Tag Archive for: Alzheimer’s

Silence is Stupid!

There’s a quote that says, “Silence is Golden.” But, I disagree. I think silence is stupid!

You know, we humans are odd. We tend to behave in ways that are not in our best interest. Instead of behaving in ways that conform with our natural tendencies, we modify our behavior.

For instance, do you realize that your body talks to you? It doesn’t talk verbally, like we do to each other. Instead, it talks to you by creating symptoms to get your attention and make you aware that something’s wrong. The problem is that we ignore the things our bodies are trying to tell us.

When you came into the world as a newborn, you couldn’t do much of anything. You had needs, but you depended on others to meet them. Your job was to make sure they knew you needed something. So, even though you were completely incapable of doing anything for yourself, the one thing you could do quite well was cry. Crying was your only way of communicating. And, boy, did it work to make everyone take care of you. If, as a newborn, you had remained silent when you needed something, there’s no telling what disasters might have befallen you. Silence could have resulted in your demise. Silence would have been stupid.

Then, as you got older, you discovered that your own body had a way of communicating its needs to you. Pain indicated an injury. Itching indicated an allergy. Aching indicated muscle soreness. Your body created a whole smorgasbord of sensations to let you know something was wrong. So your body was not silent. It “spoke up” to let you know when there was a problem. And then you spoke up to get help. Silence would have been stupid.

When puberty came along, you had no difficulty announcing the arrival of your first period. Your mom had probably already been plenty vocal in warning you of its inevitability. Unfortunately, she probably didn’t bother to include anything about menopause as the bookend to puberty. But, why not? Why the silence? Menopause is really just puberty in reverse. So why did she tell you about puberty, but not menopause?

And as you aged, you talked a lot about your periods over the next 30 years or so. You even talked quite a bit about PMS. All these things were your reality. So why hide them? Half of the world’s population experienced them. So it just seemed stupid to be silent about them.

And, pregnancy, … oh my goodness! Not only is there no silence about that, there’s endless conversation about it. It’s one of the biggest events of your life. So most women talk about it before, during, and after the actual event.

Women are known for talking! We talk about everything … except menopause.

So why are we silent on the subject of menopause?

The odd thing about human behavior is that, although we refuse to listen to our own bodies, we do listen to everything and everybody else: Dr. Google, celebrities who are not experts on the topic, advertisers, marketers, ignorant girlfriends, hype, scare tactics. We listen to all the wrong things instead of listening to the one right thing.

Somewhere during the course of your life, you got the notion that you shouldn’t speak up about certain things. For some odd reason, you decided that speaking up was a form of weakness. And, odder still, you got the idea that suffering in silence was a form of martyrdom. You adopted phrases like, “Grin and bear it;” “No pain, no gain,” “I can tough it out,” etc. They all implied that you should not acknowledge the signs and symptoms that your body provided to protect you. They implied that you should just ignore your body’s way of speaking up to let you know something was wrong.

And, finally, you ended up here, at the time of menopause. Mother Nature instilled your body with a whole host of symptoms to get your attention when you lose your estrogen at post-menopause. You have over 20 horrible symptoms from your head to your toes that turn every aspect of your life upside down and make you absolutely miserable. But, … you ignore them and remain silent.

They are all symptoms of estrogen deficiency, which is the very definition of menopause. Of course, this huge list of symptoms usually follows years of wacky periods that were also a warning that menopause was just around the corner. But, even though all those horrible symptoms hit most women over the head like a ton of bricks and turn their lives upside down, most women remain silent. It’s as if they seem to think their silence constitutes some type of martyrdom. I assure you that no man would endure all those miserable symptoms silently.

You are so entrenched in your silence that you don’t even wake up to the fact that all your symptoms are your body’s way of hollering at you to alert you to the fact that estrogen is missing. Every cell in your body is starving. That’s why you have symptoms from your head to your toes.

But, you’re so good at staying silent that you just pretend everything’s fine. And, because you refuse to admit that you just might be experiencing menopause, you fail to get the education you need to manage it. You think your silence is stoic. But, in reality, it’s stupid.

You don’t speak up and tell your doctor that you’re having over 20 miserable symptoms of estrogen deficiency. And your doctor doesn’t speak up and tell you what to expect. You both remain silent. The silence is just soooo stupid!

Menopause is a hormone deficiency just like any other hormone deficiency. All hormone deficiencies produce a long list of symptoms to alert you to the fact that a hormone is missing. This is true regardless of the particular hormone that’s deficient.

