A few weeks ago, a girlfriend called me up and asked, "What do you know about testosterone cream? I'm going to order a tub of it!" I knew she wasn't contemplating a gender switch. Her complaint is that her sex drive has vanished to an undisclosed location, and she'd heard that T-cream might unearth it for her.
I didn't know what to tell her. I made a note that I should blog about it sometime.
In the meantime, my own vulva started giving me grief. I got a UTI that would not quit, and suffered me through two rounds of antibiotics, which led to candida infections that were UNBEARABLE. I walked into my gynecologist's office and demanded a complete hoo-hoo removal and replacement.
I asked my MD, "Why am I getting urinary track infections? Aren't those for honeymooners who fuck themselves into insensibility? I haven't fucked beyond sensible in months! This isn't fair!"
To my amazement, my doctor suggested that I was having a perimenopausal problem, where my vaginal tissue was thinning and my urethra was therefore much more touchy.
Thinning? What a nauseating notion. My Phat Pussy is losing strength! Is this what they mean when they say, "Aging ain't for sissies?" I felt depressed and cowardly.
I always thought menopause was hot flashes and bitchy moods. I looked forward to my fifties where I would triumphantly push out orgasms while I flashed and sweat— and use the "Bitch Catharsis" to say what I'd always censored before. I imagined that I would handle the whole thing with feminist aplomb and perhaps a bit of Black Cohash.
In the last couple weeks, I've discovered I've been ignorant and deluded. There are a host of symptoms that explode when your hormones fluctuate— and all the feminism in the world won't help these physical manifestations:
Unusual fatigue, memory loss, hemorrhaging menstrual blood, scary heart palpitations, byzantine mood swings, insomnia, UTIs, immune system weirdness, your hair falling out, mysterious itches, weirdo weight gain— Oh yeah— and losing your sex drive. You may watch zig-zag so suddenly you don't know whether you're coming or evaporating.
My gynecologist asked if I'd ever considered "bio-identical" hormone therapy, a term I'd never heard. She explained these treatments were prepared in a "compounding pharmacy," another term that was new to me. She suggested bio-identical estrogen cream, and told me this was NOT the "equine" (derived from horse urine) hormone treatments that caused such an uproar in the national women's health survey a few years ago.
In addition to estrogen cream, she also suggested Progesterone to me, because my periods have been so beastly. I thought they were just something I had to stagger through, and she looked at me, like, "YOU NEED TO WAKE UP."
When I asked about T-cream, she threw in a prescription for that too. We talked about what it means when people say, "I don't feel like sex." I told her what an Amoeba was. She advised me that I would have to tinker with how much "T" to use, and where to apply it.
"Do I blow up like Sasquatch if I put it right on my clit?" It was like discussing a tab of acid. No one knows exactly how you're going to react, when you'll "come on" to it, or how you'll come down. She told me if I became extra bossy or impatient, that would be a sign I've used too much.
BOSSY and IMPATIENT? That's in my DNA! I told her I'd just have to look out for unexplained zits, the other symptom of T-excess.
The estrogen cream and progesterone therapies are also an individual strategy of trial and error. According to the new bio-identical hormone movement, if women got a baseline of their hormones when they were young, it would really help figure out what to do when you start going through The Crunch— because one person's perky little estrogen boost is another woman's avalanche.
I went to the library to do some research, because I had a lot more questions than my doctor could answer. I asked for a title called "Screaming to Be Heard," and the desk clerk told me that there were eight people ahead of me who had requested it. "Yes," I said in a diabolical hiss, " And they're all SCREAMMMMMING."
My book review made me realize the full strength of the controversy in women's health care. All the Boomers who pioneered natural home birth and led the abortion rights movement and female-sensitive gynecology... the whole "Our Bodies Ourselves" generation... are now in menopause, and are FOAMING AT THE MOUTH at what they've found.
Women in menopause are supposed to suffer and shut up.That is apparently what I had been doing. I was amazed to realize how much of my physical condition I just took for granted, without considering my "hormones" in the least. I thought about how my mom did the same thing, and how she suffered.
I thought I had insomnia because I worry too much. I thought I was tired because I'm overworked. I thought I had a tummy because I can't seem to inhale a pint of ice cream like I used to. I berate myself for not exercising more. I took all these disappointments as if it was another nail in the coffin one had to accept.
Many of the Boomers took those first horse urine hormones the drug companies promoted. These were hormone formulas that even VETERINARIANS had outlawed for their pet patients! These were the same formulas that were rejected by the birth control pill companies back in the sixties because they were deemed too toxic. The anger over this scandal is entirely justified.
The Bio-Identical folks are the progressives on the menopause issue, but they're treated like nutcases by a great deal of the American medical community. Furthermore, even the bio-identical crowd is at odds with each other. No one agrees about anything. Well, there is one thing... everyone promotes exercise and diet considerations. But there are still a million questions about any kind of hormone replacement, "natural" or not. There is no single cocktail that works for everyone. Plus, there are plenty of women who say, "Hey, I'm going to get through this without anything, thank you very much."
I am on my fourth week of doing this stuff. I am sleeping like a top, and my Phat Pussy is back. I had a period where I could actually go out without wearing something that looks like Depends. This is good news, but I still wonder if I am doing the right thing.
I have barely used any T-cream because it scares me. A friend of mine told me she is using it before she enters surfing competitions to make her more gnarly. I feel so self-conscious of my sex urges now.... am I masturbating because I just had a wild hair, or is the T-cream growing some wild ones? I need to slather on more and see what happens, but the idea of being more anger-driven would not be a fair trade-off to me, for horniness. "Hi, I hate your fucking guts— now bend over!" Oh, I don't know what to think.
And that's why I'm posting this confession. I have also opened up the entire can of worms on my latest In Bed show, where I ask, "Hey babe, are you using hormones?"
My feminist response to this whole hullabaloo is that I'd like to hear as many women as possible speak up! Have you ever taken hormones, or lived intimately with someone who did? What happened? What's your experience with bio-identicals? Have you been reading any great books on the subject you'd like to scream about?
