Part 4: Suzanne Somers On Hormone Therapy For Menopause

This generation gets to go to the clinic; isn’t that an interesting thing? If my mother were still alive, I would fly her up there in a minute to see if that could help her.

I think the two forces that are working against what you’re all doing and what I’m doing. If you’ve seen me on television, I get a lot of people taking the opposing force, but I think the two major things that are in your way and my way are the pharmaceutical companies (and I’m not anti-pharmaceutical at all); they’re a Godsend.

When you need a pharmaceutical, you need a pharmaceutical, and I would not want to live in a world without them. But when you don’t need a pharmaceutical, when you can accomplish something without a drug, why would you take a drug? Every drug has a side effect, and usually, every drug usually requires that you need another drug, and another drug, and another drug.

So I think I know what the thinking is, that if we all realize that it’s as simple as restoring ourselves to optimal hormonal levels in the right ratios, individualized for each person. Well, we’re not going to need all those drugs, and it’s such a bonanza from middle age on.

You get a medicalized cocktail, what if Prozac costs too much? What if Ambiance costs too much? What if Valium costs too much? What if Claritin for your watery, itchy eyes costs, what if that costs too much? What if your anti-anxiety medicine costs too much? And so on and so on, that’s just the first five.

So there’s a huge bonanza on us from middle-age on. Well, myself, being on bio-identical hormones I do not take one drug, nothing, not Nexium, not Lipitor, not anything. I take niacin instead of Lipitor. I take mastic gum instead of Nexium. I feel so good about myself taking these supplements every day.

It’s a bit of a job, isn’t it? People who watch me with my bag of vitamins every day laugh at me, scoff, and mock me because it is a bit of a job and it is a bit of an expense. This is what I choose to spend my money on, supplements, herbs, etc.

I take my herbs, I take my turmeric, curcumin, I know about CoQ10, I know about cinnamon, all of these things all these building up, putting back in what is depleted out of our food supply. It’s a bit of work. Okay, you have to take some vitamins in the morning, so it’s a bit of work.

I have very, very low vitamin D; I have very, very low homocysteine, my family dies from heart attack and stroke, well, I don’t want that. Does that make sense? Connect the dots if my family dies from a heart attack or stroke, which is usually low homocysteine. If I took a vitamin D shot every day, that if I could keep that homocysteine level where I want it where it is, okay, it’ll work.

I’ve had cancer, and I refused the standard of care for my cancer seven years ago; I’m seven years out, and I feel so good about that. It’s survivable, I realize, if you catch it early. So many people, to me, die of the treatment, not of the disease.

So instead of chemotherapy, I chose to inject an anthroposophic drug called Iscadore. Every other day I inject Iscadore, then I’m off for five days. Then every other day, and then take off another five days, I will probably do that for the rest of my life.

It’s a little bit of work, but it doesn’t hurt too much; it’s over and done. I’d like to complete the missing part of this song. I am on estrogen, I am on progesterone, I am on testosterone, I am on DHEA, I am on pregnenolone, I’m actually 61; it’s kind of out of a lot of everything.

I just keep putting it back. My IGF-1 was too low, so they put me on HGH; I’m on point 6, HGH. I feel great, got muscle, feel good, I’ve got energy. I was watching television this morning about all the athletes, and it’s too bad. They set you back a little bit with a lack of understanding. Athletes so often abuse it.

But when you need HGH and when you need testosterone replacement, and if there were some people who are running these commissions who actually did research into maybe these athletes because of burning out their bio-chemicals because of the lifestyles they lead and the over-exercising that they do. I’m sure a lot of them really do need some testosterone replacement or HGH replacement.

Not in these super doses that they’re taking, but nobody, there’s a lack of understanding. You say the word anabolic steroid, and everybody puts up a dagger sign. So there’s all this confusion. Yet when you’re living the songs, it feels so good.

I don’t feel high or stoned; I just feel like I used to feel when I was in optimal health. I cleaned out my viruses not too long ago, tefern shots, that was a little bit of work, but how cool! Viruses, you know, cancer is a virus; I don’t want viruses anymore.

