Losing your life to save the cost of a Starbucks a day.
So many times I find myself talking to one of my patients who hadnât come to see me for quite a while. When I ask them why they stopped getting BioBalance Pellets, they Last night I was at a party and I ran into a long time patient who came to me for pellets for many years and who I had not seen in 3 years. I asked her how she was but I could tell she didnât feel well by the way she looked and walked. She had become swollen and walked as if she was in pain.
She told me that pellets were the best medical decision she ever made, but now her son was in college and she was saving money by not coming to me. I listened hew exuberance about how she had never felt better than when she was on testosterone and estrogen pellets. I wondered how her health was now as she looked like a whole different person than just a few years ago.
We talked about other things and then she kept coming back to her medical problems that she had not had while she was on pelletsâbut she hadnât put that together with stopping pellets! It is always harder to see your problems yourself which is why others are our doctorsâŠsomeone else can connect the dots before we can do it ourselves.
So she began by telling me how her rheumatoid arthritis had come back with a vengeance after she stopped pellet therapy, how much she hurt, which had caused her to stop exercising, halted her hobbies one at a time and now she had to see the doctor every other month. Moreover, she was dismayed because she was on âa lot of medsâ and they made her fatigued, and impaired her immune system so she was sick all the time!
I couldnât point this out to her, because we were at a social function, but she was spending more on all of these office visits and pharmacy bills now, which were not necessary when she was on hormones. I just listenedâŠ.
âYou know last year I had to go to 3 Gyn docs to figure out what was wrong with my bottom and they gave me all kinds of ideasâŠCrisco(?), topical estrogen, Benedryl. Nothing worked! And I havenât had sex in ___ years!â
Well what is her marriage worth? How bad can it be to hurt every time she sits down? Does any of this make sense to those of you reading this? Is this something you have done without thinking? My Mom called his behavior, âthrowing the baby out with the bath waterâ.
Then I watched her walk to the bar for another drink and she tentatively walked like someone much older than her 55 years. What a terrible change had occurred in her appearance and her attitude in a few years!
Her last physical complaint was about her weight gain and how she had no control over it. She felt helpless. I have been thinking about her for the past week wondering how I can help her without seeming critical. I guess Iâll pray she sees a reflection of what I was seeing and realizes she could get her life and health back by coming in for a consultation, some blood work, testosterone and estradiol pellets and some encouragement. I hope you can see what a waste this is of a productive and previously funny, happy woman, over cost-savings that arenât real!
Take a look in the mirror and make your decisionâŠare you going to practice self denial and end up spending more money by paying multiple doctors and pharmacies to just get along? Pellets cost women about a large Starbucks a day.
