Hormone Heroes
Testimonials from real people who have experienced bio-identical hormone therapy. Men and women share the symptoms they have experienced and the difference proper hormone replacement has made. Men discuss the advantages of testosterone and women discuss the benefits of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone therapy. The roles of thyroid, adrenal health, insulin resistance, intermittent fasting, and micronutrients are also discussed.
Hormone Heroes
Aging Redefined: Jimmy and Cheryl's Triumph with Bioidentical Hormones
Discover how bioidentical hormone therapy could redefine aging for you through the compelling experiences of Jimmy and Cheryl. At 72 and 75, these retirees share their inspiring journeys with hormone treatment, shedding light on how it transformed their lives. Jimmy, a former owner in the trucking industry, recounts his shift from ineffective creams and apprehensive injections to the vitality he found with testosterone pellets. Meanwhile, Cheryl opens up about her struggles with night sweats and panic attacks since her 50s, celebrating the role hormone pellets have played in reclaiming her mental clarity, sleep quality, and bone health.
This episode of Hormone Heroes also delves into the steadfast commitment both have toward continuing hormone therapy as a lifeline for their health. Their resilience and optimism are a powerful testament to not accepting age-related decline without a fight. As they share their unwavering dedication, I express gratitude for their heartfelt testimonials and encourage listeners to reflect on this potential pathway to a vibrant, active lifestyle. Be inspired by their stories and consider the possibilities hormone therapy might offer you or your loved ones.
Welcome to Hormone Heroes, where I share testimonials from real people who have experienced bioidentical hormone therapy. Men and women share the symptoms they have experienced and the difference proper hormone replacement has made. I'm your host, Dr Kelly Hopkins, and I have been in the functional medicine space for over 30 years, with a focus on hormones for 20 years. Please keep in mind this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult with your physician or practitioner for medical advice. Let's get started with today's guest guest Hello. Today on the podcast Hormone Heroes, we have Jimmy, who is a 72-year-old male. He's now retired 50 years from the trucking industry, and we also have his partner, Cheryl. She is a 75-year-old female who is retired from outside sales. Hi guys, Hi Hello. So, Jimmy, we'll start with you. Is there anything else you want us to know about you? Just in general, how many kids do you have, grandkids?
Speaker 1:I have one son and three grandchildren.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. And how about you, Cheryl? What else do you want us to know about you?
Speaker 3:I have one daughter and two grandchildren, who are in college Wonderful.
Speaker 2:And how long have you guys been together? Four and a half years, wow, excellent. So I will ask you one at a time. But, jimmy, when was the first time you had hormone therapy?
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about three years ago.
Speaker 2:Okay, and had you started to notice symptoms of hormone therapy? I'm thinking about three years ago, okay, and had you started to notice symptoms of hormone deficiency?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had gone to the doctor previously. You know, feeling a little draggy, you know things just start going like they should. You're not feeling like you should. You're not 20 anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know so many people they think, well, I'm just getting old and I don't accept that. You know every day is a new day and you know you got to keep going and feel great, wonderful. Yeah, you go to the doctor and they say yeah, you know, your testosterone is way down, so we're going to give you some cream and you rub the cream on and you'll feel all better.
Speaker 2:Wrong, wrong. So you have tried cream in the past.
Speaker 1:Yeah, total waste of time and money, okay, and went back to the doctor and he's like, well, you know, we can give you these shots and, to be honest with you, I'm not afraid of getting a shot. But everybody I know that's taken these shots, it didn't really work that great and they had a lot of side effects that came along with it feeling bad, antsy, wanting to fight, you know, and all of this kind of stuff. Yes, and I just it's all artificial and I'm just not into that. I don't want a bunch of artificial stuff put in me.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So that's what led me to do some homework and investigate these hormone therapy treatments.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. So, other than being less energetic, kind of dragging, were there any other symptoms? Did you sleep well, did you?
Speaker 1:You know your libido starts to suffer. You just you know your interest in those type of things starts to wane a little bit. You know.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:And you hear again everybody says well, you know, you're getting older, you know, you just don't need it. And all of that, nah.
Speaker 2:You still got lots of living to do, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, people give up and that's the wrong attitude. Wrong attitude you don't give up, never surrender.
Speaker 2:Amen, Cheryl. When did you start to notice symptoms of hormone deficiency?
