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The result is The Sexy Years: Discover the Hormone Connection -- The Secret to Fabulous Sex, Great Health, and Vitality, for Women and Men. In this passionately argued and enormously practical book, Suzanne supports her own research and experiences with the expertise of leading doctors in the field of women's and men's health and sexuality to create an inspiring, accessible call-to-arms to women to radically rethink how they approach life after fifty, and give them the tools to turn their lives around.
Suzanne has discovered that the second half of life has been more rewarding, fun, and purposeful than her younger years. The key to her happiness? Taking natural bioidentical hormones. Natural hormones, which mimic the hormones produced in our own bodies that are almost completely lost with aging, are the answer to the symptoms of menopause that plague women. Recent findings from the medical community show that synthetic hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may be harmful to women -- thus, thousands of women are looking for what else they can do to alleviate their symptoms. In The Sexy Years, Suzanne comes to the rescue with a step-by-step plan and detailed information about how women can take control of their health, for themselves and for their men, including:
With bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, Suzanne has found the fountain of youth, the elixir that has made her feel thirty years old again. In combination with her Somersize diet and fitness plan, which she also writes about here, Suzanne has never felt better. The beauty of growing older, she maintains, is that you can combine the wisdom of age with the vitality of youth. Suzanne makes it perfectly clear how women and men can regain their zest for life at any age. These really are the sexy years!
SUZANNE SOMERS is the author of twenty-two books, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Sexy Forever, Knockout and Ageless, and the Times bestsellers Breakthrough; Keeping Secrets, Eat Great, Lose Weight; Get Skinny on Fabulous Food; Eat, Cheat and Melt the Fat Away; Suzanne Somers' Fast and Easy; and The Sexy Years. Somers can be seen in her weekly talk show, The SUZANNE Show, on the Lifetime Network and in Suzanne Somers Breaking Through, her YouTube internet talk show hosted by CafeMom. Visit www.suzannesomers.com for more information on her shows, products, and her phenomenally successful weight loss plan, Sexy Forever.
The last words I ever thought I'd hear about myself were "You have breast cancer." It was as though someone had dropped a load of lead on my head. I felt stunned. This is something that happens to other people, I thought. Not me. I figured, I am healthy, I eat right, I have exercised all my life. My sister being diagnosed with breast cancer four years earlier was just a fluke. I mean, other than her, there is no history of breast cancer in my family, I reasoned. How could this be happening?
Every year since I turned forty I have been going to the USC/ Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital in Los Angeles. I always looked forward to seeing my doctor, Mel Silverstein, who created the concept of the breast centers in this country. He is a nice guy and has committed his life to the care of women's breasts. My husband always jokingly tells him he is the luckiest guy around because he spends his days feeling women's bosoms.
It was time for my yearly mammogram, and I had been religious about having annual checkups since I turned forty. Because I had been so diligent, I cockily assumed that I was immune to the disease. After all, keeping such a vigilant check on my breasts would ensure that even if there was a problem, we would find it before it ever had a chance to take hold. The nurse pulled and squeezed, flattened, and pressed my poor aching breasts into positions no breast was meant to endure. But it was for a good cause, and all women know that the discomfort and humiliation are worth it in the long run, because this examination is about life, health, and prevention.
"Well, I don't see anything to worry about," Dr. Silverstein announced cheerily after looking at my mammogram.
I felt relieved, even though I hadn't even considered the possibility. Now I could go on with my life for another year knowing I had beaten the statistics once again.
I went into the changing room and hurriedly put my clothes back on. I had a busy day ahead of me-meetings with the various vendors for my jewelry business, the skin care line, updates on the fitness business, costume fittings, and a band rehearsal to get ready for an upcoming date in Las Vegas the following week. I was filled with energy and vitality.
"Suzanne?" I heard Dr. Silverstein call through the changing room door.
"Yes," I answered.
"You know, you've got such cystic breasts-lumps and bumps everywhere. How about having an ultrasound for good measure?"
I opened the door, wondering why this would be necessary. "Wasn't everything okay with my mammography?" I asked.
"Sure," Dr. Silverstein said good-naturedly. "It's just that we have this new state-of-the-art ultrasound machine. I just paid half a million dollars for it; and what the heck, let's take a look for good measure."
Why not, I reasoned. I was there, and it would only take another half hour. Surely I could fit this into my busy schedule. My health was more important than anything.
