You're Not Losing Your Mind, You're Losing Your Hormones!

My name is Sindi Holmlund and I've been in the alternative health field for over fifty years. I formulate and manufacture chemical and poison free personal care and health and beauty products, I’m an herbalist, a researcher, a writer, I owned a clinical diagnostic laboratory, and I was a menopausal woman.

At age twenty seven I developed chronic vaginal infections, cystic ovaries, and my breasts were always swollen and sore. About age thirty two I started experiencing extreme fatigue, long, heavy periods with spotting all month, rapid weight gain, acne, my breasts became even more sore, low blood sugar, sugar cravings (especially chocolate) and an inability to conceive.

These symptoms continued for about seven years. Then some new ones joined in, and life became a nightmare for me and my husband. I either cried or screamed at the drop of a hat, everything my husband did was wrong and I continually threatened to divorce him, I started having horrible dizzy spells, my periods became lighter and I started skipping them, my skin aged practically overnight, my vision started changing, I grew a fatty tumor on my shoulder the size of an egg, my hair started falling out, I gained thirty five pounds, the muscle tissue on my body disintegrated, I couldn't sleep, my memory started taking vacations, I couldn't concentrate, the sugar cravings doubled, I would wake up several times in the night because I was too hot and throw off my covers, only to wake a little while later to put them back on because I was now too cold. My breasts became so painful that often the weight of them (and I was small-breasted brought tears to my eyes when I got out of bed in the morning.

Because the second set of symptoms was different from the first and had started seven years later, I had no idea they were related. I also had no idea what was causing them. So for six years I went from doctor to doctor, spending thousands of dollars, trying to find out what was wrong with me, but NONE of them had the answer.

Oh they said they did, and sold me thousands of dollars worth of supplements that did absolutely nothing! It wasn’t until around age 44 when I started having mild hot flashes that I realized something was going on with my hormones, but I still didn’t know that all my symptoms were hormonal. The problem was, the doctors didn’t know it back then either.

I'm knowledgeable about many things but hormones was a subject in which I was completely ignorant. So I went to the library (no internet back then) and checked out every book I could find about hormonal changes.

All they had were books about ‘menopause’, but that didn’t fit me because I was still having periods, and they only listed hot flashes and night sweats as accompanying symptoms. I took all the books back and went to the medical book store at a local college and bought books about anatomy and physiology, endocrinology (hormones) and Tabor’s medical dictionary. It was a grueling learning curve because I had to learn so many technical and medical words, but 6 months later I fully understood that all my symptoms were caused by hormone decline, and that decline had started at the end of puberty!

What I also understood was that the subjects of how your body works and hormone decline are two things that you cannot afford to be ignorant about, because ignorance in either subject can cost you your life!

In studying these subjects, I learned a lot of information I wished I had known when I was 18. If someone had told me back then, what I'm going to tell you now, I would never have suffered the way I did for so long. So in the hopes that I can spare you what I went through, I'm writing this booklet. I want to share what I know with as many women as possible so they can recognize when hormone changes begin and know what to do about them.

Not knowing all the information in this publication is not your fault. You’re not a doctor, you don’t compound HRT products or own a pharmacy that does. You don’t perform hormone testing or own a laboratory that does. You don’t formulate and manufacture creams that contain hormones or own a company that does. Nor do you develop and manufacture hormone tests, or own a company that does. And yes, there can be a few exceptions to these statements but for the most part this is why you don’t know what I’m about to tell you.

I know all the things because; I know how compounding pharmacies make HRT creams, a owned a hormone testing laboratory, I formulated and manufacture creams containing hormones, and I’m working on developing and manufacturing ‘at home’ hormone tests. I’ve also been consulting women for 25 years and have helped thousand’s of them bring their hormone levels back to optimum, healthy levels.

Which is why I know all the problems that occur with each step, of each process in doing all these things. I also understand what effect these problems have on the efforts of doctors to administer, and you to obtain, and use HRT.

Having been through hormone hell myself and almost losing the love of my life over it, I never want anyone to suffer from a lack of a few chemicals that can so easily be replaced. But getting involved in the Hormone Replacement Therapy industry can be a nightmare in and of itself, so I’ve written this and, other publications to help you avoid the pitfalls of the industry. So you can get great results and have a healthy and happy life.

