Tag Archives | hair loss

Learn All About Menopause At The Free Menopause Summit

By on September 19, 2013 in Menopause

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I am so excited to be a part of this event (and to partake of the wisdom of so many experts!) From September 22-29, Kris Smith of My Menopause Fix is hosting 20 presenters on every aspect of Menopause Health and Wellness. And this summit is online, so you don’t have to leave home or your office to partake.

Topics include:

How to naturally balance and stabilize your hormones
How to get even keeled moods
How to get better sleep
How to reduce anxiety and decrease stress
How to lose or maintain your weight
How to deal with diabetes and menopause
How to have a better sex life and stronger libido
How to create a new and improved you

Each day there will be 2-3 online video presentations from Menopause experts (yours truly is on the first day – I hope to “see” you there.) For more info and to sign up, just click here.
And please forward this link to all your Menopause Goddess sisters or those who love them so we can demystify and ease the Change together. I only wish I’d had such a wealth of information when I started my transition. Lucky us, it’s here now!

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Menopause Mailbag: Hot Flashes, Anxiety, Insomnia, and More

By on September 10, 2012 in Hair loss, Hot Flashes, Menopause, Menopause in Community, Physical Menopause Symptoms

High Country Reflection © lynette sheppard

This month’s menopause mailbag deals with hot flashes, anxiety, insomnia, and so much more. Please take a moment to offer your advice and support in the comments section for our menopause goddess sisters.

Menopause Goddess sister L. writes from the U.K.:

Hot Flashes
Okay here’s a strange one and I’d love to know if anyone else has had this happen. A couple of weeks before my birthday this year, the hot flashes started and they were intense. Every couple of hours, every time I drank coffee, 4.00 am every night. So I stopped the coffee, started wearing layers and slept with just a sheet to stay cool.

Here we are almost 2 months later and they’ve all but stopped. One or two a week, nothing at night now. Still not drinking coffee though. I’d been told they’d go on for years … can they start and stop like this? Anyone else had this happen?

OK ladies, any suggestions? Have you all had this happen to you?

MPG: I, Lynette, got hot flashes from drinking hot beverages – cold coffee was not a problem. And even that got better.

And R. shares her hot flash remedy / discovery:

Just a heads up: I quit eating all sugar (including fruit juice and fruit) and ALL hot flashes stopped.
If I really want sugar (read fruit or chocolate) , I eat a bunch of vegetables before hand and they slow down the ingestion of sugar so I still don’t get hot flashes. Pass it on, it may help others!

MPG: Thanks, R. Definitely worth a try. And remember, goddesses, to keep a hot flash journal with what you did immediately before to find out what your own specific hot flash triggers are. Every women is unique.

M. writes requesting help:

I am soon to be 48 and 12 months into hormone hell, as I affectionately call it. I have considered myself to be strong, fun loving and positive. My perimenopause bomb hit from out of nowhere. mainly insomnia and anxiety. Totally foreign! I am on my second ND, started bioidentical progesterone 2 months ago. reasearch and ttes/labs assured me this is perimenopause. What is most difficult are the periods of insomnia and anxiety. I Would love to share with other women, help getting through these normal, common, horrible symptoms!

MPG: Readers, please help. And M., you might want to set up your own goddess group. It literally saved all of us Venuses. Click on the links below for the How To Guide blog entries.

Creating A Menopause Goddess Group: A How To Guide Pt. I

Creating A Menopause  Goddess Group: A How To Guide Pt. II

And S. writes to share her hair loss experience (which is way more common than we are ever led to believe!):

You are the answer to my prayers. My hair started falling out and I have noticeable scalp showing through. I believe it is from the HRT. I wasn’t sure how to stop, but after finding you, I have decided to cut pill in half and gradually stop taking bio-identical hormones. I have minimal wrinkles and I am concerned that skin will suffer…..bald or wrinkled….what a choice!

MPG: LOL, what a choice indeed. I remember wanting to take out stock in a hat company so at least I could cover my head. Sheesh, it’s a good thing we don’t lose our sense of humor!

Hot Flash Prevention – Avoiding the ?Triggers? | Menopause Goddess Blog dot com

All I Know About Stopping HRT So Far | Menopause Goddess Blog dot com

Holla for replacing Hormones | Kerri Zane

(Insert Pathetic Sigh Here)

Choose The Right Menopause Remedy Part II | Menopause Goddess Blog dot com

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Hair We Go Again: Menopause Hair Loss Revisited

By on April 21, 2012 in Hair loss, Menopause

Sunny Day © lynette sheppard

Well ladies, I have been using Avacor (active ingredient minoxidil – as in Rogaine) and I hate to get too excited, but I do think I see new little hairs at my temple (where I have the most thinning.) I will continue using it and keep you all posted.

