Valuable Information October 31, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Hot BHRT Topics , 2commentsI received an email today I was happy to address and think the information is valuable to share. Here goes:
“Lyn, in light of the recent scare with steroid injections and fungal meningitis outbreak….supposedly created at a compounding pharmacy out east. What assurances do we have that the Piqua Medicine Shoppe has very high standards in their manufacturing process? Could you and Jeff address this please and reassure us. Thanks, Sherry.”
Here is my response:
“Hi Sherry, Thank you for your email and for your questions. The New England Compounding Lab was a sterile compounding lab specializing in intrathecal therapy whose injections were shot directly into the spine. They were a true manufacturer and under the guidelines of the FDA. We are a small compounding lab (nonsterile only) whose focus is topical creams: hormone therapy, veterinary care, pain creams etc.) Jeff has no interest in ever compounding intrathecal therapy, nor do most small compounders. Since we make compounded therapy for customized dosing, we are under the stringent guidelines of the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy.”
Jeff adds his thoughts below:
“Sherry, the Piqua Medicine Shoppe is a nonsterile compounding pharmacy. We follow USP 795 regulations. Sterile compounding follows USP 797. As of September, we sold our regular prescription pharmacy to CVS so we could focus on compounding only. We just purchased a Resodyn mixer to custom mix our hormone medications. We are the only compounding pharmacy in the world to have this machine. This allows us accuracy that is 30-50 times more accurate than other compounding pharmacies, and better than most manufacturers. We are very excited! We test a great deal of our compounds for potency to validate all of our processes. Rest assured you are getting product in the range of 99.8-100.2%. This is unheard of with traditional compounding or the manufacturing processes. I hope this information helps reassure you that you are in the best hands possible. Warmly, Jeff”
What an email! September 23, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Case Studies In Natural Compounded Hormone Therapy, Hormone Therapy Joy , add a commentI received an email from a client that I need to share because it shows with amazing clarity the difference between finding the cause of an issue and fixing that versus labeling a condition and prescribing drugs to band-aid the symptoms. Read on- “Dear Lyn, I am doing great! I can’t believe the amazing change my progesterone has made in my life. It has given me my life back! I’m really starting to feel like my old self again! I’m happier, calmer and more relaxed. My anxiety is gone and I haven’t had a panic attack since before I started the using my progesterone cream. I even managed to get on a few carnival rides with my kids. I haven’t been able to do that in 8 years. No more trips to the emergency room for panic attacks; no more pills that didn’t work from the doctor for anxiety, depression, ADHD, bi-polar, PTSD and all the other things I was misdiagnosed with. But NO MORE!! I am happy to be alive now! I wake up in the morning excited to see what new things the day brings. My house and car are spotless when they used to be a disgusting mess. I have so much more energy and I’ve already lost 31 pounds! My fiancé, family and all my friends can not stop talking about what a huge difference the progesterone has made. I am even starting to get my sex drive back and it has only been 5 months. It started to come back at 2 months, but I know it will be even better by the 8 months I was advised it would take to return. The Happy Hormone Cottage has literally saved my life. Everyone at the Cottage and the Piqua Compounding and Consulting Lab as been so amazing. Thank you all for saving my life. Good day and God bless.” What an amazing testimony to the simplicity and common sense of using natural progesterone (which is a prescription from a doctor….all compounded therapies are prescriptive by law). All this client needed was progesterone and sadly all she was prescribed was drug after drug, because this is what her doctors know. So it is up to US to learn about natural hormone therapy and educate our doctors. If we don’t do this, how will they learn what isn’t taught in medical school? And how will we ever get better?