The first thing you need to know is how your reproductive cycle works, so I’m going to explain in very easy to understand terms with loads of pictures. But first, let me define two key terms that I'm going to use in this booklet…Pre-menopause and Menopause.

Pre-menopause (Def: pre-menopause - the time between the end of puberty and when a woman stops menstruating). During those years, reproductive hormones are declining and it's that decline that causes the symptoms on the Hormone Decline Symptom List.

Menopause (Def: menopause - meno = menses [menstruation] + pause = to stop or cease) is the time in a woman's life when she is no longer having periods. This is not a ‘time of life’ and it’s not something you ‘go through’, it’s caused because your estradiol has declined so low that you can’t build any lining to be shed as a period.

You are born with about 400,000 egg follicles in your ovaries. These follicles, or sacs, contain microscopic, immature eggs. Before puberty starts, many of those eggs die off. Once puberty starts, you will use around 400 of the remaining egg supply every month.

(Def: follicle - any small sac or cavity.)(De: ovaries - either of a pair of female glands producing eggs and sex hormones.)

Day one of your ‘cycle’ is the day you start your period. Your menstrual cycle is supposed to be 28 days long, but due to hormonal changes it can become shorter or longer. But in this publication I’ll be talking about a 28 cycle.

Day 1- 7 days of your cycle is when you have your period. During those days there’s very little activity from estrogen and progesterone. But on day seven, the pituitary gland in your head begins to send increasing amounts of a hormone called ‘Follicle Stimulating Hormone’ (FSH) (see chart above) down to your ovaries. This hormone stimulates them to start maturing about 400 eggs.

For the next 6 days those the eggs are maturing and releasing increasing amounts of estradiol (see chart below), and a minute amount of progesterone.

(Def: estrogen - estro = estrus = frenzy + gen = something produced. The period of sexual excitement, or ‘heat’, of female mammals. Estrogen is something that produces a sexual frenzy in mammals compelling them to have sexual intercourse to fertilize an egg and achieve pregnancy.) It’s the sexy hormone.

(Def: progesterone - pro = for + gesterone = gestation, pregnancy.), it’s the pro pregnancy hormone.

As your pituitary secretes increasing amounts of Follicle StimulatingHormone, it causes your ovaries to release increasing amounts of estradiol and progesterone. A portion of those hormones travels back to your pituitary as a progress report. This is how the pituitary gland keeps track of how the monthly cycle is progressing. The correct amount of hormones tells the pituitary that egg production is on schedule for the next phase of the cycle.

There are three main estrogens, Estradiol, Estrone and Estriol, and they all do different jobs in your body. Estradiol is responsible for building the bloody lining of the uterus, retaining water, swelling the breasts and, in general, getting your body ready to receive, and implant, a fertilized egg into the uterus.

On day 12 of your cycle, estradiol peaks and (see the chart below), the pituitary stops sending FSH to the ovaries, and for the next two days the it surges a second hormone called Luteinizing Hormone (LH), which triggers the release of one of the ripened eggs. That release takes place on day 14, and is called ovulation.  

(Def: Luteinizing - to cause to turn yellow. Lutein is the Latin word for ‘yellow’.)

(Def: ovulation - to discharge an egg from an ovary.)

After ovulation, the sac that the egg was released from turns yellow and begins to release increasing amounts of progesterone during the third week of the cycle.

The rest of the mature eggs die-off and start to shrink. As they shrink, they release less and less estradiol, and its level starts to decrease. If the egg is not fertilized when it reaches your womb on day 21, both estradiol and progesterone plummet (see chart blow) and the bloody lining is shed in what’s known as menstruation.

(Def: menstruation - to have a flow of blood from the uterus, about every four weeks.)

This cycle goes on month after month, year after year, and causes the supply of eggs in your ovaries to decrease. That leads to less and less eggs maturing each cycle, and less and less estradiol being released into your blood. At some point there is not enough estradiol to cause the necessary peak on day 12 that signals ovulation. No ovulation means no progesterone the last two weeks of the cycle.

Even though there isn’t enough estrogen to cause ovulation, there is still considerably more of it than progesterone. This causes a situation that has been called ‘estrogen dominance’ or ‘unopposed estrogen’.

