Customer Reviews

Screaming to Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect and Doctors Ignore

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Review update 11/2008: Six years have gone by, and there are now two books I recommend that together are more immediately useful, and less overwhelming, for making the hormone decision: "Perfect Balance" (Greene, 2005) and "The Perimenopause & Menopause Workbook" (Simpson, 2006). See the guide "So you want to... Pick safe, not risky, hormones for peri/menopause" for comparisons and pros and cons of these and other books, as well as of Dr. Vliet's newer works.

2002 review: As other reviewers have pointed out, this book addresses almost any question you might have about hormonal issues for women. Even better is that Dr. Vliet has no axe to grind: she won't be a cheerleader for either the "everything must be natural" or the "traditional medical establishment" camp. She forms her opinions carefully: she is completely tuned into women's experiences of their symptoms, but at the same time, she won't promote "natural" hormones unless her experience and the scientific data back up their effectiveness. For example, she points out how "natural" thyroid replacement hormones don't have the ideal combination of T3 and T4, while at the same time acknowledging that T3 can be crucial to wellness (which many doctors don't realize, insisting on giving only T4) and explaining how to get T3 in a more biocompatible form.

This book is jam-packed with information and may be heavy reading for someone who doesn't have an intellectual bent. Once you've read it, you'll likely know more about hormones than your doctor does (which is sad!). However, if you're looking for a book that will teach you everything you'll need to know to be your own patient advocate, you'll be in seventh heaven.

For more in-depth coverage of thyroid issues, I highly recommend "Living Well With Hypothyroidism" by Mary Shomon. "Listening to Your Hormones" and "The Thyroid Solution" are good too, but not the first place I turn.

In addition to breaking new ground in our understanding of the relationships between hormones and women's health, Dr. Vliet is a pioneer in terms of her attitude toward treating thyroid disease. Dr. Vliet does not believe that TSH tests are the almightly indicator of a woman's thyroid health. In fact, over on the alt.support.thyroid newsgroup, we've thought about taking a refreshing quote from her book --- "We are treating patients, not lab values" -- and putting it on a tee-shirt to wear to appointments with our doctors. "I'm a patient, not a lab value!" Dr. Vliet says that symptoms, along with elevated thyroid antibodies and normal TSH, may be a reason for treatment with thyroid hormone. Here's Dr. Vliet again. "The problem I have found is that too often women are told their thyroid is normal without having the complete thyroid tests done. Of course, what most people, and many physicians, don't realize is that...a 'normal range' on a laboratory report is just that: a range. A given person may require higher or lower levels to feel well and to function optimally. I think we must look at the lab results along with the clinical picture described by the patient...I have a series of more than a hundred patients, all but two are women, who had a normal TSH and turned out to have significantly elevated thyroid antibodies that meant they needed thyroid medication in order to feel normal. This type of oversight is particularly common with a type of thyroid disease called thyroiditis, which is about 25 times more common in females than males...a woman may experience the symptoms of disease months to years before TSH goes up..." Hip hip hooray, for Dr. Vliet!!! Mary Shomon, Editor, Thyroid Disease Website and Newsletter, http://thyroid.miningco.com

If you think you are going crazy, you are not. You feel rundown, you are not interested in sex, you need more sleep, your mind handles information like an Intel 80386. This book is the answer. I have bought copies for my family and friends. I have recommended it to my business school class, and the MEN referred it to other women they know. Vliet gave me the ammunition to say, "No, it's not just that I'm getting older, and it's not just that I have young children, it's that something is wrong." I had my hormones tested, and despite lab results showing them to be "normal," they were all BELOW NORMAL for optimal function according to Vliet's clinical experience. This book is the best money you can spend on women's health. A literal lifesaver.

If you are a woman and looking for answers then this book is for you. Dr. Vliet covers everything imaginable for women's health. I HAD to be seen at her clinic after reading her book and finding answers to all of my questions that no other doctors had been able to answer. I had been previously misdiagnosed with so many things, I was beginning to lose all hope of ever feeling good again after I had a hysterectomy. Now, just 6 months after first visiting Her Place, I feel great, have more energy than I have since I was 20, weigh 115 pounds, and my sex life is now awesome! Don't miss an opportunity to change your life. Read this book and find confirmation for what you have suspected all along. This book can truly change your life!