WHAT YOU PRACTICE IS WHAT YOU HAVE September 16, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Case Studies In Natural Compounded Hormone Therapy, Hot BHRT Topics , add a commentI received an email from a client who is now feeling better, so she is considering stopping her hormone replacement therapy now that her symptoms of menopause are easing. I happily pointed out to her that her menopausal symptoms, i.e. hormone imbalance issues, are better BECAUSE she has replaced her depleted hormone levels AND that when she stops replacing them, her symptoms will return. Is it me or does this just make sense??? Here is where the science and education of what we do comes into play. We don’t use natural hormone therapy to just take care of symptoms. We use natural hormone therapy to restore hormone balance for WELLNESS. I know that estrogen, for example, performs 300 jobs in our body. As we age and go through menopause, we no longer have the estrogen we need to perform these 300 tasks, so we are ripe for disease: heart disease, dementia, and breast cancer among others. Our waning testosterone levels cause osteoporosis and our depleted progesterone levels prevent us from optimal health and good quality of life. Hormone balance is also used to treat metabolic syndrome (high cholesterol, high blood sugar and weight gain.) So I never ask the question, “What does natural hormone balance do for me?” because I know how important it is for WELLNESS. Instead I ask the question, “What diseases will I be inviting if I DON’T use my natural hormone therapy to replace the hormones I have lost through the aging process?” When you look at it this way, in terms of WELLNESS AND PREVENTION OF DISEASE, there really is no question of their importance. And I will say it again, once you already have the disease, it’s a little late to be preventing it, isn’t it?? And once you have the disease, how much time, effort and money will be spent on treating the disease? Wouldn’t a better possibility be to spend money upfront on refilling depleted hormone levels (that deplete with age, starting at age 35) so we don’t get the disease in the first place? This is the best example I can think of that shows that what we practice is what we have. I don’t know about you, but I want the best quality of life I can possibly get as I age. If I can get this through natural hormone balance and using the quality supplements that go with it for optimal health, this is what I am going to practice!
Our 3 Year Anniversary!! August 16, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Hormone Therapy Joy , 1 comment so farThe Happy Hormone Cottage is celebrating its 3 year anniversary on August 21. We began with one simple cottage in the Heart of Centerville with a sign out front that said, “We talk to women about hormone balance…” and women showed up! To date, the Happy Hormone Cottage now has offices in Kettering, Mason, and Crestview Hills, Kentucky. We have served thousands of women and have many, many satisfied clients. Women are better and are spreading the word that the Happy Hormone Cottage is a women helping women facility and is ALL about women’s (and men’s) best health naturally. Congratulations Happy Hormone Cottage on a successful 3 years.
WE ARE ALL ABOUT WELLNESS August 14, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Case Studies In Natural Compounded Hormone Therapy, Hormone Therapy Joy , 1 comment so farI received an email this morning from another happy hormone client:
“Lyn,
Thank you so much for your quick and informative response to my questions. It was very helpful. It is also comforting to have you there. Thank you.
Perimenopause is not easy. I have read that it could take up to 10 years and I have been in it for about 2 years, although I haven’t been using your
progesterone cream all that time. I am thankful for the help your company has given me. Sincerely, Becky” I am always happy when I receive emails
and correspondence from satisfied women. What I know is that if we can begin to give women progesterone cream (note-for our practitioners, I do
NOT mean progestin. There is a world of difference between our natural progesterone cream and the synthetic progestin that we believe is one of the worst drugs ever made) starting at around age 35 when our progesterone levels begin to deplete, we can make a world of difference in the lives of our women and nip their symptoms in the bud before they even begin. If we can prevent the symptoms of progesterone deficiency (which then leads to estrogen dominance i.e. weight gain and elevated risk of breast cancer) which are stressful for women and interfere with their joy of life, since these symptoms involve sleeplessness, fatigue, irritability, low libido, among others, then why not prescribe progesterone instead of offering us antidepressants and sleeping aids? I’ve never understood that mentality.
Here is my response to Becky:
“Becky, Just a side note……our belief, based on studies done in Europe for over 30 years, is that natural hormone replacement (bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, dosed physiologically for each woman and in a topical cream delivery system. note-we do NOT believe in pellet therapy for women as we see on a daily basis the damaging effects too much of any one hormone can do to the body) is a strategy we use for WELLNESS AND DISEASE PREVENTION, as opposed to current standard of care that treats the disease after it shows up. I don’t know about you, but my thinking is that if one already has the disease, it’s a little late to be thinking of prevention. So we spend “our golden years” in “damage control mode.” My point is that I will never stop using my bhrt. We know that keeping our hormones at optimal levels helps prevent disease. For example, estrogen performs over 300 jobs in our bodies. When we no longer have periods and our estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels are low, this is when we need bhrt the most—-to prevent heart disease, dementia, breast cancer and osteoporosis. So even after you go from perimenopause to menopause and beyond, I hope you will continue to use your natural hormone replacement for optimal health.