Most of the women I’ve talked with over the years don’t actually understand what estrogen dominance is. When asked what it is, they say it means they’re making too much estrogen, which is incorrect. Their actually not making enough!

This condition is caused by a failure to ovulate, which allows twice as much estradiol to enter the uterine tissue cells and more than double the uterine lining.

Not only does exposure to all that estradiol over-build uterine tissue, it does the same to other tissues that use it, like breast tissue. If progesterone is not there to stop all the estradiol from reaching these tissues, it can easily cause; uterine fibroids, cystic breasts, and uterine, ovarian, breasts cancer.

Estrogen dominance occurs somewhere between 30 and 40 years of age in most women, and can be recognized by changes in the menstrual flow; it becomes heavier than usual, clotty (they’re not actually blood clots, their pieces of uterine tissue), can last longer than usual, spotting after the period ends, spotting in the middle of the cycle, more than one period in a 28 day cycle. Also, heavier than unusual cramping and tender or sore breasts.

Estrogen dominance is actually a misleading name for this condition. It should have been called ‘progesterone deficiency’, because it's the missing progesterone that causes it. The lack of ovulation causes the lack of progesterone and ‘over exposure’ to the available estradiol in the blood stream.

This condition will pass as your estradiol declines over the years. Once your estradiol is low enough your period will become lighter again, more like it was before this condition started. Once your period lightens up and the heavy bleeding stops, you are no longer estrogen dominant. This doesn’t mean you are ovulating again, it just means that when this started you had no progesterone the last two weeks of your cycle and now you are about 50% depleted of estradiol.

Most practitioners don’t understand this condition either, and I know that because I’ve had so many women tell me that their doctor told them they were estrogen dominant when they were menopausal.

Unless you are bleeding heavily, don’t let anyone tell you that you are estrogen dominant, because you are not!

The Main Symptoms of Estrogen Dominance

Very heavy periods

Flooding

Periods longer than 7 days

Expelling large amounts of uterine tissue

Heavier than usual cramping

Spotting between periods

Breakthrough bleeding

More than one period in a 28 day cycle

THE REASON FOR HOT FLASHES

Throughout the month, your pituitary gland closely monitors estradiol and progesterone levels to make sure the eggs are maturing on schedule. If they’re not, evidenced by not enough progesterone and estradiol in the blood, your pituitary will dilate your blood vessels and surge Follicle Stimulating Hormone down to your ovaries in an attempt to raise production.  

As blood vessels dilate, blood is driven closer to the surface of your skin, which causes it to become warmer and turn red. The redness is the characteristic ‘flushing’ known as a hot flash. If you were to look in a mirror during one, you could actually watch your chest, neck and face turn red.

This process causes more than just a warm or hot feeling and a red face. As your blood vessels sharply dilate, your central nervous system has to speed-up to pump more blood. This can cause symptoms ranging from slight nervousness to an outright panic attack. Breathing also quickens and you may feel the need to take one or more deep breaths all of a sudden. It also causes blood to rush to the brain which can cause slight dizziness to fainting.

At the same time your heart sharply contracts and beats more rapidly to speed-up the flow of blood to your widened blood vessels. This can cause anything from a slight heart flutter or palpitations, to a sharp pain in the chest. If you’re not familiar with this process, you could think you were having a heart attack.

Sweating is the body's way of cooling itself down, so after a hot flash you may begin to sweat just a little, or to the point where you need to change your clothes.

Hot flashes that occur while you’re sleeping are called night sweats. (I've don’t understand why they need a different name). Night sweats can be so severe that you can wake up feeling you’re unable to catch your breath and think you’re having a heart attack. They can cause you to wake up and throw off your covers because you’re too warm, fall back asleep and wake-up again because you’re now too cold and need to replace your covers. This can go on all…night…long, and deprive you of sleep, causing irritability and fatigue the next day.

The lack of sleep is not the only reason for changes in temperament. Hormone decline causes a drop in chemicals in the brain that allow you to feel calm and happy. When these chemicals are gone you can experience mild to severe mood swings, irritability to rave and violence. This can take a toll not only on you but your family, friends and associates. One day you’re fine, the next day, if anyone even looks at you, you fly into a rage, and the next day all you want to do is cry. Hormonal changes can leave you feeling like Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde. Many women have told me that they "don't feel like themselves," or that they "don't understand why they have changed so much," or that they "just aren't the same person they used to be."

