Aging women without estrogen and testosterone are left with a shrunken vagina, bladder infections, and incontinence.
When you think of a medical treatment I bet you think of the risks of taking a medication or having surgery…..that is how we have been taught to think about medical treatments, however the way to view any proposed treatment is to consider what will happen if you DON’T take a medication or in this case if you don’t replace your sex hormones, estradiol and testosterone after your ovary stops working at Menopause.
Every medical decision should be made by looking at the benefits of a treatment vs the risk of not taking a treatment or medication. Unfortunately, we rarely hear about what can happen if you don’t take hormones, only the risks however small, of taking hormones.
Doctors rarely tell their patients what will happen if you don’t replace your hormones, so many women just think they are not making a choice when they refuse hormone replacement. However, when you choose not to take hormones (estradiol and testosterone) you ARE making a choice….and the results of not choosing hormone replacement will be increasingly devastating as you age!
Today I am going to concentrate on the physical and metabolic changes that will occur after menopause if you choose not to take hormones.
Your Vagina, Clitoris and Bladder health
I hope telling a true story from my GYN practice will help you see the future in the correct light so you can make your decision. Early in my OBGYN career I inherited an entire nursing home full of women from a retiring doctor. I soon got to see first-hand what happens to the female anatomy in the area of the vulva and vagina when women don’t take hormone replacement.
The first thing I noticed was that without estrogen the vagina shrinks down to the diameter of pencil eraser. The skin is tight, dry and thin and you can’t see the clitoris. The labia are sealed over the clitoris, the most important organ for sexual response. From the point of view of the gynecologist the urethra (opening to the bladder) gapes open making it vulnerable to bacteria and recurrent bladder infections. After years of estrogen and testosterone deprivation, the female anatomy is altered severely, and the skin is so thin that it cracks and bleeds if it is bumped or God-forbid someone tries to put anything larger than a Q tip into the vagina!
My retirement home patients had another problem that they complained about. Most were not very mobile because another side effect of no Testosterone is that they had poor muscle mass and thin bones, so they spent more than 90% of their time sitting. This physical change plus bladder leakage from loss of estrogen, kept them wet with urine. This combination of estrogen/testosterone deficiency caused many of them to have bed sores.
So, aging without estrogen and testosterone left these women with a shrunken vagina, bladder infections and incontinence, lack of the ability to balance, and walk and be strong enough to take care of themselves. Worse yet, there is no FDA approved estrogen cream they could tolerate (the pH is off), and there is no topical FDA approved testosterone cream at all.
To find a treatment, I consulted my friend Pete the Compounding Pharmacist and asked for his advice. He whipped up some 2% testosterone and Vaseline for them to apply to their vulva and around their urethra every night. This was in 1986! Miraculously all my ladies from assisted living healed bed sores, were comfortable and their bladder symptoms improved, however other symptoms of estradiol and testosterone deficiency were not fully treated. They still had most of the problems that we associate with aging from lack of systemic estradiol and testosterone- loss of muscle and bone mass, loss of balance which meant loss of independence.
What these 70-90 something year-old ladies experienced is what you have to look forward to if you choose NOT to replace estradiol and testosterone. The local application of testosterone helped these local problems, but systemic testosterone and estrogen could have made their bodies look and work like they were it systemically younger and they might still be living at home! Look to the future and consider these certainties….no hormones will progress to the situation my aging patients found themselves in.
Let’s consider Your Brain
If the conditions of your vagina, clitoris and bladder from testosterone and estradiol deficiency are not compelling, then let’s look at your BRAIN. I want to tell you what no one else does about loss of intellectual function and memory when you lose your sex hormones.
Several years before you go through menopause your testosterone drops to a critical level. A woman’s ability to think and problem solve is dependent on your sex hormones. When testosterone is deficient, your brain speed and recall decrease rapidly. When the second hormone, estradiol is gone you have 10 years following menopause to replace your E and T to “save your brain” from permanent damage. Your brain requires E and T to repair itself and to remain active and prevent shrinking. If you choose not to replace your hormones you CHOOSE to slowly lose your ability to think and remember. This is progressive once it starts and the risk of dementia increases.
However, if you replace your hormones E and T in the 10 years after menopause you will delay the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease by 20 years! It’s up to you….If you are older than 60 you can still start E and T (non-orally, preferably with pellets) and still slow the shrinking of your brain.
Body Composition is controlled by your sex hormones
Hmm so if you don’t want to remain sexually active, and don’t care about being incontinent, having bed sores on your vulva or being able to remember anything….would hearing what is in store for your body esthetically and the loss of your physical ability change your mind?It’s a fact that at the time of menopause most women gain 10 lbs and then continue to increase body fat. The addition of estradiol alone will not stop that change, but the combination of non-oral testosterone, estrogen, weight training, low carb, high protein diet and balancing of all your hormones (thyroid, etc) will help you lose body fat and increase your muscle mass. The added benefit is that when you give your muscles testosterone, they burn more calories and they grow again, making you more stable, stronger with a better stamina.
Too many women have been scared by lies about a hormone they made until their 40s, testosterone. Yes we have more T than estradiol when we are young and fertile. The medical profession is still run by men who don’t want to give us access to the hormone they claim to be only theirs.
How about your personality, mood, irritability, sexuality and all those symptoms that occur with hormone deficiency?
Yes, testosterone is a mood elevator as is estradiol. When these go away so does our mood…unfortunately antidepressants don’t help these mood disorders, but replacing your 2 most important (although we need all our hormones) hormones DOES treat mood disorders that occur after age 40.
Another invisible quality that both contributes to our personality and our mood is our sexuality. Sexuality depends on having an adequate blood level of testosterone. Without it we lose our drive, and sex becomes a duty or abhorrent. This not only destroys families and marriages, but you don’t feel the same way about sex or anything if you don’t have your sexual energy. I am talking about the personal energy you show to the world. Most of our energy is based on sexuality…Sexuality does make the world go round!
Another invisible “gift” of replacing your testosterone is that you will start to secrete pheromones again. It is pheromones that attracts a partner or keeps your current one…. Your nose takes in the pheromones and begins the attraction. Your sweat glands and skin secrete the pheromones, but only under the influence of testosterone. You will not make or receive pheromones without testosterone!
One of my female patients was about 8 years past menopause, and the lack of her sex drive had ruined her marriage. She was very upset about not attracting or being attracted to anyone…and she feared she be alone forever. After her divorce she had moved to a new house, in a close neighborhood. After replacing her sex hormones, her single neighbor who she never paid attention to and vice versa, started asking her out. 9 months later they were living together….What was the difference? Those invisible “smells” of attraction, pheromones!
This Healthcast has been a lot like looking into the crystal ball of every American woman and seeing the future. Please don’t avoid making a decision, and of course that is a decision in itself. By getting estradiol and testosterone you can live a more fulfilling life. Please don’t plod toward old age as a sick old woman who can’t think.
If you choose to age and live without your sex hormones then that is your choice. There are so many other benefits of continuing to possess your sex hormones. In this pod cast I have not even mentioned the diseases of aging that you will avoid if you take estradiol and testosterone. If you heard my plea to transform the second half of your life into a fulfilling and healthy 50 years, then take action and find a doctor to replace estradiol and testosterone (preferably with pellets) as soon as you are menopausal or earlier if you find that your sex drive has faded.
To find out more about Estradiol and Testosterone, please read my book The Secret Female Hormone, to find out about the diseases of aging and the symptoms that you can treat with testosterone and or estradiol.
**Go to my website, BioBalancehealth.com top learn more and to become my patient.
