Greetings, Goddesses (and those who love them). My apologies for not posting for a couple of weeks. The short story on why? Hula conference, food poisoning, the flu.
I’m bouncing back now; well more like crawling back but things are looking up. I’m recuperating in one of the most beautiful places on our little green planet: Zion National Park, Utah.

In deference to the backlog of important topics I’ve been meaning to post, here are three in one – a veritable grab bag of meno missives.

First, there is a call for participation in a UCLA study on attitudes toward disgusting situations. It seems that there may be changes in what we find disgusting or not when we go through menopause. Professor Daniel Fessler of UCLA and Dr. Katinka Quintelier of Ghent University are co-conductors of this research. I took the survey myself – pretty interesting. Click on the link below or paste it into your browser – all results are completely anonymous. http://menodis2011-2012.questionpro.com

On the hair loss front – a particularly diabolical manifestation of the Change, there is new hope out for menopausal women afflicted. Avacor has been approved for hair regrowth in hormonal thinning. (Active ingredient in the serum is minoxidil aka Rogaine.) They have had significant success, although like everything, it won’t work for all women. So I have offered to be a guinea pig yet again and have begun a three month program. It usually takes two months to show any effect, so don’t expect to hear too much too soon. Hope springeth eternal – I’ve taken my before pictures and hope to see a difference in eight weeks or so. I’ll keep you posted.

I will say this: one of the products in their starter kit is called “Boost”. It is a hair thickener styling product and it is as good or better as any of my previous favorites. I highly recommend this even if you don’t need to regrow hair. It’s a great volumizer and doesn’t weigh my hair down in the process. Yes, you can buy this product separately. If you want to take this journey along with me, they can start you out with a free 3 month trial supply of the full set of products. Check out their website at avacor.com

Last but not least, I wanted to report on my HRT cessation (and my physician’s). We both feel just fine – yes, we do have a hot flash every now and then but they are short lived and not too incendiary. I must report the side effect of a little smugness on both our parts, but thankfully this is not serious.
For those of you who are attempting to titrate down your HRT, go slowly and be gentle with yourself. With the patch, I was cutting it into tinier and tinier pieces until I was wearing just a miniscule pie shaped wedge that likely had almost no hormone in it. Still, the placebo effect is powerful juju and I availed myself of it for quite a while. Now I’m happy and hormone free. Except for any hormones that my own body might produce on its own. I’ll take all of those I can get.Now, I’m going out to sit on the patio and look at red rocks. Take the survey, grow some hair, be gentle with yourself in all ways. Oh, and eat some chocolate. Just sayin’…