Your pituitary is like a mother trying to get her child up in the morning. At first she calls in a normal tone of voice. When they don’t get up, she raises her voice a bit, but when there’s still no child at the breakfast table, she keeps raising her voice until she’s yelling.

This is basically what your pituitary does in your body. When ovarian production is down by, let’s say 5%, your pituitary only needs to talk in a normal tone of voice, (send a very small amount of FSH to your ovaries) and this doesn’t require any dilation of the blood vessels. For years this hormonal conversation between your pituitary and ovaries takes place without you being aware of it. But as estradiol production gets lower and lower, your pituitary starts raising its voice. The louder it talks to the ovaries, the wider it dilates the blood vessels, and sooner or later you start to ‘feel’ this conversation as hot flashes, mild at first, but growing in severity over time.

Replace the missing hormones, but that’s not as simple as it sounds. HRT can be deadly if you don’t know what you’re doing. There’s quite a bit you need to know to make sure you’re safe when using HRT, but the problem is, that information has not been available to you…until now.

You need to know several things about the HRT industry, such as:

· The truth about menopause.

· The truth about hormone testing.

· The truth about laboratory testing ranges.

· The truth about where those ranges comes from.

· What kind of hormones are available, and which ones you should and should not use.

· The truth about how compounding pharmacies make HRT products.

· The truth about estrogen and cancer

· And soooo much more!

Everything you need to know is in the publications below that I’ve written for you. Please take the time to read them all...more than once...you’ll be very glad you did!

What You Don’t Know About Menopause

What You Don’t Know About Hormone Testing

What You Don’t Know About Compounding Pharmacies

What You Need to Know About Hormone Replacement Therapy But No One’s Telling You

How to Customize Hormone Replacement therapy For Your Body

I TRIED BIOIDENTICAL HRT BUT IT DIDN’T WORK!

I’ve heard this from many women over the last 25 years of helping them regain hormonal balance, and I found that there are several potential reasons why they didn’t have success.

· The product was made in a compounding pharmacy.

· They were not using enough.

· They needed estradiol, but were only using progesterone.

· They were instructed to use it incorrectly by their practitioner.

· The product was of poor quality.

· The product contained ingredients that prevented a good amount, or all, of the hormones from being absorbed into the blood stream.

· They were taking birth control pills at the same time.

· They were taking anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety drugs at the same time.

· The product didn’t have any or enough hormones in it.

· The product contained herbal extracts that interfered with hormone receptors.

· They were eating or drinking something that interfered with hormones.

Or a combination of the above.

NEVER USE HERBS AS HRT

I’m an herbalist and I can tell you that herbs are great for many things, but you cannot replace your hormones with any of them!

Hormones are special chemicals that carry specific instructions to specific cells. Each hormone gives different instructions to different cells. All cells have little slots on their surface and inside them called 'receptors’. These receptors are how the hormones enter the cells. The receptor sites are like locks and the hormones are like keys. The exact, right key (hormone) needs to fit into the exact, right lock (receptor) for the correct instructions to be given to the cell. Herbs cannot do that.

There are 1,000’s of plants that contain chemicals that are similar enough to hormones in structure that they can fit into their receptors (Soy, Wild yam, Dong Qui, Chaste Tree (vitex), Black Cohosh, Blue cohosh, Red Raspberry, Saw Palmetto, Noni, Goji, Asci, and Ginseng, to name a few). These chemicals have come to be called ‘phytoestrogens’. But there is no such thing as phytoestrogen, plants do not contain estrogen, progesterone, or any other hormone. These plant chemicals are not hormones and do not do what hormones do.

Ingesting the chemicals in plants, or their extracts, in an attempt to balance your hormones, will not work because your body cannot make these chemicals into hormones. That can only be done by a pharmaceutical manufacturer. So don’t ever let anyone who you think knows what their talking about, tell you that you can balance your hormones by taking herbs (or any other type of supplement). If someone tells you that you can balance your hormones with plants or supplements, RUN AWAY, FAST!

There are over 115 different symptoms that can occur during hormone decline, but most women only associate hot flashes and night sweats, and the fact that their period stops with it. Hot flashes are your body's way of saying that there are too many receptor sites without hormones in them. They’re your body’s way of telling you it needs more hormones.

