More and more ‘recovering doctors’ are leaving the corporate mentality that herds patients through the treadmill, giving little time to tell our stories, and less for the harried, overworked physician to hear them.  We would rather fashion a thoughtful program, and agree to be a partner in health instead of a pill pusher. Yet, we must realize that our demanding to be ‘fixed’ by the doctor is the very reason doctors are still in the disease business instead of the wellness/prevention business.

This paradigm shift is fraught with chaos and uncertainty which are the underpinnings of all major change.  And yet, it is delicious to see the many light bulbs flashing in our otherwise lobotomized brains: we are finally getting it that WE as patients have a major responsibility for our health.

Surprise your family physician the next time you visit, proudly sporting a healthier body!  Because instead of spending three hours daily watching the mind-numbing tube or surfing the internet gossip channels, you have committed to sleeping 7-8 hrs necessary for healing, and working out at the gym regularly.  There is no excuse for not based on cost: Planet Fitness is ten dollars monthly, more than most of us spend for café lattes and munchies each day.

Use one of those three hours daily planning and executing your meals for the family for the week:  I cannot stress enough how Hippocrates’ in his brilliance 460 BC spoke for all time by reminding us “Let food be our medicine, and medicine be our food.”   So we must be mindful of the industries connected to our food sources that taint with pesticides and genetically modified organisms and rally around the visionaries who are demanding that we label everything.  This way it is YOUR choice and not that of the corporate food industry.

Slowly, as you embrace health as your birthright, instead of the once thought inevitable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, heart disease, and the multiple pharmaceuticals attached to each, you can demonstrate to your doctor that as you take your power back by moving those buns, eating to live instead of living to eat, giving up those cancer sticks called cigarettes, that perhaps, just perhaps, those medicines he/she thought you would need forever can be let go.

Then the pharmaceutical industry can spend it billions doing double-blind placebo control studies on nutraceuticals (plant based medicines) and we can have a win-win situation.  For what is making room for more natural therapies is the increasing revelations of bad drugs (ie. Vioxx with cardiac issues, and Fosamax now with a black box warning of non-healing fractures); as well, procedures that are proving themselves outlived as 50% coronary bypasses require repeat surgeries within five years, unless of course we change our lifestyle .

And that, beloveds, is how we can assist our doctors into affirming  the connection between healthy living and healthy bodies/minds/souls.  Then when you bring in your herbs, and nutrients to demonstrate how you have improved , you can assist your physician in remembering what we were sent here to do.  If you sit the word TEACH on a mirror, guess what it spells?    LEARN.

Hugs,
HBL

The Weston A. Price Foundation is seeking an injunction against serving Illinois prisoners soy-laden meals as a source of cheap protein. And now a judge has ruled that the lawsuit will go forward.

[Read More from the Alliance for Natural Health Website]

Omega Fatty Acids (Such as fish oil, flax and other vegetable oils such as sunflower, sesame, evening primrose).  They are anti-inflammatory, hormone balancing, heart, hair, and skin healthy.

Turmeric

Boswellia

Coconut Oil: A medium chain fatty acid that is anti-fungal, anti-viral, and anti-bacterial.

Beets:  They contain antioxidant components that inhibit Cox-1 and Cox-2 naturally without the side effects of drugs in this category that have been taken off the market, such as Vioxx and Bextra.

Glucosamine, MSM

Homeopathic Arnica Montana:  This can be placed under the tongue every 1-2 hrs after surgery, a fall, any injury, etc. to prevent bruising.  As long as we start as close as possible to the event, within 72 hours.   I have seen magic with using this!  Some folks add the little pills to water bottle and drink it all day long as well.

Having said that, it is quite a challenge when we do not love ourselves, and honor all those parts that we find unlovable or not-enough.  May I make a case for our ‘enoughness?’  For nigh on 65 years I struggled with self-love.  I never realized that for all those many years I was asking others outside myself to love me, to validate me, to approve of me.  And if they didn’t, I was crushed.  Finally, one day, after a meditation, I awoke to realize that it was ME WHO NEEDED TO LOVE ME.  Ah, what a concept, eh?

And when I finally got to fill up my own tank with delicious love gas, I had an abundance to give away.  Each day when I get up, empty a full bladder, sit and meditate, go to the gym, then consume my superfood shake with yummy nutrients, I am then ready to go to my practice and listen with an open, loving heart, to my beautiful goddesses who come to learn.

And what they learn is what I have just told you: before starting the day nurturing everyone else, fill up your tank first: this is not narcissistic, selfish—this is essential to run your life with grace and authenticity.  Then the partner or child that lives with you who is struggling with their own enough-ness, when angry or unappreciative of something that you do—you can love them anyway and realize it is about them and not your stuff.

