Feeling Very Good and Proud of It

Hey people, long time no see!

I've said it before and I'll keep repeating it - I HAVE NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER OF TURNING INTO A HUMPTY DUMPTY - I don't care how many metabolic pathways are screwed-up because of menopause.

If its one thing I've learned on this journey into wrinklehood, its that our livers are under constant attack.

If you've lived in the West and eaten lots of processed foods, then your liver will be congested with tons of trans fats.  That fact alone sets the scene for some pretty catastrophic peri-menopause years.  On top of that, if alcohol crossed your lips and worse (much worse) than that, if you have regularly ingested paracetamol, then get ready for a bit of a liver crisis during menopause.  

First there is the high oestrogen status, which results in non-alcoholic fatty liver, so your liver increases (and increases) in size.  That is why most women turn into Humpty Dumpty, but are totally unaware of what all that oestrogen is doing to their livers.

As if that's not bad enough, methylation is suppressed by the hormone prolactin, which menopausal women are high in.  And guess what, reduced methylation also causes non-alcoholic fatty liver.  So the liver gets even larger...  

If that's not bad enough, low progesterone means inhibition of your Sphincter of Oddi, which means you produce less bile, which means you end up with gallstones clogging the liver, which also leads to fatty liver.

See this article: GALLBLADDER DISEASE AND BILE FLOW

If you cannot make enough bile then you are inadvertently not getting all that you need out of your diet, this leads to poor absorption and ends up with all sorts of deficiencies, especially amino acids.  Remember, the liver is responsible for the manufacture of all 12 non-essential amino acids, that are synthesised from the other 8 that come to us via our food.  An under-performing, over-sized liver and struggling adrenals, combined with thyroid dysfunction (due to lack of iodine) makes for one hellava mess, wouldn't you agree?

Well, if that's not bad enough, you can also end up with very low levels of Thiamine (Vitamin B1), which happens to be destroyed by high oestrogen.

If that's not bad enough, menopausal women are classically low on Choline, which aids memory and also leads to fatty liver.

And so the list goes on...

So if your adrenals can keep up with pumping out 60% of your sex hormones, and your thyroid is still functioning reasonably well (which I doubt), considering it too is under stress of too much oestrogen.  At the very least what happens is that we get bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER waistlines, and eventually end up eating tiny morsels of food in an effort to reduce the ever-widening girth.

Does the image of a woman who is very hot, has an enormous waistline, thinning hair, poor nails, yellowing eyes, lacks concentration, has a swollen neck with enormous breasts and EATS NEXT TO NOTHING, remind you of anyone???

What a complete waste of time!

When I said I was determined not to turn into humpty dumpty, what I did after that was find out how on earth I could resuscitate my fatty liver into some kind of normality???

First thing I did was take sublingual METHYLCOBALAMIN, along with its co-factors B6 and B9.

After 3 weeks of taking those pills, I noticed my waistline reducing.  First I thought I was imagining things.  Then my clothes started to become loose.

To cut a long story short, I lost half a stone in weight in just 3 short weeks!  This was a result of taking proper B12 alone, as I was not dieting at the time.  This vital nutrient enabled my liver to let go of an enormous amount of fat that it was storing, presumably to cobble together some kind of B12 approximate?

Because up to then I had been taking the other form of B12, the wrong one, that's derived from cyanide!

After that, I knew I still had work to do on the liver and so started taking Apple Cider Vinegar with raw honey in a 1:1 ratio, because ACV is very good for the liver and it reduces cholesterol.  Naturally, my cholesterol reading is high, as you would expect after having a fatty liver for Goodness knows how long?

After that I started to take Choline.  Choline is required by the liver and is virtually a B vitamin.  Menopausal women are found to have only 2% of the dietary requirements for choline in their bodies.  Choline deficiency leads to kidney disease and wait for it.........fatty liver!

About 2 months of consuming all those liver-friendly substances, I decided to really push the boat out and did my first liver flush.  I've done 3 more since then.  They have all been fantastic at helping me to eliminate cholesterol bile- balls, called gallstones (I refer to them as mini 'pasta balls').