Warmly, Lyn”
Of course, education in this area is key and it is the responsibility of each woman to research this topic for herself so she can discuss her options with her doctor. Make no mistake, those women who do not do the work to be informed in this arena, and aren’t able to dialogue with their doctor on their options outside of drug therapy, are at the greatest risk for having the smallest input into their best health naturally.
The Problem Lies With Us! July 22, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Case Studies In Natural Compounded Hormone Therapy, Hot BHRT Topics , add a commentSo I’m at a Cardinal Health Convention in Orlando, Florida for their annual Retailers Business Conference and I meet another female pharmacy owner— probably 50ish. We start talking about where we’re from and what we do and of course, since I am the executive director of the Happy Hormone Cottage, the conversation always comes around to hormones. She revealed that she is taking the oral hormone Activella. (Oral estradiol and norethindrone acetate-a progestin.) I asked her if she had ever had her hormone levels checked. She said no. I asked her how she came to be taking this synthetic hormone and she said a friend of hers gave her samples and she asked her doctor to write her a prescription for it. I asked her how she will evaluate its effectiveness if she has no baseline measuring tool (i.e. hormone levels to compare). She had no idea. Her thinking was to just keep taking this drug indefinitely I guess because her hot flashes were gone and no longer bothering her, and her doctor would just keep rewriting the prescription for her. Well of course she will!
I guess this begs the question of why we would put synthetic hormones (drugs) into our body without ever getting our hormone levels checked before taking it. Would our dr ever prescribe blood pressure medicine without checking blood pressure first? Would he ever prescribe cholesterol medicine without checking cholesterol levels? So why in heavens name do doctors write out prescriptions for hormone drugs without checking hormone levels first? And the even bigger question for me is WHY DO WE LET THEM? Seriously, we have to change the mind set here. This 50 year old female pharmacy owner I met wasn’t even aware there IS a more natural option for hormones. Instead of taking an oral hormone drug that does nothing to rebalance her hormone levels or to prevent disease; but in fact continues to promote the hormone imbalance AND increase her risk of heart attack and stroke (oral estrogens) and don’t even get me started on the damage of synthetic progestins (!)….why not consider a more natural approach that will actually help her?
I guess until we begin to examine our options and take charge of our health, we will just continue to operate the same way. What will it take to change the face of this? The truth is we ARE allowed to discuss our health options with our health care practitioners but first we have to know what they are! Why not have our hormone levels checked at our annual ob gyn exams and then use progesterone to rebalance hormone issues when they begin around age 35? Progesterone offer protective benefits for the uterus, breast tissue, heart, bone and brain. It also relieves symptoms of sleep, anxiety, depression, mood, aches & pains and sugar cravings that occur when progesterone levels begin to deplete around age 35. Why not pro actively address hormone imbalance issues by fixing the cause of the issue with customized progesterone AFTER checking hormone levels? Why NOT take charge of our journey? Until we begin to do this, nothing will change. Isn’t the definition of insanity “doing the same thing again and again with the same results??” I mean, really, is this the best we can do? I think not. But I can only do so much. Until WE begin to explore and embrace our options in this critical arena of women’s health, nothing will change….and nothing saddens me more.
MENOPAUSE AT 40 July 10, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Case Studies In Natural Compounded Hormone Therapy, Menopause , 1 comment so farI recently received this email from Andrea (name has been changed):
Good Morning Lyn,
My name is Andrea and I began menopause at the young age of 40. I am now 49 and the last two years have been very challenging for me and my
husband as well. In the last two years I can count on ONE hand how many times we have been intimate. I believe this is causing my mild depression and
being irritated all the time. I love life and am usually a very upbeat, joyful person. However, I feel like I am going downhill. I cry constantly, usually on the way to work and on the way home. I don’t sleep through the night and I wake up feeling very emotional. The thing is I don’t have insurance to go to a doctor regularly and this just adds to my frustration and feeling down in the dumps. I take a multivitamin, magnesium and melatonin. It’s just a constant battle within myself, my thoughts jump, my energy level lags. I thought theses years were supposed to be golden? Can you help me? I will do anything.
Respectfully,
Andrea
My response to Andrea:
Hi Andrea,
Thank you for your email. I can tell you that you are not alone in your journey; and that what you are experiencing is a part of life as we age and it is called HORMONE IMBALANCE. Let me educate you:
Our hormones deplete with age. For most women, this depletion that leads to a hormone imbalance begins around age 35. This is when our progesterone production begins to decrease because our bodies are older and we simply don’t make what we need. Guess what progesterone is responsible for? Ready?
