The Respectfully Republican Conversation

Speech was boring, but the wonderful way we transfer power in this country makes me proud to be an American.

Rock,  I have read so much about how lack of progesterone is the cause of miscarriages. It is crazy that doctors are still oblivious to this. Thankfully you found out and have your beautiful little T.

Rosemary, those stats on the success rate of AI's still have me flippin out. I wonder if my onc is even aware of them? Otherwise, why would she prescribe it for someone like me who is low risk and on the low end of actually being helped by these drugs? It seems crazy to tell someone to take a drug that will probably not make much difference.

The article I noted above is more proof that this hormone balance thing may be the whole key to breast cancer prevention. The previous attempts at using synthetic hormones were a failure because they did not duplicate the effects of nautural hormones. As far as the fact that you doubt  the usefullness of hormone therapy if one is PR+, I was thinking of something that Sherri said about her hormone numbers being different. It totally makes sense because our hormone levels are changing constantly. When we are still menstrating our progesterone drops at the end of our cycles which cause us to bleed. Our hormones are always fluctuatating, so the test could very well be effected by when it is done. When we are pregnant, our estrogens get really high. Maybe this is why some young women get cancer with pregnancy. Our hormones go crazy as we begin menopause, going up and down, causing all sorts of problems from hot flashes to depression. Perhaps this is why we get cancer before and after menopause. After menopause, our progesterone drops to nothing, which is why we are estrogen dominant, even when our ovaries are no longer producing much estrogen. It is all about the inbalance of our estrogens! I had a slow growing tumor, so maybe I was PR- because I was already in menopause. The cancer could have started before I reached menopause. Women who are pre menopause would still be producing some progesterone. Diet also would effect our estrogen levels. We know that some foods are estrogenic so if we are consuming those foods at different levels, this will affect our estrogen levels. This is why they recommend saliva tests for pre menopausal women and blood tests for menopausal women to check estrogen levels. The saliva test needs to be done throughout the cycle to get a more accurate reading. So if they test our tumors once for hormones, maybe the result is should not be considered so significant. The blood test is okay to use after menopause because our hormone levels are more stable. But we are so estrogen dominant still ,even though our estrogen numbers are lower, because we are not producing any progesterone at all.

The more I read, the more I am beginning to feel excited about all this news. Imagine if this is the key to preventing cancers in general?

I  still think that it is horrible that women are being put on estrogen blocking drugs. It is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We need estrogens to thrive. They keep our bones and muscles from dying, they keep our hearts pumping, and they keep our brains from turning to mush. They are now thinking that alzheimer's may be because of hormone loss. Taking out our estrogens is causing pre mature aging. That is why everyone who takes this drugs complain that they feel so old all of a sudden. There is only one bad form of estrogen, I always get this mixed up but I think it is estriole. The AI's imhibit all of them however. The reason I prefer to take I3C is because it does not effect the hormone levels much, but it does help to keep the estrogens from binding with cancer cells. After 6 months on I3C, only 100 mg a day, my hormone binding protein number went from 69 to 11! They are now touting the success of this finding by telling us all to eat broccoli everyday, which is what I3C comes from. I still eat my broccoli, but it is hard to get enough veggies in the winter so I rely on my supplements.

I am going to continue to obsess about this whole thing and keep looking for the truth. It really has me excited and optimistic about the future!

Vivre,

Until they can explain why our tumors uptake estrogen and progesterone (for some)  for their survival and growth, we will be stuck with serms.  Which happen to work, but again, not for everyone.  So far my friends who have breast cancer, only one got it back.  I don't know which drug she used.  The odds are more favorable for us to take the drug, then not, but it is according to our dx as we see.  They are researching it. Also, It looks like antiprogesterin looks promising.  We'll have to keep an eye on those developments. 

Lowered levels of estrogen are also linked to impairment of the immune system. The body's defensive cells are less active and infection-killing measures are less toxic to invading bacteria and viruses. Altogether, a woman with lowered estrogen levels is more susceptible to infection and less able to fight off infection once she's ill.