And my new friends at Avacor ( who gave me the free trial) are now partnering with Menopause Goddess Blog to provide a 40% discount on Avacor Physician’s formulation for Women.  Visit avacor.com and enter this coupon code: WTOP40 to get your discount.

As most of you know, I freaked out completely when I noticed my hair thinning dramatically – yet another of the unwelcome gifts of the Big M. My former dermatologist was all but useless, as was my laissez faire hairdresser who laconically told me that it was likely hormonal. Well, geez. There’s a news flash. What I wanted to hear was how I could FIX it.

Luckily, I met Luna the hair magician and she gave my hair (and me) some much needed advice, love and care. After 4 years, I still use Nioxin shampoo and conditioner – and feel like it helped stop the loss. I dutifully ingested my thyroid medicine, had my hair layered and professionally highlighted, and used styling products to increase volume. (Faves are ISO’s Bouncy Creme, KMS Curlup, and now Avacor’s Boost.)

What is almost as thrilling to me as the cessation of hair fallout is the active conversation about female hair loss now taking place just about everywhere. Check out Vibrant Nation ( one of my favorite women-of-a-certain-age-growing sites.) They have a free hair loss guide which has some great suggestions in it. (Except maybe for the one about “finding the cause” because the more I learn about this, the more I find it is multifactorial and completely individual. The “what to do about it” info is better.

Avacor recently posted this blog entry about Menopause and hair loss – worth reading. And for those who missed it,  check out Menopause Goddess Blog’s previous forays into this hair raising topic:  Menopause Shocker: Things Got Hairy, Then They Didn’t , Thin Is In, Or Honey, Who Took My Hair , and As Goddess As It Gets, Good Hair Days Are Back.

So many of us equate femininity with our hair. We expected to lose our periods, our tight buns, even our sanity with the advent of Menopause.  But we never expected to lose our hair. Thankfully, with a little attention and some new products, good hair days may still grace our present and our future.

 

 

 

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Research Participation, Hair Loss, and HRT Update: A Menopause Grab Bag

By on March 6, 2012 in Hair loss, Hormone Replacement Therapy, Hot Flashes, Menopause, Research on Menopause

red maple leaves, Zion NP © lynette sheppard


Greetings, Goddesses (and those who love them). My apologies for not posting for a couple of weeks. The short story on why? Hula conference, food poisoning, the flu.
I’m bouncing back now; well more like crawling back but things are looking up. I’m recuperating in one of the most beautiful places on our little green planet: Zion National Park, Utah.

In deference to the backlog of important topics I’ve been meaning to post, here are three in one – a veritable grab bag of meno missives.

First, there is a call for participation in a UCLA study on attitudes toward disgusting situations. It seems that there may be changes in what we find disgusting or not when we go through menopause. Professor Daniel Fessler of UCLA and Dr. Katinka Quintelier of Ghent University are co-conductors of this research. I took the survey myself – pretty interesting. Click on the link below or paste it into your browser – all results are completely anonymous. http://menodis2011-2012.questionpro.com

On the hair loss front – a particularly diabolical manifestation of the Change, there is new hope out for menopausal women afflicted. Avacor has been approved for hair regrowth in hormonal thinning. (Active ingredient in the serum is minoxidil aka Rogaine.) They have had significant success, although like everything, it won’t work for all women. So I have offered to be a guinea pig yet again and have begun a three month program. It usually takes two months to show any effect, so don’t expect to hear too much too soon. Hope springeth eternal – I’ve taken my before pictures and hope to see a difference in eight weeks or so. I’ll keep you posted.

I will say this: one of the products in their starter kit is called “Boost”. It is a hair thickener styling product and it is as good or better as any of my previous favorites. I highly recommend this even if you don’t need to regrow hair. It’s a great volumizer and doesn’t weigh my hair down in the process. Yes, you can buy this product separately. If you want to take this journey along with me, they can start you out with a free 3 month trial supply of the full set of products. Check out their website at avacor.com

Last but not least, I wanted to report on my HRT cessation (and my physician’s). We both feel just fine – yes, we do have a hot flash every now and then but they are short lived and not too incendiary. I must report the side effect of a little smugness on both our parts, but thankfully this is not serious.
For those of you who are attempting to titrate down your HRT, go slowly and be gentle with yourself. With the patch, I was cutting it into tinier and tinier pieces until I was wearing just a miniscule pie shaped wedge that likely had almost no hormone in it. Still, the placebo effect is powerful juju and I availed myself of it for quite a while. Now I’m happy and hormone free. Except for any hormones that my own body might produce on its own. I’ll take all of those I can get.Now, I’m going out to sit on the patio and look at red rocks. Take the survey, grow some hair, be gentle with yourself in all ways. Oh, and eat some chocolate. Just sayin’…

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