A Health Warning For Mums

Just recently a doctor recommended I go and see a specialist in Life Style and Anti-Aging Medicine.  I see you rolling your eyes.....'oh no, not that quackery'.....but the recommendation was prompted by my exhaustion, slipping memory, difficulty making decisions and focusing, depression, anxiety, difficulty loosing weight etc.  And it turns out this kind of doctor looks not only at the external stuff i.e. cosmetic surgery, but also the internal stuff i.e. calcium levels, iron etc.  So I went along and had a chat, took the little form into QML and had half the blood from my body drained into little vials.

Last weekend I headed back in to see if he'd found anything of significance.

He sat across from me with about 6 pages of results and talked about how my iron, thyroid, calcium etc, etc were all great.  I was healthy as a horse.....except for one little thing, my testosterone levels were worse than that of an 88 year old woman!  To make matters worse, my DHEA or 'lead' as he put it, that the body uses to make the testosterone 'bullets' (he's a big Scottish guy with a sense of humour) was also critically low.

This explained everything I had been experiencing for such a long period of time.  And the cause, well since we knew that I was generally a very healthy person it all comes down to stress and lack of sleep over an extended period of time.  He said I have Chronic Stress.  Your body isn't designed to cope with stress that never lets up for years on end.  It's designed to cope with the Saber Tooth Tiger that raids the village and eats your neighbour (once again the doctors words) while you run away and then going back to sitting by the fire.  The body also isn't designed to go for years on end with only 1 and 2 hour blocks of sleep here and there.  It needs 2 x 3.5 hour blocks of sleep to allow your body to go into a deep sleep, repair itself and manufacture those 'bullets'.

So where does that leave me.  Well firstly I need more sleep.....yeah I know, I didn't need a blood test to tell me that.  I also need to try to find a way to reduce stress....yep still no shock there.  But I also need to try a couple of medical interventions, one is I can take DHEA and the other is Melatonin (yep, the same thing I'm giving Connor).  The DHEA will give my body a hand with the raw materials it needs and the Melatonin will help me get into a nice deep sleep so I can get that factory out of cobwebs.

Only one little problem.  Now I have to give up breast feeding my Merryn if I want to start the treatment.  After the fight I lost to breast feed Connor, giving that up isn't quite as easy as you'd think.  Just another thing to get my head around (I will, but as I said to my sister, just not in the next 2 days).  BUT....I have some answers AND I have a strategy now.  And that is a step in the right direction.

I've put a snippet of information below about testosterone for women.  Look after yourselves ladies, we are often the glue that keeps our families going.  And beside all that, we deserve a little TLC.

What Testosterone Does For You

Testosterone conveys powerful anti-aging effects. It turns fat into muscle, keeps skin supple, increases bone mineral density, gives us positive mood, and boosts our ability to handle stress. It supports cognitive functioning, and keeps the liver and blood vessels clean. Low testosterone levels have been associated with heart attack, Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, and depression. If you are freezing cold all the time and your thyroid levels are adequate, you are probably low on testosterone. For women, a little bit of testosterone can go a long way in improving looks, figure, energy level, outlook on life, enjoyment of living, sex appeal and sexual fulfillment.

Some signs of low testosterone in women are:

• Decreased energy and sense of well being
• Decreased motivation
• Decreased interest in sex Sexual dysfunction
• Increased feeling of fatigue
• Gains in bodyfat levels