-sleep
-depression
-anxiety
-mood
-sugar cravings
-aches and pains
-balancing estrogen to help prevent breast cancer
So progesterone is a BIG deal. And when our progesterone levels begin to deplete at around age 35, this is when most of our issues begin. When women lose progesterone, they become estrogen dominant. This estrogen dominance is reflected in the 25-30 excess pounds around our mid-section; brain fog; and increased risk of breast cancer. By the time we are in our 40′s, most women are having issues with sleep, anxiety, mood, etc. Let me tell you that tired women have no libido! Compound this with adrenal fatigue and undiagnosed thyroid issues (conventionally trained doctors don’t check what we believe are also important pieces of the thyroid-the free t3 and free t4) and we have a lot of women who are miserable. In fact, most of the women I talk to on a daily basis want the same 4 things:
-to sleep
-to lose weight
-to regain libido
-to have energy
Your next step? Call us at 513 444 6343 (Dayton or Cincinnati) or 859 360 6696 (northern Kentucky) for your free consultation. We will spend 45 minutes of our time educating you and determining your specific issues. We will also provide you with a strategy to get your hormone levels checked with a take home zrt lab testing kit. (the fee for this testing kit runs between $270-$345 and is the lab fee) When your test results come back to us, we will write our recommendation for your hormone balance for your doctor or one who works with us and understands natural hormone balance. Then we can customize your natural hormone therapy for you to replace your depleted hormone levels with physiological dosing to rebalance your hormone levels; eradicate symptoms and prevent disease. We never let insurance stand in our way. I always ask the question, “What is your health and happiness worth to you?” You will need money for the testing kit to determine existing hormone levels and you will need money for the doctor’s office visit to approve therapy. You may need to revisit your doctor at the 6-month or 1-year mark for refills and adjustment to therapy. There is also a cost, of course, for the monthly topical hormone creams but we do bill insurance for these and often our cash price is cheaper than your copay. We also do accept HSA’s as well. I don’t know about you, but the choice to do nothing because you have no insurance vs owning your journey to your best health is a no-brainer. And I can tell you my truth–if you do nothing for your existing hormone imbalance issues, TODAY IS THE BEST DAY YOU WILL HAVE! Scary, huh? By the way, these are not our golden years. I think this term refers to life in our 70′s and 80′s. So I’m thinking you have a ways to go. Let’s make it a good journey!
Looking forward to seeing you soon. We are all about YOUR best health naturally.
Warmly,
Lyn
p.s. I forgot to mention that we have clients who tell us they are feeling so much better after being on our therapy. They are experiencing joy of life again and have reclaimed intimacy with their husbands or partners. They tell me they would rather not eat than give up their hormone creams! Luckily, you won’t have to choose between food and hormones 
WHAT I’VE LEARNED June 13, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Hot BHRT Topics, Menopause, Uneducated doctors , 2commentsOver the past 3 years of helping women, since our Happy Hormone Cottage opened its doors in August of 2009, I’ve had the great pleasure of knowing that my passion of educating women really IS what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I spent 30 years in the classroom teaching middle school children, and I’ve simply transferred that passion to educating women about natural hormone balance and their bodies. I found a niche in inner city, just loving children right where they were and coaxing them along to where they needed to be, and somewhere along the way, hopefully instilling in them the belief that I believed in them, so they could learn to believe in themselves. Working with middle years women (age 35 and over) isn’t all that different, except in this case I have to coax them along into believing in themselves when nobody else does; when their family tells them they are crazy; their mothers and grandmothers tell them “this is just the way it is; and even their health care providers aren’t all that validating much of the time.
I have learned that in no other demograhic in our society, does a group of individuals have to fight so hard to be heard, as women ages 35-death, with a hormone imbalance! I have learned that once we get women ON customized and compounded hormone therapy so they have the opportunity to actually feel better, the challenges don’t stop there. We really never know how the doctors who give their clients permission to work with us will respond when we have to do what we do. The dilemma seems to be that the mind set in current standard of care is so used to the one-size-fits-all routine, that what WE do by listening to our body’s biofeedback to adjust dosing, can be problematic to some doctors who aren’t expecting this. Is it because what we do is different? Is it because some doctors have egos, so don’t like being given suggestions on how to adjust dosing (it is not intuitive!)? Is it because some health care practitioners resent being offered direction on what to do by a compounding pharmacist? I mean, really, what IS the problem? Why can’t we just all work together with our mutual clients’ optimal health in mind, for the ultimate benefit of the client? Is it possible that this cooperative effort might be a win-win for all? We think so! And the doctors we work with who DO get what we do, and see how much better their patients finally feel, are embracing this journey with us and are a joy to work with! We need more of these health care practitioners!
