Marisa’s Story
To begin, I am delighted I have this opportunity to thank the Hotze Health and Wellness Center, Dr. Hotze, the other Doctors on board who have embraced the modern concept of treating women and men with bio identical hormones. I would also like to thank the staff, the nurses, the pharmacy attendants and the receptionists to name a few, whose dedication is obvious and who make us feel so comfortable every time we call and who get us any information we need at a moment’s notice.
Aside from that, because of the Hotze Health and Wellness Center, I have been able to live my life to the fullest, and work a tremendous amount of hours as opposed to laying in bed every couple of weeks with a broken down immune system which, is where I was headed.
I am a 44 year old woman who, raised in Southern California has lived in New York for the past 20 years. My fiancé and I are jewelry designers. We design and manufacturer every piece, sell our line to other retail stores and have our own boutique in Soho, NYC, (the first of many I hope!). I have always worked many hours. A couple of years ago, I started noticing a few, very slight changes in my body chemistry, which, I myself, evaluated as hormonal changes.
I also knew that during the next 10 years, I would notice more. Since I found my partner late in life, I did not want to scare him away by being cranky pants over my hormones changing! I also thought if I started now with treatment while I am still healthy, that any changes over the next ten years would happen more gracefully. I was familiar with regular hormone replacement therapy, but not enthused to consider it because I felt that the risks were too high and that messing around with Mother Nature was probably not a good idea!
I was on the plane flying to Houston for a trunk show at Saks Fifth Avenue and I spotted an ad in the Continental Airlines magazine for the Hotze Health and Wellness Center. I was impressed with the fact that they were offering bio-identical hormones, made primarily from food ingredients, and it sounded much safer than artificial hormone replacement. I made an appointment and immediately was on my way to good health.
Little did I know that I would be treated for other ailments I had been suffering from which were overlooked by my other doctors. After a long interview with many questions, it became obvious to Dr. Sheridan, that I had a thyroid problem, which I had been suffering from since birth. Now, why did my fancy Park Avenue doctors not pick up on this? I am text book case, have every symptom in the book; even I figured it out and when I went to get tested, my doctor said, “you’re fine!” “My hair is falling out,” I replied. He said, “don’t worry, as long as it grows back, your fine!” Mind you, I have so much more hair then him, I’m sure he thought I was ridiculous. In any case, I went on Armour Thyroid, and many of my symptoms disappeared. My dark circles disappeared, which no doctor or dermatologist was able to figure out. My deep fatigue ended and my stamina increased and my life long chunky monkey weight problem seemed to be answered. Now if I can just cut out the cookies! My freezing hands and feet also became warm for the first time ever. Oh, and my cholesterol decreased which was too high, another low thyroid symptom, and my regular Dr. just wanted to put me on lipitor for. Why affect my liver with all these drugs when my problem was my thyroid???
More importantly and debilitating, I was beginning to have panic attacks. Understand, I’m fearless. I’m emotionally strong by nature, have no fear in business and can travel anywhere in the world alone and completely enjoy myself. Suddenly my asthma was turning into panic attacks and I was afraid to leave the emergency room. My fiancé looked at me in dismay, since he had never seen me afraid. Through Hotze, I discovered that this was hormonal, not emotional as I had thought, and once I went on the thyroid and the testosterone, I have never had an attack again.
I was placed on Progesterone the last 14 days of my cycle which helped the dryness and hurting during sex, which was what mainly brought me to Hotze in the first place. Before Hotze, I had also noticed my sex drive decreasing. Of course, my mom said if I stopped working so many hours, I would feel like having sex again. This is partly true but when I was 24, I was working 6 nights a week and putting myself through collage full time and I still wanted to have sex!! Now, these problems have disappeared.
The reason I am writing this however, is not to tell my story. The reason is that I feel that people are raised to believe that these symptoms are simply signs of normal aging with any healthy individual. And that we should just all accept that we are getting older and must learn to live with the symptoms our bodies have as we age.
But this isn’t really true. Thanks to the few open minded doctors like Dr. Hotze and his posse of other intelligent doctors, who have the wisdom to see the future of medicine, we don’t have to live like this. And we can regain health. Any intelligent person will look for reasons to justify their symptoms. For example:
I’m gaining weight too easily – OK, it’s part of aging.
I’m having panic attacks – OK perhaps I have emotional issues I haven’t dealt with, perhaps I need therapy!
I don’t feel like having sex with my husband of 15 years – OK, perhaps the spark is gone or maybe we have problems we are not addressing.
My immune system is shot – Maybe I need another vacation!
My cholesterol is too high – Maybe I have to eat more skinless chicken breasts or fish or something.
Reasons for our symptoms are never really perfectly clear, we consider all possible factors. And to most of our doctors, they are not clear either. The human body is a very complex instrument and hard to figure out. And who simply wants to treat symptoms? Don’t you want to treat the cause? I was not really aware that as we age and our hormones change, if affects our entire immune system. It also affects our weight and our sleep and the way we interact with others. We should all be able to feel good and live our life to the fullest. And so far, bio identical hormone therapy seems to be the most positive step to aiding what ails us over all.
I intend to spend many years feeling great under the guidance of Hotze and I urge all my friends to call up, ask for a questionnaire and see if this program is something that can help you with allergies, asthma, sleeping problems, thyroid problems, depression or any of the other symptoms I have mentioned here. I wish you the best of luck.
Can you relate to Marisa's story? Contact us today and let us help you get your life back!