They honestly look like little (yellow) balls of pasta and I eliminated about 500 in total.  I felt so much better after that.  This procedure helps your liver to function better and enables you to digest your food better with the right amount of bile.  (Not everyone's gallstones are yellow, they can be green or red, depending on what you live on.)

The great thing was that after my first liver flush, I noticed my hot flashes stopped!  So you see, it doesn't matter what all those male doctors tell you, take it from me, hot flashes are heavily linked to liver congestion, as well as adrenal insufficiency.   

Also, after my first liver flush, I noticed I didn't need to take Progesterone Cream twice a day any more, and now continue to take it only once.

I don't have hot flashes anymore, but looking back, each time I did, it was because something else was wrong e.g. my adrenals were low or my liver was congested due to my gallbladder being full of 'pasta balls'.

Recently, I started taking Taurine too.  That's a very interesting amino acid, because apart from nourishing the retina of your eyeballs and being great for your heart (heart muscle contains more Taurine than any other amino acid), it helps you to make good quality bile salts.

Taurine is also destroyed in the liver by high oestrogen.

Do you see people, how high oestrogen status is synonymous with turning you into a humpty dumpty shape?

I also take Vitex Agnus Castus, which suppresses Prolactin and helps you to balance your hormones.

However, I don't intend to take Agnus Castus forever, because unfortunately it happens to raise Luteinising Hormone.  This is great if you're trying to conceive, but for older people, an increase in Luteinising Hormone is linked to Alzheimers Disease, which is obviously, pretty bad.

I currently have three aunts with Osteoporosis and so am very concerned to maintain my bone health.

For that purpose I occasionally take Ipriflavone and Strontium.  I take calcium once a day, 600mg, dissolved in lemon juice.  I'll speak more about bones another time.

If you'd like to know more about The Liver and Gallbladder Flush, I suggest you download this book:

The Assault on our Liver that is Menopause

My migraines are virtually a thing of the past, as they've responded really well to Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV), 2 teaspoons mixed in a glass of water, taken 3 times a day.  

I had two separate reports in important nutrition books about the correlation between platelet aggregation and migraine attacks.  So I decided I needed to tackle 'blood sludge' and read a book on the benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar.

This natural health tonic is good for man and beast and its dates from before Egyptian times.  It contains among other things, concentrated levels of Malic Acid, which is great at cleaning out your blood vessels by dissolving cholesterol build-up.  It consequently relieves fatigue because you feel refreshed after taking it.  It also reduces gallstones and kidney stones.  The other thing it contains which is especially great for anti-aging is organic sulphur.  This means your liver spots will reduce and the smaller ones will completely disappear!  Organic sulphur used to come to us via food but not that has ended due to the use of petro-chemical fertilisers that contain inorganic sulphur.  Organic sulphur in ACV is highly beneficial to the health of your skin and your complexion improves no end once you start taking it.

Make sure you buy unpasteurized ACV and you can add unpasteurized honey to add to it in a ratio of 1:1.  I'm going to devote an entire post to ACV soon, but first...

So, the migraines are so mild and short now that I don't even have to take Peppermint pills anymore, or indeed any kind of analgesic - yippee!  

I'm not totally certain yet, as my experiments on myself are still continuing, but I think I might have possibly isolated the original cause behind them as being within my kidneys??  

Remember I said ages ago that I learned that "migraines are due to an electrolyte crisis that starts elsewhere in the body, like the liver or kidneys".  

But even though my migraines look like history, I'm still going to continue writing this blog, as I would like to help raise awareness of other important concerns regarding pre and post menopausal hormonal issues, and their detrimental effect on general health.  

And of course, because I'm very interested in turning back the biological clock, as well as avoiding the dreaded humpty-dumpty body shape - which I honestly believe you can! 

From what I have learned this Summer, the primary organ under threat during prolonged Oestrogen dominance, which officially starts to occur after the age of 35, is:

THE LIVER

Isn't it funny how when you go along to see your doctor to discuss how dreadful you feel with menopausal symptoms, they don't really know what to say, maybe think you're a bit nuts, and don't seem to understand what on earth you're talking about?  All that registers with them, on a instinctive cultural level, is that you as an older woman, cannot handle the loss of your fertility and are moaning, plus, you should try harder to lose weight.  It doesn't matter how long your list of symptoms is.