I have some platitudes that serve me well that I will share with you, as well as some precious quotes :

• Do you want to be right, or happy?  Righteous indignation is OK for a while, but after a time it eats your soul and hardens your heart to what really matters
• Never go to bed angry: anger is a propelling emotion to help us get out of the molasses and  paralysis of depression, but after a while it turns our heart into a stone that is difficult to melt
• Have a gratitude journal, writing down at least 3 things daily that you love about:
• Yourself
• Your Mate
• Your Work
• Your children/grandchildren

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the shining light of your own being.”
- HAFIZ

“When we rediscover love, it will be like discovering fire for the second time.”
Teilhard de Chardin

Love is not only a feeling of contentment, joy, knowing we have a connection with someone, but very importantly– touch.  As a gynecologist immersed for years in the pelvis, and welcoming little beings into the world as I was privy to the sacredness of birth, I learned to see the power of our bodies in sharing intimacy.  When we love ourselves enough, we develop the discernment into sharing with someone worthy of us.  Before I got that piece, I did not know how to create boundaries and honor the sacredness of my body.

All of these techniques have risk, can cause hormonal and emotional side effects, blood clots especially in smokers, however low the risk of pregnancy.  Such a trade-off!  Safer though with a slightly increased risk of pregnancy, are condoms (which I encourage my ladies to carry with them—and the ONLY ways to prevent sexually transmitted diseases including HIV), diaphragms, cervical caps, and of course abstinence.

My gay patients have the advantage of not needing birth control, and couples where erectile issues can happily pursue outside sex.

I personally loved my diaphragms during menstruation.  Doubling safety is using a condom and a diaphragm.

Please resist hormone-impregnated condoms or inserts because the spermicide is a carcinogen and directly absorbed through our beautiful vaginas into our circulation.

Surgical procedures to prevent pregnancy are generally permanent, and they too, have downsides.  We know, thanks to John R. Lee, MD, who dove deeply into the very literature that doctors site as reasons to justify or refute a procedure, that women who get their tubes tied, burned, clipped, produce 50% less progesterone than women who have not had the surgery, inviting hormone changes and menopause earlier than would be expected.

Simpler, done under local anesthesia instead of general which is necessary for female sterilization, is a vasectomy, performed on the male in his urologist’s office.  Some cultures believe that this procedure changes a man’s ‘nature,’ depriving him of his sexual prowess and libido, but this is truly myth.  My personal feeling is that this form of permanent birth control is perfect for committed relationships where fear of pregnancy is so great, and condom failure may have been an issue.  At the risk of sounding like a feminist, I feel strongly that after a woman has been pregnant, nursed her young, and often struggles postpartum with multiple physical and emotional challenges regaining her balance, it is time for her partner to step up to the plate and do his part for the relationship.

Sharing responsibility for care-free intimacy is a win-win for both partners, and can enhance more frequent and joyful sex.

…and remember what Dr. Oz says:  sex at least twice weekly prevents cancer!

• Listen to Your Body!!

• Aren’t you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Did you know that you can cure a headache, ulcer attack, and asthma attack with WATER??!
• NUTRASWEET (aspartame)- found in all diet drinks and most chewing gum can cause headaches, muscle aches, tingling of your extremities, weight gain, because it tricks your body into thinking it is in starvation mode, mimics symptoms of MS, and can even cause seizures.  The new artificial sweetener, Splenda, contains a chlorine molecule that is carcinogenic;
• Every time you take an antacid for digestive issues (Tums, Xantac, Prilosec, for example) you are fueling bone loss by turning off your body’s wonderful wisdom;
• Intestinal bloating, cramping, diarrhea, constipation can be relieved when you stop or limit the most frequent food allergies/sensitivities: dairy, wheat, corn: especially high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) found in almost everything!
• Too many simple sugars (carbohydrates) such as bagels, pizza, pasta, cakes, cookies, candy (unless, of course, it is dark chocolate!!) raises your blood sugar—then crashes it—we get tired, sluggish, irritable, and need more to raise it again, and the cycle repeats itself. Too many carbohydrates decrease the wonderful B-vitamins that keep you sharp and energized. Instead, snack on nuts, seeds, fruit, raw veggies with hummus.
• Stop eating late at night! Ideally, your main meal serves you best during the day, with a small, light snack in the evening, and try having a lapse of 3 hours between the last meal and sleep.

I was in a dreamy sub-awakened state when I was thinking about the courageous people in our past who spoke truth about a particular passion, and they were harmed, physically, emotionally, professionally.

This same feeling comes over me when I think of the HPV vaccine and what it represents.

During my decades long practice of medicine within the hallowed halls of the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, I was encouraged to speak with all my patients to have this expensive vaccine, three injections over time. I was to educate them that this vaccine prevents cervical cancer, a virulent cancer that ravaged my patients in the 1960s before Pap smears were commonly done as they are now.