I lay down on a stationary bed in the ultrasound room, feeling no alarm, since this was just for "good measure." The technician rubbed on some cold, gooey liquid (a conductive fluid) and then began a gentle movement on my breasts with a wand about the size of a curling iron. She kept rubbing back and forth for some time in one particular area on my upper right breast. Then she excused herself and said she would be back in a couple of moments. I still felt no alarm. I had been through these exams before. Often we found cysts that were filled with fluid, which were then drained with a needle. Not the most pleasant experience, but part of the routine. I wasn't worried. Even when the technician returned with the radiologist to further probe my now rather sore and overworked breast, I heard myself telling them, "Not to worry. I always have these cysts; they're just filled with fluid."
The tone in the room turned noticeably serious, and I was at a loss as to why everyone seemed so intense.
"We see something here we don't like, so we're going to stick a needle into it to see what we come up with."
Frankly, I felt relieved. It's the same old thing, I thought. "I've had needles before," I told her cheerfully.
"Well, this is going to be a bit more uncomfortable than what you are used to. We are using a bigger needle, and I will try my best not to hurt you."
The doctor inserted the needle, and this was indeed different. It felt like a carving knife being plunged into my flesh.
"Yeow!" I said, trying to stifle the fact that this hurt like hell.
"You're going to feel a little pop, like a cap gun going off inside of you," she told me. "This way we can gather a piece of tissue for biopsy. Okay, ready?" she asked.
Pop! Wow! It hurt ... a lot! It felt more like a real gun going off in my breast. Then I felt the needle ripping through my breast while the doctor pulled with all her strength to get the needle out.
"Oh, my God!" I blurted out. "That is painful."
"I know; I'm sorry," she said. "Unfortunately, we are going to have to do this several more times."
Several insertions later we were finished.
The pain was unbelievable. My breasts felt like punching bags. Okay, at least now we've done it, and I can get on with my day, I thought. As I dressed, I decided to tell Dr. Silverstein that he should have prepared me for the pain a little better. In fact, after all the pulling and probing, I wasn't feeling very cheery; and in thinking about it, I felt a little angry that Dr. Silverstein had downplayed the hurt quotient. Carefully I pulled on my jacket, which was no easy feat because of the pain in my breast, and then opened the door of the changing room. Standing in the hallway just outside were Dr. Silverstein, the radiologist, and the nurse, all with serious looks on their faces.
Dr. Silverstein took my hand sensitively and said, "We hope you will be okay."
"What?" I asked, bewildered.
"It doesn't look good," Dr. Silverstein said.
"What do you mean?" I asked. I could feel my heart pounding.
"Of course, we're waiting for the pathology report to come back in a few hours," Dr. Silverstein explained, "but from what I can see, I think we should make plans for surgery."
I experienced the next hours as though I were under water. I heard and saw everything, but it was filtered, distant. I was in shock. So many decisions had to be made. They had found a malignant tumor, 2.4 centimeters in size. It was lodged deep in my chest and had not been detected. The doctors thought it had been growing for approximately ten years. How could the mammogram have missed something so large? I kept asking myself.
Cancer is lonely. The decisions to be made are too serious and too monumental to be passed on to anyone. These were decisions I had to make. It was unfair of me even to ask Alan, my husband, what he thought I should do. Luckily, we had caught it soon enough so it didn't look as though they would have to perform a mastectomy. They would remove the tumor and some lymph nodes from under my arm. If the margins were clean, they would not have to remove the breast. I never thought that I would have my own cancer doctor; but now I had an oncologist, Dr. Waisman. I liked him. He was wise, sensitive, and smart.
I was still in a daze. Only this morning I had been getting ready to go to Las Vegas in a week with my show, and now it all seemed insignificant and unimportant. Alan and I sat in the waiting room, not knowing how to feel. I kept thinking, One day life is perfect; the next day it's as if all the balls have been thrown into the air, and you have no idea where they will land. I'd never given dying any thought. It's what happens somewhere down the line a long time from now. For the first time in my life, I was faced with the possibility of my own mortality.
We drove home in a stunned silence. Alan and I walked on the beach for a long time. Our arms were wrapped around each other, giving support. We were in this together. I couldn't think. I was being asked by so many what I wanted to do, but I couldn't give them any answers. I didn't know.
The following morning I awakened from what seemed to be a nightmare, and suddenly I knew I had to take charge. It was my body, and I wanted to be in charge. I called my endocrinologist and dear friend, Dr. Diana Schwarzbein, to fill her in on my condition. This was war. I began a visualization of my tumor. Inside the tumor I saw this cowardly, creepy person hiding. Every time I saw him even try to step out of the encapsulated tumor, I would yell in my mind with all the venom I could muster, Don't even try to leave this tumor, or I'll fucking kill you. Then I visualized the cowardly little cancer cells shrink with fear and step back inside the tumor. I know it sounds weird, but at that moment I didn't know how to keep the cancer at bay, and this was the only way I could feel that I had any control over it.