Speaker 3:Oh, probably early to mid-50s, but I had had a partial hysterectomy so I didn't really have strong indications other than my worst symptom, other than night sweats, was panic attacks. Interesting as the hormones went down, that got a lot worse. So I tried. I started out with the typical medical model. You know they weren't prescribing much medication but I got a little bit of what they were putting out. And then I tried creams and I tried little things you melt under your tongue and nothing had the calming effect or the restoring where I needed to be, until I found the pellets.
Speaker 2:OK, so you do. You both do hormone pellets now, yes, awesome. And so, cheryl, what type of hormones are in your pellets?
Speaker 3:I get estrogen and testosterone and progesterone cream. Okay, which keeps it all in balance, perfect.
Speaker 2:And how about you, jimmy? Just testosterone pellets.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you take anything else? Any other medications, jimmy, I take?
Speaker 1:a one-a-day vitamin Wonderful, that's it. I don't take any other medications.
Speaker 2:Any blood pressure.
Speaker 1:No, I don't have any blood pressure.
Speaker 2:Good for you, good for you, and Cheryl. Do you take anything for your thyroid or?
Speaker 3:Yes, once everything gets balanced. I take a thyroid supplement because my thyroid was slow and, of course, I have high blood pressure and some other issues that I take medication for.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'll start with you, cheryl what benefits once you really started on the pellets, and how long have you had pellets?
Speaker 3:I've been on them probably more than 10 years now. Oh wow, You're old school?
Speaker 2:Yes. What were some of the big changes you felt?
Speaker 3:Well, first I noticed that I slept better through the night. I didn't have the night sweats and the panic attacks got better and more or less went away. I was still working. So I had better brain clarity than I had had and all the testing I had done with my heart high blood pressure and stuff my heart muscles real good and my bone density is amazing for a woman my age. I've had a couple of falls and I just kind of bounce.
Speaker 2:That's saying something. Testosterone therapy does build back bone about 8% a year, so that's pretty, pretty incredible. How about you, jimmy? What benefits have you noticed specifically?
Speaker 1:You're better able to fight off any infections that you have. You do feel better, you've got more energy, you feel like doing something, your drives all get evened out and you know like you're supposed to be, and that works great for you and your partner.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You don't have those achy feelings, your memory is better. You know, a lot of times we're just like we have. People say I've got some timers, you know? Well, no, we all have. You know, lapses of memory, I don't you know, you can be 20 years old and forget something.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You don't want to forget your name, you know, and things that happened yesterday. So it helps with that. And you know, I know that we see a lot of ads on TV for different drugs to help you with all of this type of thing. You can do one thing and it helps you with all of it, and that's just to keep you normal and healthy. Yes, you know you still have to eat right and take care of yourself. You know you don't want to just lay around but you actually have the energy to feel like doing something and your memory improves. You know everything comes up together and you start to remember what you were when you were 20, 30 years old. Because we decline at such a slow rate, it sneaks up on you and you don't realize you know where you actually are until you know you wake up one day and you get some relief on that and you look back and say, oh, that was bad. So you know it does help and it's all natural. So to me that's absolute positive thing.
Speaker 1:Right there Kind of get leveled out to where you're operating. You know you don't want to go past the mark, but you don't want to be at a good even point for all concerned. That's, you know, get it all done and then you're up and going and I have people tell me all the time, you know, they think that I'm 50, maybe 60 years old, and I tell them, no, I'm 72. And they're like, wow, and I don't take any medication at all. My sugar is great, my heart rate is great. You know, I did go in the hospital a couple years ago with the bad case of COVID. The only thing they gave me was vitamins and I had my pellets in it at the same time and there were people dying all around me. And I'm still here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're laying there and you keep changing neighbors every day, that's a wake up call for you that you know maybe you're doing something right. And when the doctors come around and they're all looking at you like, wow, you know. And I asked my wife what are they looking at me for? She said, well, you're the guy that survived and they don't know why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do. That's a great testimony and I did want to circle back to you saying it helped you fight infections, because testosterone and estrogen both increase nitric oxide, and nitric oxide increases the flexibility of our vascular system and when that happens we have an increased ability to oxygenate our tissues, get nutrients to our tissues. So that is nitric oxide is a big benefit of hormone therapy. Cheryl, let's go back to you for a second. Have you had any side effects that you have to deal with with hormone therapy?
Speaker 3:I have had zero side effects. They are formulated from all natural ingredients and your body doesn't have to adjust to any foreign substance. And I have just felt better and I've not had any period of adjustment. Nothing I can tell when I run out.