The chemicals in herbs just fill-up the receptor, and in some cases can stop hot flashes, but that's only because there's 'something' in the receptor. The problem is that your pituitary can't tell the difference between wild yam extract, soy, or an actual hormone, it just knows there's 'something' in the receptor and so it stops asking for hormones (stops hot flashing). If you take herbs and your hot flashes stop, you could think that your hormones are balanced...but that is far from the case. Taking herbs that block hormone receptors can actually make things worse. If the cells do not get the right instructions, they do not function properly, things start breaking down, and symptoms eventually appear or get worse.

There are also petrochemicals (made from petroleum) that can fit into your hormone receptors and cause cancer. A petrochemical in plastic is the biggest culprit. That chemical is called Bispheniol A (PBA), and before you are fooled by all the BPA FREE marketing, there are several different types of Bisohenol, (bisphenol A, E, M, P and S.) That are all as deadly as BPA. Bisphenols are hardeners in plastics, any company that makesanything out of plastc HAD to use one of them. The public has learned how deadly BPA is, and so they just switched which one they use and market the fact that they don’t use BPA. But the don’t tell you that they use a different one and that they are all deadly petrochemicals.

BPA is one of the most cancer-causing chemical in your environment. It causes birth defects and 5 types of cancer; beast, uterine, prostate, brain and bone (leukemia). To learn more about what causes cancer and how to kill those cancer cells, see my booklet ‘How My Neighbor Accidentally Cured Her Cancer’.

HOW TO STOP THE SYMPTOMSOF HORMONE DECLINE

There’s only one way to stop your symptoms, and that’s to halt their decline and bring them back to their optimum levels, and the only way to do that is Hormone Replacement Therapy. You cannot eat, supplement or exercise your way out of this. You need to replace the exact molecules your body is no longer making, but desperately needs, and those molecules are not found in foods, vitamins, minerals or herbs. You need to replace your estradiol, progesterone and testosterone, and the products you use need to be made of 100% plant derived ingredients...NO PETROCHEMICALS!

Any HRT product you use should not contain any of the following ingredients:

· Benzyl alcohol (toxic solvent)

· Methanol (toxic solvent)

· Carbomer (petroleum derivative)

· Polyethylene Glycols, PEGs, Peg Stearates (petroleum derivatives)

· Hyroxyethylcellulose (contains a high degree of lead and heavy metals)

· Mineral oil (toxic, restricts absorption)

· Methylparaben or Propylparaben (toxic preservatives)

· Herbs or herbal extracts (are not hormones and interfere with hormones)

· Soy Isoflavins (are not hormones and interfere with hormones)

· Phytoestrogens (are not hormones and interfere with hormones)

· Gels of any kind (prevent hormones from being absorbed)

Any HRT product you use should contain non-toxic ingredients such as the ones below:

· Oils such as coconut, palm, olive, etc.

· Glycerin (plant derived, helps skin retain moisture)

· Steric Acid (plant derived thickener)

· Emulsifying wax (plant derived, holds water and oil together)

· Populous Tremuloides (natural preservative from pine bark)

· Progesterone (bioidentical only)

· Estrogen (bioidentical only)

· Testosterone (bioidentical only)

· DHEA (bioidentical only)

· Cortisol (bioidentical only)

· Melatonin (bioidentical only)

ARE THERE ANY SIDE EFFECTSTO USING BIOIDENTICAL HRT?

The most common ‘side effect’ of using a quality HRT product, made correctly with non-toxic ingredients, and used in the proper amount, is relief from the symptoms of hormone decline. Two of my customers reported reducing fibrous tumors in their breasts by 50% in just one week...no exaggeration! Others have reported feeling saner, sleeping better, breast swelling going down, anxiety, depression and mood swings vanishing, migraines and severe headaches disappearing, PMS being a thing of the past, and much more!

There are a few negative things that can happen if you use too much progesterone and/or estradiol. Too much progesterone can cause you to feel like you have morning sickness. Too much estradiol and you could experience tender breasts, heavy cramps, heavier periods, sore breasts, and headaches.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I NEED HRT?

 First of all, every woman will stop ovulating at some point and need to begin using bio-identical progesterone. You should suspect that you need to start using progesterone if you experience any of the symptoms listed at the beginning of this publication, or as soon as you start to see changes in your periods.