Their philosophy is always WAIT AND SEE.

Waiting and seeing to my mind actually means doing nothing until you become a medical statistic.  The increased incidence of heart disease, kidney disease, gallstones, diabetes, thyroid disfunction, adrenal insufficiency and osteoporosis SHOOTS UP during and after menopause.  

Added to which, for about 10 years before menopause, most women to my mind, have visible signs of considerable insulin resistance e.g. they're having constant sugar cravings, yet feel tired all the time and need to pee virtually every half hour.  For women is jobs where they cannot get to the bathroom without having to ask permission and enter the visit it into a book, this has serious consequences.

Its because menopausal symptoms strike at the very core of metabolism itself, that long term imbalances should definitely not be ignored because they can, eventually, lead to all out metabolic syndrome.

If you present to your doctor one Summer with a cascade of menopausal symptoms, then a year later with the clear start of Metabolic Syndrome, that's when Big Pharma suddenly wakes up to what is happening to you.  

It almost seems to me, as if they don't care what happened to you in that (all important) intervening year, because non of your imbalances were corrected, you were just left to develop the more serious symptoms, or as I see it, results of all that waiting and seeing.

Usually by that time, you feel so dreadful, you don't care anymore what they give you, as long as it improves things, one way or another.  Am I right?

Metabolic Syndrome is an awful state to be in.  You thereafter have to take ridiculous amounts of medication, that stack up all over your kitchen, your handbag weighs a ton and is stuffed full, you have to buy special dispensers, you start living on a restricted diet, which means more deficiencies and more mood disturbance and electrolyte crises.    

Even after taking a multitude of pills, your energy does not return and you spend hours waiting for interminable 'scans', then blood and urine tests.  

Your eyes turn yellow, your hair becomes sparse, your abdomen grows huge, your breasts just get bigger and bigger, and your complexion looks like a ghastly paper mask! 

I know, because I've been there!

As your condition further deteriorates and one thing leads to another, you find yourself taking medications that eventually seem to be at loggerheads? You tell your doctors you still don't feel well, so they give you HIGHER doses.  

In the end you see another doctor who tells you your previous doctor was overdosing you, or worse, giving you stuff that conflicts with what he is giving you (this happened to MORE than one friend of mine!).

I've had my friends tell me their mothers consider themselves to be toxic, with all the medications they're taking.

Eventually, you work out that you might even feel worse than when you started out on the pill-popping road??

In other words, you are not 'cured', you are 'managed'.

My attitude to all of this is completely different, I say if there is imbalance (be it from adrenals, kidneys, calcium, etc) then correct it and don't wait until your blood pressure goes up or your glucose levels go out of control.  

In my experience, it takes quite a long time for your menopausal symptoms to turn nasty.  And nasty they will turn if you don't DO SOMETHING about it.  

I will talk more about various symptoms next time, especially those affecting your kidneys, liver and pancreas.  

...Next time you take an early morning flight, just take a look round at your fellow travellers and watch how many medications they're popping....entire carrier bags full!

Metabolic Syndrome is a very serious, devastating condition, and in my opinion, its something you should try with every fibre in your body to avoid!!  

This is no time for somnambulence!  You need to watch your body and maybe keep a diary about strange twinges and discomforts and changing habits, like bowel, bladder and sleep patterns.    

Because what I've learned this Summer, more clearly than ever, is that the health of your liver, kidneys and pancreas is paramount to continued good health and they are the primary targets of the detrimental effect of menopause on metabolism.     

The main things I learned this Summer about the effect that our hormones, (or lack of them), have on our liver, made me decide to takeover the 'health management' of this organ (and clean it out).  They are:

• reduced methylation due to high levels of prolactin
• reduced bile output due to the effects of decreased progesterone on the workings of the Sphincter of Oddi

Thereafter my aim was to revitalise its functionality, but the way it started was completely by accident.

Gotta go!