Next, I started making phone calls. My agent, Al Lowman, said, "You should talk to Selma Schimmel."
"Who's that?" I asked.
"She's one of my authors who has written a lot about breast cancer."
Selma told me about Dr. Avrum Bluming, who was doing research with women and breast cancer and hormone replacement therapy (HRT), albeit with synthetic hormones. I did not want to give up my hormones. As you will find out in the next few chapters I have expended a great deal of effort getting my chemicals balanced and learning about natural hormones; now, upon diagnosis, I was being told that hormones had to be stopped because of my breast cancer. I knew what that meant relative to the quality of my life, and I was not about to go back to feeling the way I had before I got my hormones balanced.
I started to gather doctors. Dr. Waisman came highly recommended, but I wanted other opinions. I told Dr. Waisman about Dr. Bluming, and he said that not only did he know him, but he was working with him on a study of the connection between women with breast cancer and hormone replacement therapy. Okay, this is good, I thought.
I was on the phone constantly. Cancer is like a job. The treatments are inexact. There is the "common course" of treatment, but so far everything I was being told about the common course was not appealing to me. I knew of too many people who were on the chemotherapy merry-go-round. Chemo seems to make people in treatment more ill; and frankly, it scared me to death. I was afraid of what it would do to the good cells; and I can't say that I wasn't more than a little afraid of the harshness of the treatment. First there's the hair loss and then the sickly color the complexion takes on; then there's the damage done to the parts of the body that until this time were functioning properly. The idea of ingesting potent chemicals was abhorrent and frightening to me. I am against putting chemicals into the body unless absolutely necessary, and I wanted to be sure that this was the only option before I took on something so radical.
Then it was suggested that after surgery I would take the drug tamoxifen for the next five years as a preventative. The only problem I found in doing my research was that this drug would probably make me depressed for much of the duration, plus there was a 40 percent increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and pulmonary embolism. All this for only a 10 percent greater chance that the cancer would not recur? Didn't sound like very good odds to me. I felt weary. So much information to gather, so much authority to weigh. It would be easier to just sit back and let all of "them" handle it for me. That is what I would have done in my younger years. I would have assumed that they knew better. I would have followed the common course. But things were different now. I was a grown-up, and the privilege that comes with having lived this long is the realization that no one knows better than I what I want to do with my body. I have worked too hard all my life to undo the damage of my childhood, to get out from under the grip of having been raised by an abusive alcoholic, to make something of my life, to raise a child on my own, to endure the pain of blending families, to see my career knocked out from under me in a war of egos, only to come out the loser in the whole deal. I could not have known that those earlier ordeals would give me the strength to fight this giant war now raging inside my body.
The big revelation that comes with maturity is that life is a series of highs and lows, and it's during the low points of life that you have breakthroughs. Through the negatives we are given the opportunities to have that "aha" moment where we figure out what we don't want in our lives. I didn't want to live my life as a victim; I didn't want to use the excuse that I coulda or shoulda or woulda had a great life, but I had some bad luck. It has always been the "bad luck" or the negatives in my life that have taught me and shaped me, and I wasn't going to lose this time around. Cancer was going to be my blessing. I was going to learn and grow and survive my way.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Sexy Years by Suzanne Somers Copyright © 2004 by Suzanne Somers. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
6240455
Posted January 17, 2011
A fabulous read in which I found some of my medical history and issues in nearly every chapter. Thank you, Suzanne, for bringing us out of the closet.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 8, 2006
This book really lit a fire under my resolve to feel good. I had been on Premarin for years, but my doctor (a woman) switched me to bioidentical estrogen two years ago. I really didn't know the difference until I read this book. Now I have a man in my life after 16 years, and I WANT to have energy and I WANT a sex life. And believe it or not, my doctor is helping me! I felt silly telling her I had read it, but she was glad I was researching. There's something to be said for having a female. I met with a compounding pharmacist two weeks ago and started on the first of my 'other' hormones last night. I'm excited about the future. And it's all a result of reading this book.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 9, 2009
Clearly, Suzanne Sommers has done her homework. The information was well-researched, presented well, and easily understood. Excerts from professionals within the associated fields are included and informative Q&A format covers many of the concerns readers may have. Reads like it was written by someone passionate about sharing what they've learned... 'from a friend, to a friend' feeling. Highly recommend.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 12, 2009
Suzanne Somers book, which was recommended to me by a friend has helped me change my life! It is because of this book that I made an appointment with endocrinologist , who specializes in female hormone dysfunction.
She discovered that although I have been on Thyroid medication for many years, that it needed to be adjusted.
I was sorely lacking in Estrogen ,due to having gone through menopause many years ago, and that had affected my relations with my husband of over thirty years. I n this books , Suzanne stat s, that this is one of the main reason that middle age men leave their wives. I did not want that to happen.