This PAP test, I might add, has saved millions and millions of lives and has reduced the death rate significantly, actually by greater than 85%.  With yearly Pap smears, there is no reason women must die of cervical cancer.

Yet I was to have convinced my young teens and their mothers that this was a wise choice.  After all, sexual activity is beginning in early teen years, and in some cultures, pre-teen years.  And we are finally understanding that cervical cancer is caused by the HPV virus, so a vaccine sounds perfectly appropriate.

But understand that it protects against only two of the many subtypes (16 and 31), and two subtypes which cause genital warts (6 and 11).  Furthermore, its effects only last 5 years, so it must be repeated.  Now they are speaking about giving it to young boys!!  …and did one of our political candidates mandate this in his state recently?!

Years ago on a website, Health Freedom, I learned of the deaths caused by this vaccine.  Yet when I shared my concern with my partners, I was told these are rare circumstances.  Now, however, when I listen to the sage counsel and startling statistics of young women at the prime of their lives dying or becoming neurologically impaired – sometimes permanently – I must speak out my feelings.

My friend and colleague, Dr. Sherrill Sellman (www.whatwomenmustknow.com)  in her series, The Gardasil Files,  interviews scientists, pathologists, parents, whose lives have been affected by this vaccine.  I do urge you to listen, and form your own opinion.

My writing is not to stir you into fears about a conspiracy to keep us in the dark for self-serving reasons.  But rather, to remind you that we exist in two paradigms: that of the scientific approach, which is often tainted by agendas less than honorable, and that of the emerging belief that we are responsible for our health, and must question everything.  Again, somewhere in the middle exists that term I am always striving for: BALANCE.

Years ago, before understanding how horses were abused and their lives made miserable by making Premarin, the largest selling hormone, and at one time, most lucrative drug on the market, I nonetheless felt repulsion for it, that higher self again, suggesting that there must be a gentler way to create hormones for women.  And there is: soy beans, wild yams.  The pharmaceutical industry has been creative and found ways of patenting plant-based hormones, so we are making advances.  And this came about,  interestingly, from women speaking out against the harm done to our horse sisters (pregnant mares, not stallions were used).

Transparency is the new byword in all walks of life: religion, corporate America, politics, entertainment.  We are hungry to understand the underpinnings of how they work, and rise and how they fall.  The same with my profession, which is the only one I can intelligently speak on, having been immersed since 1961.

The drug Fosamax, which every woman is encouraged to take to prevent osteoporosis, the somewhat invented disease in America, now has a blackbox warning because its use causes non-healing fractures, besides destruction of the jaw bone and esophageal cancers.  Does this not cause pause, and the question which I always ask: what are you doing good for yourself?  Are you remembering that everything you put into your body becomes you, so eat healthy?  Are you moving those lovely bodies to engage your happy bubbles and keep strong and supple?

In every way, we are becoming awake to realize that we are responsible for our health.  Young women are responsible for maintaining boundaries and having discernment in how they use their bodies.  Sexual intimacy is a most powerful force, and engaging in intimacy without understanding the ramifications of this power is responsible for thousands of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, not the least of which is AIDS.

So, my beloveds, back to the original thesis: To Be …or HPV: do we get a vaccine that has been plunged into so much controversy, yet steadfastly recommended by my colleagues?  My suggestion is that we read the science not promoted by the industry producing the vaccine, but engage your skepticism by hearing what the authorities not reaping financial rewards are saying, and you decide.

I think medicine kick starts our drive, our dreams, but the true doctor within emerges like a butterfly to speak the truth that God has buried deep within.

HBL

Taught deference as a nursing student, I was expected to stand when the physician entered the room, 99.9% being a male.  Even attempting medical school at the age of 37, I was warned I was too old, and not a good enough student, having an A-B average.  Fast forward to 1982, again that ageism thing, being told I was too old to withstand the rigors of an obstetrical residency.  Well, here I am thirty long years later having achieved far more.

Though we have made awesome advances in the sciences in the practice of medicine, we are just now scratching the surface of the new kid on the block: epigenetics.  What an incredible dimension it has added to the diagnosis, treatment and maintenance of disease.  Change our DNA, our very cellular matrix with our thoughts, words, behavior??  Blasphemy, the vast majority of practitioners bellow.

Let me portray a scenario: you smoke, you imbibe more than what would be considered socially acceptable alcohol; you partake in drugs known to harm; you are a couch potato with the TV remote fused to your hand, the only exercise being to open the refrigerator or cabinet door for another diet soda, chips, or drive through fast-food fare for your favorite chemicalized treat.