Speaker 2:Tell me what you notice when you run out.
Speaker 3:Well, jimmy can probably chime in on this one, but I can feel myself getting more testy, more cranky, testy, more cranky. I have less energy and more lethargy, uh-huh, and you know, I start feeling like the neighborhood cat just laying around.
Speaker 2:So Jimmy encourages you to get your pellets when it's time.
Speaker 3:He says it's time, let's go. I don't have a problem taking her.
Speaker 1:She's not that bad, but you can tell the difference. Yeah, if you're outside looking in the window, you can see things from a different perspective.
Speaker 2:Sure Jimmy, have you noticed any side effects?
Speaker 1:When you're off of them, you start to slow down. Yeah, when you're on or off of them, you know as far as any bad side effects, you're just keeping up and getting things done. I don't like laying around, but you have that energy and that's all you know. There's no bad things to it. If you don't want to feel better, don't do it, and that's the only side effect you're going to have is you feel better.
Speaker 2:So testosterone therapy does increase red blood cell production. Have you had to donate blood or anything because your blood has gotten too thick?
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably once every six months, something like that. I would go and get my oil changed. Give them a quart or whatever. They'll take about a pint of blood from you and they're always happy to get it because it's really good and rich blood, yeah, and you do feel better after you do that. That gives you a little boost there too. That's unexpected and that's always a good thing. I just donate it. They can have it. Give it to someone that needs it. Sure, that's wonderful, that's always a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it usually is just a problem with men. It's really. The only side effect to testosterone therapy is the increased red blood cell production, and the therapy for that is just to simply give blood a couple of times a year. So you both are in your 70s. So, as hormone therapy has been life changing, would you like to be a testimony to active sex life as a couple in your 70s? Definitely Wonderful, wonderful. So, as a hormone hero, what would you like our audience to know? We'll start with you, cheryl.
Speaker 3:Don't be afraid, just because the mainstream medical community doesn't talk about this doesn't mean that it shouldn't be looked into. They're not educated on it because of reasons you know I don't want to go into, but they're not taught it in school and no drug reps are coming around promoting it. So it's been going on in Europe since the 1940s, so it just took a long time to get into the US. But people should keep an open mind and trust in the science. It really works.
Speaker 2:Very good, Jimmy, as a hormone hero. What would you like our audience to know?
Speaker 1:Well, I agree with Cheryl 100%. I know that. I went to doctors to see what my issue was and it's kind of like going to a car wreck. You ask 10 people and you get 20 different opinions. Sure, you can't believe all of them. You know, you got a brain. You need to do your research and find out. I never have understood why some doctors try to. They don't come right out and discredit hormone therapy. They're just not into it. It may be because they don't get paid to do it. I don't know. I don't understand why it's not as promoted as much as it should be, because it absolutely works. And you've got all these different creams and shots and everything that people take, and every single one of those has bad side effects. Yeah, these pellets don't. That's a good thing to me. And, as we said, they're 100% natural. It's all good stuff that's not going to hurt you, that's not going to leave welts on you or make you sore. You know it takes a little bit of time to insert them into you and then they dissolve.
Speaker 1:They dissolve completely of time to insert them into you and then they dissolve. They dissolve completely. People need to with any drug. I feel that you need to. I don't take, you know, a pharmaceutical company's word for it, because they're in the business of making money. They don't want you to get well, they want you to stay sick so they can sell you more pills. Very true, very true. I do my homework myself. I listen to people that I trust and read what I can and find out everything I can. And if people will do that, they're going to find out what we already know, that these things are really, really, really good. I'm not a big pill person. Obviously, I don't take anything, but these things work. You've got to replace things somewhere and this is the best way I've found to do that.
Speaker 2:We don't create more of anything as we age, we end up having to replace as much as we can. So how long will the both of you continue to do hormone therapy?
Speaker 1:Till we quit walking.
Speaker 2:Till you quit walking, Cheryl, Quit breathing you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't think of any reason to quit.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, fantastic. Well, that's the end of our time together, but I really appreciate both of you coming on Hormone Heroes and I hope you both continue to have a long, happy life. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to Hormone Heroes. Take a moment to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so that you don't miss the next episode While you are there. Help us spread the word by leaving a rating and a review. If you need help finding a practitioner in your area, just email us at drkelly at hormoneheroesorg, that's d-r-k-e-l-l-y at h-o-r-m-o-n-e-h-e-r-o-e-s dot org.