I have learned that no matter how badly a client feels, and women who have been hormonally imbalanced and miserable for years, can feel pretty badly…this is NO excuse for being mean to my staff OR their doctor. We have had women call and yell at us because what we tell them may not be what they want to hear. We are a free resource center with a love for women helping women. Our goal is to listen, respect and validate our women, so to have that unhappy woman treat us meanly by yelling at us or hanging up on us is simply unacceptable. And we just got a call from a family practice doctor asking us to not send him any more clients because one of them yelled at his receptionist when she got lost and couldn’t find their office. Instead of this doctor refusing to work with just her, she has ruined it for the rest of the women who would have benefited from this doctor. I find this incredibly sad on many levels! There is just no reason to be mean and out of control—-especially when we are just trying to help (and we are a free resource center for education in this area of hormone imbalance.) And most people would be surprised to learn how very hard we have to work to find doctors who are willing to think outside the box and work with us at all, because what we do is different from traditional standard of care that is one-size-fits-all.
I have learned that just because we aren’t out to make a lot of money, this isn’t always the case. Other hormone centers cost A LOT of money and even some doctors are expensive. We have one doctor who has now stopped working with us because she can’t make enough money from our clients. Doctors make money on running expensive lab tests and selling expensive supplements. We don’t believe it is necessary to run expensive lab work monthly. We can listen to our clients’ biofeedback to work with their doctor to adjust dosing; and then have them check their hormone levels annually with an inexpensive and quick blood spot kit that checks hormone levels at the tissue level of cells. So I feel some clients are being taken advantage of because they are on a customized therapy that involves topical creams. These are the health care practitioners we weed out and no longer recommend because we do have our women’s backs. We have done this for a long time and are pretty good at what we do. So why not listen to us and be willing to learn? Being on customized bhrt does not have to be expensive. Certainly, the monthly cost of our topical creams isn’t!
I have learned that I have had to work incredibly hard to be able to help women finally feel better. I mean, if women over the age of 35 felt better, I wouldn’t be so busy. But women aren’t better. Estrogen products and antidepressants aren’t working, and haven’t ever worked for a hormone imbalance. But I have to fight conventional standard of care, big pharmaceutical companies and even the mind set of women who believe their doctor is a god, so everything s\he says must be correct. Really? Then why don’t we feel better as a demographic? I’m just asking this question because it needs to be asked. But make no mistake. The personal cost for this passion has come with a price. So if I knew then what I know now, would I do it all over again? I don’t know. I’d like to think so. I do know that my heart is educating women and having their backs. It is all this other “stuff” that comes with this grass roots movement that can be frustrating and painful. It is always gratifying to help women (and men) feel better and to positively impact their lives. So at the end of the day, this is all that really matters.
warmly,
Lyn
SOUND FAMILIAR?? June 5, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Case Studies In Natural Compounded Hormone Therapy, Hot BHRT Topics, Uneducated doctors , 3commentsThis email just in:
“Hi Lyn. Well, I don’t know what I am going to do because my doctor completely disagreed with the hormone testing that was done through you and wouldn’t even consider the results. He is our family doctor, so he doesn’t know hormone therapy, but he disagrees with the validity of a test that is not requested by a doctor. I am not sure what to believe. He is recommending anti depressants as needed for my symptoms, but I am still not sure what is the right decision. I have always felt like my issues have been with hormones. He did suggest going to a hormone doctor, but I feel like that is more out-of-pocket money I will have to spend that still may not give me any solutions. Any suggestions? Susan”
My response:
“Hi Susan. I just received your email and I have to tell you that I feel your pain! I get emails like yours often. I think it would be beneficial for you to go to my website or download my free mobile app (www.happyhormonecottage.com) and read my blogs. My latest blog(s) discuss this very issue. What WE know is that you DO have a hormone imbalance issue, (we have your results to prove it) so we want to replace your depleted hormone levels with customized hormone therapy to fix the cause of your issues. Many conventionally trained doctors just don’t understand this. The only tools in their toolbox are anti depressants, sleeping aids and estrogen products that are one-size-fits-most. And because most have egos, I have found their attitude to reflect the same attitude as your doctor: CONDEMNATION WITHOUT INVESTIGATION IS THE HEIGHT OF ARROGANCE. And in NO sector of our society’s healthcare system do people have fight SO HARD to be heard and validated, as women in OUR demographic. Why is this? After doing what I do for 3 years now I have come to realize that the reason this is still being perpetuated today is because WE allow it. We (women in our demographic) just take it. I don’t know about you, but I’m done being not validated; told I’m either too young for hormone issues; or being told that “this too shall pass,” or “this is just the way you are supposed to feel.” Really? Since when? I guess when we get sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, we won’t take it anymore and begin to stand up to our doctors so we ARE heard and validated.