I am only on the BHRT , ( Bio Identical Hormones), as well as the other supplements that were rec commended, for a little over a month), and , my husband is telling me that I look prettier very day, and our love -life is starting to improve , ( slowly), but it is a start.
I am so grateful , that my friend told me about this book. Her first book Ageless is a must as well
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 28, 2006
For two years following my discontinuation of HRT which I did upon my doctor's recommendation, my health was in a downward spiral. After reading Suzanne's book, I made the decision to start back on natural HRT and at 48 I have never felt better. Thank you Suzanne for educating me to the importance of natural HRT. I am amazed at the time and research you put into this book and am grateful you chose to share it with others.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 26, 2004
Finally there is a solution for all women who are nearing or in the 'fall' of life. Now my mind, body and soul are in balance. This is no Hollywood hype! I finally have my life back, I feel so good.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 2, 2004
As Ms. Somers clearly relates, conventional Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) has been misguided by patent laws which encourage pharmaceutical companies to develop and market non-bioidentical molecules that the human body has never encountered in millions of years of evolution. Over the past nine years I have used bioidentical hormones exclusively to treat both women and men, and attest to the many significant benefits in both body and mind function. Every woman who reads this book, whether she's already in menopause or not, whether she's treated with conventional 'non-human'hormones or not, will gain the understanding and knowledge that will restore the health and vitality these hormones provided in youth. Bravo Susan!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 16, 2004
I read this after my Mom went through menopause. While I'm still young I plan on keeping onto this book for when I'm Mom's age. In my opinion, this is one all women could appreciate!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 15, 2004
As a 30 year old who had an emergency hysterectomy 18 months ago, I found this book to be such a tremendous help. Although the book does not cater to those of us who reached menopause overnight, the information about bioidentical hormone replacement has given me such hope for overcoming my hormonal roller coaster. Thanks for such a wonderful book and the answers to many questions over the past 18 months. Highly recommended!!!!!!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 1, 2004
If you are a middle aged woman battling fatigue, depression, weight gain, sleepnessness and the other symptoms of menopause, don't delay in reading this book. The first five chapters made me cry - it sounded like they were written about me! I raced to my doctor and requested the blood test described. He immediately sent me to a lab. I was in Stage Three Adrenal Fatigue and still trying to manage a demanding career, home, and schedule of an active 7th grader. Going to bed was not an option! I have been on bio-identical HRT for two weeks today. I feel so much better that it is difficult to describe. You will not hear about this HRT from your doctor - it requires effort, and you can't just order a pill. Investigate and be proactive about your middle age and your hormone therapy. Good luck! Thank you Suzanne Somers!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 4, 2011
That she's just trying to sell her products
0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 21, 2005
This book, The hormone connection, is wonderful. full of important information, for women, all over the world. I cryed and laugh. I'm not in this alone. I'm now well inform. Thank you.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 2, 2004
Excellent resource for those enduring menopause or andropause. Natural bioidentical hormones vs. synthetic HRT is a timely and vital topic completely examined here. Suzanne is personally open and honest and includes her interviews of medical experts in endocrinology and other related fields. In addition some helpful websites are listed for her readers. I can say that because of this book I better realize the choices available to me now that could affect my happiness down the road!
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Posted March 18, 2004
Everyone, 40 and older, m or f should read this book and make an appointment with a top-notch hormone therapy specialist. Especially for older parents with young children. I will breath new life into your marriage and active longevity for your time with kids.
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Posted March 17, 2004
As I approach 48 I have begun to experience some of the symptoms of menopause. In this book I have found all of the answers to my questions and with humour. Thank you for such a great book that lets us all know that even stars are human.
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Posted May 13, 2004
My patients have been raving about this book for the last month. They are coming in carrying it and have underlined areas that they wish to discuss with me. On the whole, Suzanne's approach to menopause, in general, and to the post breast cancer patient is so helpful and supportive. We, at The Birmingham Menopause Institute, are so grateful for her for spreading the word on bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. We have been using natural hormones for the last five years and know how well they work and how well women accept them. All of us women should thank Suzanne for talking about this wonderful improvement to HRT. I wish her a long and healthy life! Mimi Kuykendall, PA-C; Certified Menopause Clinician www.birmingham-menopause.com
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Posted March 26, 2004
Suzanne Somers is a great spokesperson for the treatment of menopausal symptoms with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). Her honesty in describing what she endured until she found this type of therapy will help many women. I have been prescribing BHRT for the last five years to hundreds of women with great success. Jerrold H. Weinberg, MD
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Posted June 11, 2011
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Posted July 22, 2009
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Posted November 13, 2011
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