For about 25 years I have searched for an answer to PMS and now menopausal depression. No doctor has been able to help me. I have been constantly told to see psychologists and psychiatrists and that I need to take antidepressants which has never solved my problem. I have long suspected hormones in some way to be responsible and now I do know they are after reading "Screaming to Be Heard". I am in the process of scheduling an appointment with Dr. Vliet in Tucson as my last ditch effort, so to speak, to get to the bottom of this horrible problem. I want to have a better second half of my life than the first.

Dr. Vliet has performed an invaluable service to women and men by writing this detailed account of what is known regarding hormones and their function over a lifetime. This is essential reading for any woman who thinks she has an emotional problem. Dr. Vliet carefully and accurately distinguishes the symptoms of hormonal imbalance from the symptoms of mental disorders. These distinctions are often not acknowledged within the medical community therefore women must educate themselves about their symptoms in order to receive appropriate treatment. In addition Dr. Vliet gives detailed information regarding the benefits and drawbacks of various treatments recommended to women for the treatment of PMS, menopause, perimenopause, thyroid problems and a myriad of other difficult conditions affecting women. Please check this book out. You will be amazed at the important information that Dr. Vliet offers in simple, easy-to-read chapters.

This book is dynamite! It is one every woman should read. Dr. Vliet outlines and addresses so many of the complaints most women have but the world ignores. This book contains all the information and ammunition necessary to take to our doctors to demand our problems be addressed and treated. Women no longer have to accept the oft repeated "It's all in your head" comment so many of us have heard all these years. Dr. Vliet not only helps us understand what ails us, and suggests alternatives, she tells us what to look for and what to ask the doctor when we visit. And, she shows us how to listen to our body and to learn that there are things we *can* do to get the help we need. As the title suggests, women are Screaming To Be Heard, and Dr. Vliet directs us in how to make ourselves heard--and not only that, to get the care and attention we need.

Screaming to Be Heard was literally a lifesaver for me. After spending five years searching for answers from many doctors and KNOWING it was a hormonal problem but not getting any of them to listen, this book saved my life! Because I was only in my 20s when my hormone problems began, I was not only told to see a psychiatrist but was also told I was too young. As a result of being ignored until I found this book, I was diagnosed at the age of 31 with Osteoporosis and fibromyalgia. Dr. Vliet knows that all patients are INDIVIDUALS and you don't have to be a certain age to have a certain condition. Thanks to Dr. Vliet and the right hormone replacement regimen, my osteoporosis is reversing and I am back to feeling like myself again. Remember ladies, you don't have to be 50 years or older to need hormone replacement OR to be at risk for osteoporosis. I recommend this book to EVERY woman and doctor. It could save your life or that of someone you love.

I bought this book for my wife after all the doctors we saw said that her severe depression and anxiety were due to a nervous condition (depression). All they wanted to do was prescribe Prozac, while I insisted that the cause was physical, and hormone related. We later found that her thyroid, progesterone and estrogen levels were low. Local doctors said that these levels were "normal," when in fact they were on the low end of the scale. Apparently her body was demanding higher levels of these powerful hormones that control many central nervous system functions - like mood.

After suffering for a year and a half with these swings between severe anxiety and severe depression, she went to Dr. Vliet's office and within a couple of months was back to her old self.

Thank you for giving my wife back to me Dr. Vliet. Thank you for being a real doctor - not a "Prozac cures all" doctor.

This book is the hormone bible. You (and your family) need it.

I am by no means a religious woman. But one evening, as I was feeling particularly exhausted, I got on my hands and knees and prayed to God that I would find a way out of this physical hell that I had been experiencidng since the birth of my daughter 3 1/2 years ago. Literally, within days, I found myself on the telephone with a childhood friend telling her of my troubles. I told her all about the extreme fatigue, the anxiety, the lack of motivation and spark in my life, the decreased sexual desire and the headaches. I was so relieved when she confided that she too had experienced similar symptoms but that there was a way out and a light at the end of the tunnel. That light is Dr. Vliet. My friend recommended that I buy Dr. Vliet's book which I promptly did. After having read "Screaming To Be Heard", I educated myself, then I insisted on having my hormone levels tested. What I found out is that EVEN at 34 years old hormone levels can have a profound effect on a woman's health. Dr. Vliet teaches us in this amazing book to listen to our body's wisdom. Having found this book truly was an answer to a prayer....I am on my way!!