Of Certain Age

Don't you just hate when you go to your health care professional with symptoms and they tell you "well, that's just what it feels like to be (fill in age here: "30", "40", "50", "60", "70", "80")?

I have one patient, a woman in her eighties, who insists that she will be running in a marathon when she is 100.

I would like to be there to see it.

Now that I've said that....there are symptoms which women, "of a certain age", tend to develop....symptoms that are famous for the word which describes them: a word which begins with "M".

Okay, I don't mean Moonlight, Mississippi, Merlot, Mascarpone or Mamba...but I will take any of those in any combination -- even together sounds good!

I mean Menopause.

Menopause...the time in a woman's life when she doesn't know up from down, doesn't recognize herself. She cannot regulate her own body temperature (hot hot hot!), cannot sleep well, cannot feel "even".

A brief but torrent storm. Yet there is shelter.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is WONDERFUL for helping women "of certain age" through a period such as this. Symptoms such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, insomnia, mood swings...can all be helped with acupuncture and herbs. Many, many women have had relief...have felt like themselves again. Not just in my practice...but over 5000 years.

Imagine a stormy sea settling into the peaceful cove pictured above. You can be peaceful. You can be the cove. You can look back on this time of your life as....not a big deal.

It isn't as though you "shouldn't" feel this way "at your age".

But let's run marathons when we're 100 -- too.