Diabetes, which is insulin deficiency produces a long list of symptoms. Likewise, hypothyroidism, which is thyroid hormone deficiency, produces a long list of symptoms. And if you don’t replace the missing hormone for those situations, the hormone deficiency causes diseases that are ultimately fatal.

Oh my! Do you think the same could be true for estrogen deficiency? And if it is, why in the world would everyone be silent about it?

Well, my dear, I’m breaking the silence to tell you that estrogen deficiency is like any other hormone deficiency. It is not just about hot flashes. It’s about the diseases that are due to estrogen deficiency. What are they? Heart attack, Osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s.

The sad thing is that most women have no idea that these diseases are a direct consequence of losing their estrogen at menopause. And, with all the silence on the topic of menopause, it’s usually too late once they find out.

You see, there’s another facet to why silence is stupid. Have you ever heard of a “silent disease”? A “silent disease” is one that does not produce any symptoms. You have no idea the disease is lurking because you feel fine.

But the horrible thing about a silent disease is that it progresses until … bam! … a catastrophic event occurs. And the ironic thing about all the silence that characterizes menopause is the fact that all 3 of these diseases (Heart attack, Osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s) are silent until they are deadly.

Heart attack is the biggest killer of menopausal women. It kills 1 out of 2 women. But doctors don’t warn you about that. Their silence is inexcusably stupid. Without estrogen, you build up plaque in your heart arteries for years or decades without a clue that it’s happening. And then, when you least expect it, you have a heart attack.

But there’s more! The symptoms of a heart attack in a woman are very different from those in a man. Men have crushing chest pain with radiation into their left arm. Women don’t. Women have jaw, neck, or back discomfort that they don’t even describe as pain.

So there are 2 forms of silence with a heart attack: (1) You don’t know you’re heading for one, and (2) You don’t know you’re having one.

So, why, oh why, don’t people talk about this so that women are aware?

Osteoporosis is just as bad. When you lose your estrogen, you start losing bone. But, there are no symptoms of bone loss. It’s a silent disease. So you lose bone like crazy for years and then, bam! Your first indication of a problem comes in the form of a fracture of your spine or hip from something that should never cause a fracture. Women fracture their spines by merely coughing or sneezing. They fracture their hips when just standing still, doing nothing. They don’t fall and fracture. They literally fracture first and then fall … all because there’s no bone there. And the reason there’s no bone there is because estrogen loss causes bone loss, period.

The mortality rate after the first osteoporotic fracture is 20%. But fractures beget fractures. So most women have one after another. And they never heal because there’s no bone there. They are crippled for life, and cannot ever live independently again. Go to any nursing home in the world. I guarantee that 90% of the residents are women who have fractured.

Yet, nobody tells you about all this in advance. Isn’t that stupid?

Alzheimer’s is pretty much the ultimate in why silence is stupid. Your brain has estrogen receptors. Estrogen is its fuel, and it cannot function without it. Why do you think you get brain fog when you hit menopause? Well, if you extrapolate that brain fog over the next decade or so, what do you think is happening to your brain? It’s shrinking! That’s what Alzheimer’s is: Brain shrinkage. Your brain goes from large to small, ever so slowly and silently. And it’s silent until you’ve lost 40% of your brain.

That forgetfulness and brain fog you have for years is your brain’s attempt to wake you up and get your attention … but most women just ignore it and remain silent. That silence is stupid!

Alzheimer’s has a 100% mortality rate. That makes it 100% stupid.

So why don’t doctors equip you with the knowledge that there are silent but deadly diseases associated with estrogen deficiency?

To have 3 deadly diseases that all creep up on you silently is just super-stupid.

The message that I’m delivering to you loudly and clearly is this: Menopause is estrogen deficiency that produces symptoms to wake you up so that you’ll speak up before you develop the 3 silent diseases that can kill you. There are all sorts of things you can do to prevent both the symptoms and the diseases. But they are not all equal in their abilities. So you have to learn about the limitations of each of your management options.

If you live as long as expected, your menopause will constitute the longest hormonal phase of your life. Once you reach menopause, you will be a menopausal woman for the rest of your life. Are you going to stay silent about it for half of your life? You have more control over the menopausal portion of your life than you do over any other time. But you relinquish that control if you remain silent. Why would you do that? And if you do remain silent into your golden years, there won’t be anything “golden” about them. So give all this silence some thought. And then speak up and never shut up.

Cry like a baby if necessary. It’s the first thing you learned to do upon entry into this world. Don’t stop. It served you well when you were born, and it will serve you well now. Refuse to grin and bear the misery. Don’t settle for anything less. Make a lot of noise to get what you want for managing your menopause your way.

