like having your heart set on something, and then having someone say, “just kidding” or “never mind.”
The difficult part of this is the grief is not observable to the laypersons eye. “How could you possibly miss something you never had?” others may ask. However, I disagree with this lack of sentiment. To have this kind of undeniable grief means this longing may have there all along. There comes a certain part in your life when it’s beyond the status quo. This point your life for you really want to show and give your love to something, anything, and hope that it will love you back. The most innate form of this would be a child.
Stress, Anxiety, and that Endless Chatter Inside of our Brains-A Discussion with Dr. Liz and Dr. Lorri
“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics”.-Albert Einstein
Lately it seems like the subject of words and how we use them has shown up repeatedly in my life. Throughout the past several years I read many books related to the subject. For example; books about water molecules and words, Books like “The Secret” or “You’re a Badass” or anything by Tolle. Recently, I watch Ted Talks on the power of words. My own mentor continues to advise me to be mindful of spelling and my choice of words, and a good friend asked me if I would “talk to a stranger the way I talked my own self inside of my head?” Hmmm. The chatter inside my own brain isn’t always so positive. Interesting, right?
Infertility? Ask Yourself These Questions.
Ladies,
I love my job and feel very fortunate to work with infertility. I talk about fertility all the time. I talk about it with my friends. I talk about it with my family. I even talk about it on dates and recall drawing drawing the internal reproductive system on a bar napkin once. What really amazes me, is that everyone seems to have an opinion on it. Yesterday, two retired gentleman at a restaurant even had questions and insights about infertility. Maybe it touches everyone’s live now. (It’s even a hot topic on Hulu with the Handmaid’s Tale). Regardless of where I am, it does seem to come up in conversation. So, if you ever get stuck next to me at the dinner table, and decided to ask about fertility here is some basic questions and advice I might share:
When trying to achieve pregnancy you’re the top things to ask yourself:
Do you ovulate? When?
Females only actually ovulate one day a month a normal cycle. If you’re having sex on the wrong days conception will not happen. This can be done by tracking your body temperature, using an ovulation predictor kit, or even a new ovulation tracking bracelet, called, Ava. I want to try it next.
Infertile. Now what? Let’s Get a Plan.
We are asking if you have a fertility plan. We speak about birth plans. We speak of back up plans. Plans for after college…plans for summer…but how often do women have a plan once they have been told to have infertility? Probably never.
“You have less than 1% of conceiving. You have poor egg quality. You don’t have any eggs to freeze.”
Have you ever heard these words? I have. It’s always a shock, and I do this for a living. We spend most of our young lives try not to get pregnant, and then one day we think it’s going to happen like the snap of a finger. But what happens when it doesn’t happen? Chances are you’ve been told the worst-case scenario by friends and physicians; that the odds are stacked against you; that you need a certain type of doctor.