Your menstrual cycle is supposed to be 28 days long. When it gets shorter than that, and your periods get heavier, if you start getting occasional headaches, start putting on weight that will not come off easily, find that movies make you cry easier, or that little things bother you more than they used to, if you find yourself saying, "Is it hot in here or is it just me?", or if now you consider yourself a light sleeper, your hair is starting to thin or you notice more hair in your brush than usual, if your sex drive and your memory just aren't what they used to be, or you're craving sweets (especially chocolate) more than usual, it tells you that you are skipping ovulations or have stopped ovulating altogether and you need to start using bio-identical progesterone.

If you’ve replaced your progesterone but you’re still having hot flashes, vaginal dryness and/or irritation, you can't sleep and your periods are getting lighter, farther in between, or you’re beginning to skip them, you’re now experiencing symptoms of low estrogen and need to replace it as well. Progesterone only relieves the progesterone deficiency, so if your symptoms are coming from low estradiol, you must replace it too before all your symptoms will be relieved.

I found that when I first started having hot flashes, I used progesterone alone and they stopped them for about eight months. Then, something changed, I just felt hot all the time, as if I had a fever, then I would have a hot flash on top of that!

No amount of progesterone changed that. It took me a few weeks to figure out what was going on, order some estradiol and make a new cream. I put it on and in about twenty minutes my body temperature felt normal again, the hot flashes stopped, and that night I slept nine straight hours and felt better than I had for quite some time.

So if you’re experiencing ANY of the symptoms on the lists on pages 5 and 6, get some progesterone, and if you need it too, some estradiol cream and replace your missing hormones. You’ll feel SOOOOOO much better and life will get better again too.

SYMPTOMS OF HORMONE DECLINE

Scalp hair loss

Depression

Facial hair growth

Feeling close to tears

Hair growth in unwanted places

Feeling hopeless

Pimples or acne

Crying easily

Polycystic ovaries

Suicidal thoughts

Fibrocystic breasts

Anxiety

Nervousness

Tender painful breast

Panic attacks

Breasts lumps or tumors

Excessive worry

Loss of vaginal moisture

Fixed attention

Vaginal infections

Mood swings

Vaginal itching or burning

Abnormal irritability

Vaginal shrinkage

PMS Uterine prolapse

Postpartum depression

Uterine fibroids

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS

Painful intercourse

Chronic fatigue

Bleeding after intercourse

Exhaustion

Bladder infections

Headaches

Bladder shrinkage

Migraines

Urinary frequency

Shortness of breath

Urinary leakage (incontinence)

Heart races or palpitates

Endometriosis

Dizzy spells

Water retention

Unexplained weight gain

Changes in eyesight

Pressure in eyes, neck, shoulders

Dry eyes

Feeling hotter than others

Pressure in sinuses

Heat intolerance

Sinus infections

Hot flashes

Lowered immune function

Low thyroid

Wounds taking longer to heal SYMPTOMS OF HORMONE DECLINE

Illnesses taking longer to get over

Dementia

Shrinkage in height

Senility

Bone loss

Alzheimer

Osteopenia

MENSTRUAL SYMPTOMS

Osteoporosis

Shorter than 28 day cycles

Nervous system disorders

Periods longer than 7 days

Auto immune disorders

Heavy flow

Lupus

Flooding

Falling uterus

Clotting

Breast cancer

Spotting between periods

Cervical cancer

Breakthrough bleeding

Uterine cancer

Thickened, brownish flow

Vaginal cancer

Painful cramps

SLEEP SYMPTOMS

Miscarriages

Trouble falling asleep

Longer than 28 day cycles

Insomnia

Periods shorter than 3 days

Restless sleep

Periods getting lighter

Trouble staying asleep

Skipped periods

Waking too early

No periods

Excessive dreaming

SEXUAL SYMPTOMS

Nightmares

Decreasing sexual desire

Getting up to urinate

Decreased sexual sensitivity

MENTAL SYMPTOMS

Decreased ability to climax

Mental fog

Foreplay irritating

Mental confusion

No sexual desire

Poor concentration

Inability to climax

Forgetfulness

Painful intercourse

Short-term memory loss

Orgasm headache