Advice for Men

Pity the poor guy who has to hold his wife’s coat through menopause. Her mood swings can get into the range of clinical despression.  Where physical ailments are present, they may require a high level of your understanding and support. There’s a distance that we can place between ourselves as the healthy person and the disease and the person who has the disease. But mental pain, depression and anxiety, are contagious and counterproductive. Think of depression and anxiety as black ink spilled across a priceless manuscript.

Weight Gain

Consider how she looks. If she is taking HRT she probably is putting on some pounds. The best way to deal with weight gain is to see the positive effects. Aren’t those breasts just luscious? Okay, they may be hitting her knees, but when you get there …man oh man they are succulent. And that butt. Does it make you thinks of steers in Montana as they graze over the range? (Think JLo in twenty years). Relax. Just as she accepts your hair loss (dare I mention your lost teeth?) your gray hair and yes, those wrinkles, accept her battle with time graciously. See the where the girl remains and grab the humor. Just not at her expense.

Sex

Married sex has its own category of monotony. Bill Maher held out his open palms and flipped one over to explain Bill Clinton’s wondering eye as simply wanting to replace the old with the new. How do you retrace those magical years when you found you had to pull over and have sex right there and right then. Or your ability to sneak a quick one in the stall of the ladies room while the wedding was still going on inside. The urgency subsides after years of accessibility and other commitments erode the drive.

Lubricant. If you can both stand the slosh effect, lubricant is the way to go. It allows the mind to travel to the sexual stratosphere even if the body won’t get you there by itself. Having said that, a good lover is a good lover is a good lover…you get the point.

Even after years of being together, your bodies are uncharted territory that must be conquered. Treat the familiar with a new curiosity. Don’t assume that what worked before will work now. See her with a new look, a new hair color, a new shape, a new body. She probably has changed one or all of these. Allow for the new. Release yourself into a new perspective on her. She’s changed. Explore.

Depression

Here’s the tough one. How do you help her through the down? The depression can contaminate your relationship. No one wants to be around the down head. With HRT she can begin to resolve some of this issue through estrogen replacement. You may find an additional boost from testosterone helpful. Therapists suggest antidepressants. They cut the lows. But they also cut the highs. If you can, help to empower her so that she feels competent and self sufficient then you can attack the problem at its core. Once you look like a grown up, its time to get the benefits of being a grown up. This is a good time to have her start that business that gets you over the top and puts the kids through college. If we are going to age, we want the wisdom and the power that held out its promise to us.

Find out what the core issue is for her. Then help her to solve it. If the problem can’t be solved, (“Yes Virginia, there is no Santa Claus”) then help her to find techniques to deal with the stress of that anxiety. If it's cancer, job loss, or death of a loved one….these are tough ones. There is no easy solution. Where does the core of the anxiety and depression come from? Get there and understand it with her and take small incremental steps toward healing. Give her a technique to deal with that will enable her to face the issue and feel as if she is dealing with it purposefully.

Technique is the key. What woman doesn’t have a “to do” list? We attack a problem by mapping out a series of incremental steps that make us feel as if we are tackling the problem. Find the issue. Break it down into small steps where she can see she is being effective. She may be so lost in the issue she can’t see her way clearly out of it. Be the light at the end of the tunnel by creating the map out of hell. Let her report back to you for each step that proves there is a way out. This may not be easy. If it were, she would have figured it out by now.

Create the “to do” list in your own mind. Have her share the results daily at first. This corroboration helps to prevent her from getting lost in the fear and anxiety of tackling the problems at the onset of the tasks. Like studying for difficult exams, it’s hard to get started. Help her through the first hurdles by making her feel as if she is not alone.

Male Menopause

Does Male Menopause exist?

Men may experience similar symptoms to women as they reach their 50’s. However, female menopause is triggered by a dramatic change in their hormone levels, while men experience this change in testosterone gradually over many years. The symptoms are remarkably similar.

Symptoms of andropause

• Poor sex drive
• Tiredness and fatigue
• Irritability
• Low mood
• Change in body shape
• Sweating
• Flushing

Here’s an excerpt from Josh Fischman, Do Men Experience Menopause? US News & World Report 7/30/01

Endocrinologist Adrian Dobs of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore believes the hormone is part of a midlife change but not the whole story. Other hormones change as well, including pituitary and growth hormones and another one called DHEA, and these fluctuations don't happen at the same time.

Hormone blues. There does seem to be a strong link between low testosterone and depression. One study of 850 men over age 50 showed the lower the hormone levels, the higher their scores on a depression test. A much smaller study of depressed men showed those who didn't get better on antidepressants did improve after testosterone supplements were added to the mix.

Excerpt from The Andropause Society http://www.org.uk/choose.asp

Potency Problems

This is the commonest presenting problem in male sexual dysfunction clinics and peaks at the time when the andropause appears.

Man's ability to have an erection is actually a recurring miracle of hydraulic engineering. Though it is difficult to say precisely what part testosterone plays in helping to produce erections, it certainly both primes the penis and triggers the chain of events which bring an erection about. It is surprising, but gratifying, how often when adequate testosterone therapy is given, all the symptoms of the andropause disappear within a few weeks or months, including erectile difficulties, particularly when other factors contributing to its onset or continuation are dealt with.

Even though it is more difficult to restore function than desire, unless the source of the problems is obviously psychological or mechanical, it seems logical to investigate the testosterone balance of the patient, and restore it to normal as the first stage of treatment. Even if erections are not greatly improved by this alone, libido and confidence usually are. Recent experience has shown that when Viagra and Testosterone are combined, they provide a cure for over 95% of impotence problems.

Risks

MALE HRT has been linked with development of prostate cancer and any treatment should be monitored by your doctor.