Estrogen interacts with a number of other hormones in ways that can also have wide-spread effects. For example, it binds thyroid hormone, so that levels of estrogen can influence bioavailable levels of thyroid hormone, and hence one's whole metabolism. In fact, all menopausal women should be tested for thyroid adequacy, since alterations in ovarian hormones can push you over the edge into needing to supplement thyroid (note that it's the alteration in underlying hormone levels, not the taking of HRT per se that does this). Estrogen also plays an important role in insulin-sensitivity. Insulin is the hormone that moves glucose into cells, so that cells are nourished with energy to carry out their functions. Without enough estrogen, glucose metabolism is impeded.

Cancer is one of the big fears that deters women from using estrogen. Unless you carry the breast cancer gene or have had breast cancer in the past, however, your risks of developing cancer are much much lower than that of dying from one of the conditions that results from lowered estrogen. In fact, simple lifestyle choices are riskier: your chance of developing breast cancer are higher if you are obese or drink too much alcohol than if you take HRT. Additionally, estrogen seems more to accelerate development (and discovery) of breast cancer than actually cause it, and when it occurs, it is generally of a more treatable, less aggressive variety. On the other hand, increased breast density caused by estrogen means that mammograms are more necessary and must be more carefully read to detect cancers in women with good estrogen levels. You can calculate your personal risks of breast cancer with this tool from the National Cancer Institute.

One sure cancer that estrogen's stimulation of the endometrium (lining of the uterus) is proven to cause is endometrial cancer. Fortunately, by mimicking the natural combination of estrogen plus progesterone, that cancer-causing tendency is squelched when using combined HRT. While women who have had a hyst may think themselves thus immune to this risk, having no endometrium any longer, that may not in fact be the case. Endometriosis sufferers (endometriosis is a disease in which bits of the endometrium escape from the uterus and seed themselves throughout the abdominal cavity) may continue to need progesterone to keep remaining bits of scattered endometrial tissue from turning cancerous. Women in surgical menopause who still have a uterus also carry a special vulnerability to endometrial cancer if they do not protect their uterus from excessive estrogen as well.

Melanoma, an especially malignant form of skin cancer, is also known to be affected by estrogen. While HRT has been shown in some small studies to slightly increase the risk of melanoma, that risk remains well below the risks due to osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease posed by the consequences of low estrogen levels. As with breast cancer, however, this is a cancer in which lifestyle and familial tendencies must be taken into account in risk assessment. At this point, we don't have enough information (and we're not sure it's out there) to accurately judge this risk. The risk of melanoma itself, outside of the familial, is clearly related to sun exposure but is also related to lowered immune function.

On the good news side of the cancer/estrogen equation, however, colon cancer risks are considered to be lowered by estrogen. Since this is the fourth most common cancer and the second most deadly, this is some counterbalance for other risks.

Before leaving the question of cancer, we want to point out some developments in medical as well as public perceptions of hormones that have occurred in the recent past. There was considerable uproar following news coverage in Dec. 2000 of the inclusion of estrogen on the National Institutes of Health list of cancer-causing agents. This was based primarily on the well-documented association between estrogen and endometrial cancer, with breast cancer cited as a lesser association. Since the endometrial cancer risk is so well dealt with by the addition of progesterone (or similar agents called progestins), this is not considered a reason to avoid its use.

And then in the summer of 2002, cancelation of the Woman's Health Initiative study, which studied Prempro in a large number of considerably-post-menopausal women, due to levels of breast cancer above the study's allowable, led to widespread panic that estrogen was "too dangerous." Subsequent discussion and followup testing has indicated that the culprit in the study results is more likely to have been the particular sythetic progestin, Provera, that was used in the study rather than estrogen itself, and that the study population selection may not have been the best to obtain results that can be generalized to younger populations of women.

As for breast cancer, we can only reiterate that this is a matter for personal evaluation and weighing of relative personal risks.

I guess there was speculation that Rick Warren was not going to invoke the name of Jesus in his prayer .. boy did he and in multiple languages!  Here's an article BEFORE the actual event.

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So, Rick Warren is going to use the name of Jesus in his prayer, and his prayer may not reflect the views of all Americans. So what?