Silence is a form of bondage. The only way you’ll break out of bondage is to break the silence.

Silence is stupid!

Are You Losing Your Memory, or Losing Your Mind?

As you approach or progress through your menopausal transition, are you noticing that your mind just isn’t as sharp as it used to be?

Do you find yourself fishing for words? You know, that “tip-of-the-tongue” phenomenon when you know you know the word, but, for some odd reason you just can’t spit it out at the moment you need it.

Do you substitute “what’s his name,” or “whatchamacallit” for the missing word a lot? Or maybe your go-to substitute word is “jiggamabob.”

Do you forget what you were going to say just seconds before you planned to say it? And just a moment after you thought of it?

Do you forget why you went into a room?

What about misplacing things? Are your keys in your hand one minute and “lost” the next?

And how’s your general concentration?

One of the most common and frustrating symptoms of menopause is less-than-clear thinking. There are many names for this phenomenon, including “menofog,” “fuzzy thinking,” “cloudy thinking,” “forgetfulness,” “brain fog,” and the list goes on and on.

The women who have this describe it as an inability to think clearly. Their minds are not nearly as sharp as they were before they started their transition into menopause. They find it difficult to concentrate, difficult to grasp information quickly, and difficult to remember anything they did grasp. They worry about their performance at work. They make mistakes that they never made before.

So, what’s going on when you have this early symptom of menopause? Is it just a temporary, almost laughable, matter? Or is it something more than that? Are you losing your memory or are you losing your mind?

Estrogen loss is at the root of everything that happens at menopause: all the symptoms, and all the diseases.

I liken menopause to a tree. The trunk of the tree is estrogen deficiency. Each branch of the tree is a consequence of estrogen deficiency. And, boy, are there a lot of branches! There are three big diseases that result from estrogen deficiency: Heart Attack, Osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s Disease. And there are 22 symptoms of estrogen deficiency, involving every part of your body from your head to your toes. And one of those symptoms is the forgetfulness that makes you wonder if you’re losing your memory … or your mind.

One of the big overriding principles of estrogen loss at menopause is that estrogen was your fountain of youth. So, when you lose it, you start aging on the outside and on the inside.

Most of the symptoms represent aging on the outside. It’s the stuff you can see: Your skin gets dry and wrinkled; your hair falls out; your vagina gets really itchy; your urine leaks; your joints hurt; your sex drive plummets; your mood becomes more irritable; and on and on.

What you can’t see is the aging on the inside: Your heart arteries start to harden, your bone starts to disappear, and your brain starts to shrink. The problem is that you can’t feel any of these things. They’re silent until the big event when you have a heart attack, sustain a bone fracture, or receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.

So, the big question is this: When you have these memory slips, are you losing your memory or losing your mind?

Well, I hate to tell you, but it’s both.

In the short term, you are losing your memory. But of course, you witness direct evidence of that.

But if you extrapolate that over the next 20, 30, or 40 years, you are actually losing your mind. Those memory lapses are your brain trying its best to give you a wake-up call. It’s screaming, “Hey, my estrogen receptors are empty up here. I can’t think without them. In fact, I can’t survive without them. They’re my fuel. Give me my fuel or else I will shrink and disappear.”

And, that’s precisely what’s happening to your brain: You’re losing it, literally and figuratively.

So, wake up! Pay attention to your brain’s cries for help. Do what you can to prevent losing it … both your memory and your mind.

Technological Gadgets Are Brain Hatchets

We humans are such odd creatures! We all want to avoid Alzheimer’s Disease; yet we live our lives doing everything in ways that cause Alzheimer’s Disease.

This is mostly due to the fact that your brain has a default mode of “lazy.” That’s right. Your brain will always seek the easiest possible way to do every task so that it doesn’t have to do any work. And, if that sounds logical to you, it’s a perfect example of your own brain’s default mode of “lazy.”

What the human brain needs for prevention of Alzheimer’s is mental challenges. It needs to calculate equations, recall spellings, focus on one thing at a time, and figure things itself. I guess this constitutes the old-fashioned way of doing things … using your head (as my father used to say).

But it seems that the more sophisticated we get in terms of functional ease, the less resistant our brains get in terms of disease.

In the old days, if you needed to calculate something mathematically, you either did the equation in your head, or you put pen to paper. Then you figured out the equation yourself using your good ole’ brain. And, while your lazy brain may not have liked it, you still came up with the answer.

But now, humans use neither their brains nor pen and paper. Instead, they use calculators. When was the last time you figured out a mathematical equation (even a simple one) in your head instead of using your calculator? When was the last time you pulled out pen and paper to do a mathematical equation?