What I DO know is this-if you do nothing to fix the cause of your issue, you will never feel better than you do today. I think this is a scary thought for most of my women. And I guess that is why we are so busy at our Happy Hormone Cottages. Because women are feeling better! How? They are going to doctors who actually validate how they feel; who “get” that saliva testing IS valid and are willing to think outside the box so their female patients can feel better.
My suggestion for you is to go to a doctor who DOES work with us and does understand your issues. If you can remind me what part of town you live in, I can recommend a doctor for you. We can easily fax your test results and our recommendation for your natural hormone balance to this doctor.
Please let me know how you wish to proceed. My wish for you is that YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO FEEL BETTER by NOT accepting your family doctor’s word as law. You are allowed to think for yourself and take charge of YOUR journey. This is why we are here–to empower you so YOU can advocate for yourself what you believe.
Warmly, Lyn”
This is where education and knowledge come into play…….. May 27, 2012
Posted by Lyn in : Case Studies In Natural Compounded Hormone Therapy , add a commentWe recently had a client come to us to get her hormone levels checked because she was struggling with hot flashes, weight gain and sleep issues. Her saliva test results on her existing hormone levels came back from zrt lab and we wrote our recommendation for her hormone balance for her doctor. She actually took her test results to two doctors who both told her she does not have a hormone issue. They convinced her to “pursue another path,” which I can assume, based on past history with conventionally trained doctors, will include an estrogen patch for her hot flashes and a prescriptive sleeping aid for her sleep issues. The most unfortunate piece of this is that this client did NOT have what it takes to stick up for herself to feel better. She allowed herself to believe her doctor…..”But Lyn, he’s the doctor!” so she will NOT get better. Yes, the estrogen product (patch, spray, gel) will take care of her hot flashes at the expense of her weight gain, brain fog and increased risk of breast cancer. And the sleeping aid will probably get her to sleep. But I have to ask this important question- will this actually fix the cause of her issues which IS without a doubt, a hormone imbalance issue. WE have her hormone levels to prove it. The answer is “No, it will not!”. Here is where knowledge of what we do comes into play. The truth is that this client needs progesterone. This is the hormone responsible for sleep (and mood, anxiety, sugar cravings, reducing risk of breast cancer etc.) But this is not validated in conventional medicine. Again, what we do is holistic (deals with the whole body) and more in the Functional Medicine realm. She also may need a little estrogen, based physiologically for HER body, to get rid of the hot flashes; and when we balance her ratio of progesterone to estradiol, this addresses her weight gain. Do you understand the difference in our strategy that FIXES the cause of her symptoms vs her doctor’s approach, which uses drug therapy to get rid of a couple of her symptoms? When this gal went to her doctor, they did not validate her nor listen to her story, nor could they think outside the box to embrace a more natural path. And, because she did not have what it takes when meeting with her doctor, which is: education and knowledge of what we do and the assertive attitude necessary to get her needs met (although we did spend 45 minutes in her free initial consultation arming her with education and knowledge) she is the biggest loser. We have GOT to get past this reverence for our conventionally trained doctors and see them for who they are. Those who refuse to do this will NOT get their needs met. They WILL make some pharmaceutical company very happy…..but at the expense of our healthy hormone balance, anti-aging strategy and the chance to prevent disease. What pharmaceutical company wants this? And this reinforces my thinking that it is really rather difficult sometimes to see the value of many physicians today.