You would have no issue with your physician warning that unless you change your habits, your inevitable lung disease, fatty liver, and overworked pancreas and blood vessels will gift you with the essentially preventable illnesses that plague millions of Americans.

Now the scenario more and more recognized by readers: you drink healthy ph alkaline water; you eat greater and greater amounts of organic foods, more vegetables, beans, grains and fruits than animal protein; you pride yourself on elegant daily elimination, and you present yourself regularly to the gym, your yoga classes, even my most recommended, meditation classes.

But, what you may not accept as vital for your ultimate health and peace is releasing your ‘stinkin’ thinkin;’ forgiving your ex-spouse for stopping the alimony, forgiving your mother for not making you chocolate chip cookies 40 years ago; even forgiving your sexual abuser those many painful decades ago.  But this, my beloveds, is the key to vibrant health: forgiveness of self, then others; compassion for your unwise behavior, then that of others.  The mind/body/spirit is indeed one energy- all one source, and the most magnificent thing of all—as well as the most frightening—is that we are the masters of our lives.    Read more in my book: HARDWIRED FOR LOVE.

Helene B. Leonetti, MD, FACOG, DABIHM

www.helenebleonettimd.com

Dr. Lee had the wisdom –and temerity—that I was seeking, and our chance meeting in Allentown, PA during a lecture was auspicious and powerful, and I was ripe for change.  For several years after my residency ended, I spent my time and energy learning how to help women feel balanced hormonally, because even though I was unaware then how powerfully our hormones respond to our emotions, intuitively I knew that balancing our physical body first, then tackling the emotional baggage that we tenaciously carry around like a ball and chain, and finally acknowledging soul pain, all is essential for vibrant health.

Dr. Lee’s serendipitous discovery of natural transdermal progesterone cream and how it balances our hormones was the starting point of my journey of discovery.  Firstly, let me remind you that this magnificent hormone has been present on planet earth for 500 million years.  So much technology and many eons later, we proudly present it to the world in the only way conventional medicine knows to do: as a patentable version, known as a ‘progestin,’ found in such well known preparations as birth control pills, depo-provera  injections, or pills such as medroxyprogesterone acetate, given for hormone balance or to control fertility.  After many years of observing success in treating women with natural hormones, which by virture of their appearing in nature, so not patentable by the pharmaceutical industry (we cannot patent a tree or butterfly, eh?) natural progesterone was put into a capsule with peanut oil, and the unique delivery system rendered it  a pharmaceutical prescription-ready for physicians to use.

Not bad, certainly, but not the ideal delivery system.  What I may have learned light years ago in medical school biochemistry and rapidly forgotten is that when we swallow natural progesterone, it must travel through and be metabolized by the liver.  By this very fact, 80-90 percent of it is transformed into metabolic byproducts that make us sleepy, dizzy, occasionally faint.  In a word, it is not efficient.  On the other hand, used transdermally (through the skin) it is very efficient and delightfully takes advantage of the largest organ in our body: the skin—for excellent absorption, and requiring doses 5-10 times less than when given by mouth.

So what are a few of the many benefits of natural transdermal progesterone cream:

• Protects us from breast cancer
• Protects us from uterine cancer
• Assists thyroid health
• Prevents bone loss
• Protects us from heart disease
• Assists with hormone balance and revs up our sex drive (although remember what I am always teaching: our brain is our most important sex organ)
• Is a natural antidepressant
• Is a natural diuretic
• Neutralizes the stimulating, carcinogenic effects of estrogen
• Enhances fertility and can prevent miscarriage
• Most recently has been demonstrated to assist in treating strokes

You ask,  how may I get this magic potion?  Yes, it is sold in health food stores, and on the Internet, most of which are good sources, and by a compounding pharmacy, which prepares the doses ordered by a physician, and with my 22 years of experience,  after testing all of the hormones: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, and cortisol (adrenal health) 4x in one day, through the saliva.  This is a safe, non-invasive, and most accurate way to evaluate hormones.  I have been using ZRT lab these long years, and have been successful in helping thousands of my beautiful goddesses achieve hormone balance.

Are there any side effects, you may wonder:  the only one I have found is if too high a dose is used, and the cortisol levels are very low, implying adrenal fatigue, we may witness higher than desirable dosing which some fear is building in the fat cells causing imbalance.  I have only witnessed this  a handful of times, and it is with use of high doses (greater than 50mg transdermally daily) and when we forget how essential it is to heal the adrenals (diet, nutrients, herbs, healthy sleep, and vitally important- MEDITATION).

Remember, all healing is a function of the three parts of us: mind/body/spirit.  When we shortchange one and focus on the easiest to correct: the physical –we forget the great power we have to achieve and maintain vibrant, delicious health.

Peace and love, Helene