I work with a lymphatic specialist because the radiation congested my lymphatic system. So we do lymphatic congestion massage, it’s a little bit of work, but I feel good; I’m not on any drugs. So you add all these things up, people who are not buying into this kind of medicine make fun of me. But I have energy; I feel good.

I’m thinking; my brain is working; I don’t have senior moments. I actually get irritated when people say senior moments; I say it’s a symptom, it’s your body talking to you, it’s your body going HELP, HELP.

I can’t think anymore; I’m not getting enough estrogen into my brain. The sad thing, the itching, not enough estrogen, the bloating, not enough progesterone, or maybe too much progesterone, depending on who you are.

Symptoms are your body talking, symptoms are your body screaming, and it is so hard to crawl into a menopausal symptomatic woman’s head to know how she feels.

Having been there, it feels awful; you’re not yourself. I remember this one time I had this incredible marriage; I’ve been married for 40 years, I have this incredible marriage, and the three years I was without hormones, you take it out on the one you love the most.

I couldn’t get to sleep night after night, sweating up, getting back to sleep for 15 minutes, waking up all sweaty, going back to sleep after 2 or 3 hours of being awake, sleep for maybe 15 minutes, a total of 3 hours a night.

This goes on night after night, week after week, month after month, year after year. You’re not in a good mood; that’s why we menopausal women get that reputation we are witches with a B. We are difficult because we feel bad, and we don’t want to be on all these drugs, but if a drug will take away your pain, you’ll take it.

So if you can take away their pain without a drug through my books, think of what you’ve done. Think of how you’ve changed the course of a life because once someone feels like this, they never want to go back.

I would never want to go back to the way I was feeling. It was interesting in New York; I was in Bergdorfs, and I was doing my bit for the economy. I was in Bergdorfs, and I was in Barneys. I’m not out among the public very much; I live kind of a sequestered life because I stay home a lot.

I have an organic vegetable garden, and I write my books, and I have this lovely, calm, serene life. So when I get out in a place like that, I’m kind of surprised at the reaction. But it isn’t like it was when I was on Three’s Company, Oh, God, I love you, that fan thing.

These are women who come up and say: Can I tell you what bio-identical hormones have done for me and my marriage, for my family, can I tell you what’s its done for my daughter? Women are grateful. Right not the doctors unlike yourselves, who have not jumped on the fast-moving train, have really been caught unprepared.

I think a lot of what’s going on is an embarrassment that they weren’t taught in medical school, or they haven’t had time, inclination, or the knowledge to go deeper. So that is what’s going on out there in the world.

The women want it, the women don’t feel well, the women don’t want to be cast aside and become invisible, get divorced, lose their families, and that’s what happens when you take it out on your husband as I did on mine.

At one point, my husband, who adores me, said to me Suzanne, our marriage can only take so much of this. It was a potent way he said it, and I thought oh my gosh. You’re the last person I want to send away; I didn’t need to do that.

So this passage is difficult for the men and women until she gets on this. It’s amazing, and once she starts feeling good, the man looks over her shoulder and says I want some of that. Because men, I’m sorry, it takes a little longer for you, but they do movies called grumpy old men for a reason.

It’s terrible when you know symptoms and signs because I sit in a room and go, yep, there’s that belly starting to grow, his insulin is out of whack, shoulders are starting to slump, he needs testosterone. Wow, his face is kind of pasty and saggy his thyroid is screwed up, and it’s terrible; you doctors must sit there and look at this all the time.

• SUZANNE SOMERS ON HRT FOR MENOPAUSE, PART 1/6
• SUZANNE SOMERS ON HRT FOR MENOPAUSE, PART 2/6
• SUZANNE SOMERS ON HRT FOR MENOPAUSE, PART 3/6
• SUZANNE SOMERS ON HRT FOR MENOPAUSE, PART 4/6
• SUZANNE SOMERS ON HRT FOR MENOPAUSE, PART 5/6
• SUZANNE SOMERS ON HRT FOR MENOPAUSE, PART 6/6

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