You see? Your brain’s default mode will force you to reach for that calculator in a heartbeat.

Before we had computers, you used a bound dictionary to look-up and spell words correctly; you edited your writing; and you felt embarrassed if your spelling or grammar were poor. You took the time to make sure you wrote as well as you could.

But now, you probably have “spell check” on your computer. In fact, because the collective conscious of the general public is on “lazy” default mode, spell check is probably an automatic feature on your computer. Most likely, you can’t even turn it off. The makers of your computerized devices can’t imagine any human who would actually want to check his or her own spelling!

So, the computer inserts red underlining for any word that isn’t a word.

Oh, but that’s not all! Instead of merely notifying you of the misspelled word, your computer actually corrects if for you! Ahhh, but it does not do so with the logic of your human brain or the sentence you intended to write. Instead, it just changes it to the word the computer finds most similar to your misspelled word.

The result is sentences that make absolutely no sense at all. Why? Because your brain’s default mode is just too enticed by the option of letting the computer do the spelling.

Before we had computers that enabled you to cut and paste, you had to reconstruct anything you edited. It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t easy. But, because you had to actually do the reconstructing yourself, the process forced you to re-read and edit your work. In so doing, you discovered all sorts of little mistakes. And you corrected them.

But now that you can just cut and paste huge chunks of text from one place to another, you don’t bother re-reading. You assume you wrote everything just fine the first time. And, thanks to your lazy brain, you don’t have to bother going over it again … especially if the computer’s spell-check function hasn’t highlighted anything. If the computer thinks it’s fine, your brain is fine with that.

That’s why you find all sorts of websites, books, documents, and articles with glaring errors these days. Nobody bothered to check them before publishing them. Nobody seems to care that the mistakes are a reflection on them. Your lazy brain agrees.

And humans don’t even want to do anything even as simple as reading anymore. Instead of reading written books, we listen to audio books. Your lazy brain says, “Why read the book yourself when you can let the machine read the book to you?”

Even map reading is a thing of the past. If you want to navigate, you don’t even have to see where you’re going on a map. Curiosity be damned! Your GPS does all the work for you, and your lazy brain is just fine with your ignorance of geographical location and direction.

Can your already-lazy brain get any lazier?

Before we had such advanced technology, you had to do just one thing at a time. You had to focus. Your brain loved that because it really can’t handle more than one thing at a time. And, although that’s in keeping with its lazy default mode, it actually serves to make it stronger. Focus forced your brain to work the way it is intended to work.

But now, with all the distractions that the technological world has presented, your lazy brain is in a constant state of overwhelm. So, instead of trying to ignore the endless distractions, it just flits from one thing to another as quickly as the technological gadget can. Of course, you only retain bits and pieces of this and that, and you get no real education on anything. But that’s okay with your lazy brain, too.

School children assume they can concentrate with music blaring their ears from an iPod or their cell phone. Total silence is “disturbing” to them simply because they’ve never experienced it before. They can’t imagine being detached from their beloved music or cell phone.

Technology is now a part of your every minute of every day. Your phone pings every few minutes with a text message. If you don’t stop what you’re doing and turn all your attention to the phone, it pings again. The television screen has little ads and messages popping up in the corners while you’re trying to watch a show. If you go to a website, there are ads for things you recently bought flashing on and off the screen to entice you to buy more of them.

Your lazy brain just can’t take all the stimulation, distraction, and action. So, it just turns off. The technology has really replaced the human brain. Most people don’t even bother trying to use their brain anymore. It’s been edged out by all the computers and technology.

I guess you could say that technological gadgets are brain hatchets! So, think twice before using these technological gadgets rather than your own brain.

But, what am I thinking? Your lazy brain doesn’t even want to think once! It definitely isn’t going to voluntarily think twice!

Like I said, technological gadgets are brain hatchets.

Menopause is All About Compensation

What does the word “compensation” mean to you?

As with most things, it probably depends on context.

Read more

Upside Down Misconceptions About Menopause

One of the most striking things I’ve learned about menopause is that the vast majority of women have numerous misconceptions about it. And the misconceptions are sooooooo prevalent that women pass them from one to the other. Read more

The Window of Opportunity

Do you remember back when you were in high school and your parents told you that the choices you made then would affect you forever? You might have seen no reason to make good grades or just say “No” to drugs, or observe the speed limit. Read more

Menopause As A Hormone Deficiency State

I’ve discovered that I’m not normal.  And, as an abnormal person, I don’t always accept things as they normally are. I contemplate lots of things … things that most other people just accept. But I question everything, especially things that don’t make sense to me. Read more