Obama's speech probably won't reflect the views of McCain voters, and the prayer of Bishop Eugene Robinson, the nation's first openly gay Episcopal Bishop may not reflect the views of many Americans either. That's what makes America great. Everybody gets to speak their minds and not worry about about having to perfectly reflect the views of people who disagree with them.

I hope Bishop Robinson follows Warren's lead and prays the way he wants to and not the way others want him to, and in a manner that is reflective of his views and not the views of those he may disagree with. Why should any of us be in the business of telling ministers, or any American, how to practice their religion or what to say to their God?

Only got to see bits and pieces of today.  Cam had labs at 12 ET and then Chemo right after.  No one was talking about the "Event"

Sherri:

 Well, darn!  I went out and filled up my car and STILL had to pay for it?

You misunderstood, it was a credit on your CC and not a charge. Right after  noon drivers are getting money for buying gas  

Memo from the newly polished desk of BO to the US of A.

"It's gonna take a while" 

Love and donate,

The Prez.

What a breath of fresh air speech Pres. G. Bush is giving at this very time at his Welcome Home Rally in Texas.

He looks really happy! 

Thank you Pres. Bush for everything and keeping us safe. 

It's great to see how happy he sounds and looks. 

Sherri, you crack me up!!!!!!  woohoo?

It seems to me that those two, like MOO and BOO, have a real marriage .. unlike the Clintons!

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Dr Jill Biden looked great today. Everytime I see her, I think she looks fantastic. Great figure. Great style.  Love that she wore pants the other day to the concert. Smart cookie.  The boots looked good today in the cold.

I will post on the other thread when I have a personal positive story that I believe they will enjoy.  I spoke of my MIL rising from her death bed to call and rub in the fact that President Obama won, I gave a backstory of why an integrated prom in Charleston MS has a much larger social significance.  But a mentally challenged emotional deficient pretend child physiologist in her praise of bringing the country together makes such a idiotic statement of the South sucks and still does.   I give up, she can kiss my butt.

Herbie I read about that prom ........ it was the 1st integrated prom in Charlseton.  Morgan Freeman has promised for years to foot the bill for the whole thing if it would be integrated. They have refused his offer every year until this year.  Apparently, the kids had a great time!! 

I was reading some papers and news accounts from Lincoln's era .. just sickening that people were ever slaves.  We all only have one life to live and their's sucked big time.  Their one and only time in the sun and what did they get?  Lots of times, life is not fair ...  Only God can make it right because we can't ... our future will not change our past.  Like one article said, it was not the Sin of the South, it was the Sin of a Nation -- it pointed to the fact that even though there were no slaves in the North, many slave ships were owned by NY slave traders.  You can see pictures of slaves and their children ....... and read how laws were changed to keep people in slavery. 

For all Americans, regardless of political beliefs, I think that today was a day to be celebrated and not mourned. Tomorrow we can complain about Democratic party ideals.  Now talking about poor fashion choices ...  still can't get the green gloves and shoes out of my mind.

The other shame that went on today, is the booing of Pres. Bush and his wife, and the Cheney's.  Some were singing, the na na na, hey hey goodbye song.  How they can ruin a day.  If anything, it charges us up for the next election and get some seats back in Congress.

I was driving in the afternoon today and Mark Levin (conservative talk radio host) was playing clips from Reagan nomination speech. Remember he came after that disaster of Carter's administration : high inflation and unemployment. What a difference between his speech and Obama's.

The gist of it was that America is the greatest  coutnry and Americans are very productive and capable people and he as a President believed that the best thing his administration could  do for the country was to reduce governemnt involvement and remove the roadblocks that prevent Americans from fully realizing their potential.

I actually got emotional listening to his speech which is more than I can say about Obama that kinds of felt flat.

ibcspouse,

We all know the progress that has been made everywhere in the country. But it will never be good enough for the liberals who see evil white men as the root of all the evil.

Sorry I should have said "well educated open-minded" individuals and not just liberals,. Obviously those of us who are not liberals are simply either not well educated or have a close mind.