The Magic of Midlife Healing UPDATE
The Highs and Lows of a 50 year old Perimenopausal Woman Trying to Heal Herself Naturally.
It’s time for an update on my quest for healing in midlife, because it’s been quite the journey, and I’ve learned so much along the way. Fighting my way through perimenopause has turned me into a part-time holistic biohacker… and honestly, the results are a little wild. I hope it helps other women who’ve arrived at 50 depleted and exhausted, and feel hopeless. {Spoiler Alert: It’s not hopeless.}
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This all started when my psoriasis got bad enough that I was being prescribed a biologic. A quarterly injection that cost almost as much as a used car. Sure it was covered by insurance, but with the Big, Beautiful Bill starting to strip away coverage at an alarming rate, becoming reliant on an budget busting medication right now didn’t seem like the right move, unless I had exhausted EVERY available option known to man.
I was miserable 24/7 with constant itching, flaking, and open sores on my scalp. I suffered debilitating back pain that made it painful to bend down to clip a leash on my dog. I felt exhausted and worn down, and I remember thinking, “How am I 49 years old, but feel closer to 70? This can’t be the baseline for the rest of my life.”
So I started looking for other options. Then I stumbled across a podcast that was referenced at the end of a random Reddit thread on the psoriasis board, that quickly became a deep dive.
I cleaned up my diet, cut out alcohol and inflammatory foods, focused on gut health, and spent more than I care to admit on supplements. I took curcumin, milk thistle, ox bile, and probiotics to the tune of about $150/month,
I even went to a naturopath for testing, but when I discovered their path to healing meant a $5000 investment for a mere 3 months of treatment, I ultimately decided to research what my results meant, take what I learned, and try my own approach. If It didn’t work, I’d reconsider the investment.
Over the next nine months, things started to shift. The itching went away first (which truly felt like a miracle. I was going to bed wearing an ice cap meant for chemotherapy patients to calm my inflamed scalp. Ask my husband, it was dead SEXY!), then the sores healed, and eventually the flaking stopped. (You haven’t been completely demoralized until you watch your sweet husband vacuum up half of your scalp from navy blue flannel sheets without a single complaint. He’s the best.) I didn’t fully trust that I was in remission until I made it through a long Iowa winter, because bone dry, ice cold with little sunlight is the real test.
When April came and I was still symptom-free, (and not using ANY medicated shampoos or prescription steroids at all) it felt like I got my life back. During this time, I also tapered then quit all the expensive supplements. After I was off the supplement stack, occasionally, I felt a tingle of itch, and I did use the shampoo a time or two, but never refilled the prescription. I still haven’t.
My dermatologist was in shock. She’d never seen anyone bounce back like I had without pharmaceutical intervention.
That experience changed how I think about my health. It made me more curious, more willing to experiment, and more aware of how much daily habits actually matter. Your body wants to heal. If you give it what it needs, it will amaze you.
Later, I started hormone replacement therapy (estradiol patches and progesterone), which helped with several lingering symptoms like night sweats, heart palpitations, and a bit of the memory and brain fog. Sleep was still an issue, though, I woke up every morning at 2:00 am as if I’d set an alarm. My regular doctor suggested magnesium glycinate, and that ended up being a surprisingly simple win. I took it for 30 days and started sleeping more deeply and for longer stretches, and I also felt noticeably calmer. Now I am able to sleep in until 4:30 or 5 am, most mornings. (I’m the odd duck that loves to be up early when no one else is awake, and my quiet mornings are when I write my books.)
My back pain has improved, though it hasn’t disappeared. It’s psoriatic arthritis, and at this point, it’s good enough that I’ve been able to stop it from progressing. I’ve gone from two 500 mg prescription ibuprofen per day to just one over-the-counter Aleve (280 mg), and it manages things fairly well.
Coming to terms with the fact that it won’t fully go away has been challenging, but with a heating pad, movement, and a few stretching routines, I’ve learned how to work around it.
But even then, I was still dealing with debilitating fatigue. I could get through the day, but I crawled in bed at 6pm for the night, and exercise felt draining. This is not unusual for people with psoriatic arthritis.
At my next appointment, my doctor asked if I was eating enough protein. Around the same time, I came across a few articles on Substack from Victor connecting protein intake, hormones, and energy levels. The first article caught my eye, Your Liver Is the Reason You Can't Lose Weight (And Nobody Is Talking About It). I also realized that based on how I was eating, I shouldn’t be 25 lbs overweight. Since psoriasis is directly related to liver function, it made me wonder if the two might be connected.
Then I read:
The article (and honestly all his posts) really resonate with me. It’s like he’s been following me around for a decade. And that’s when I decided to experiment with something called “glop” (not the most appealing name, but it gets the job done) after reading another Substack article. Below is my riff, on Dan Go ‘s creation.
I’m about 10 days in on GLOP now, and the biggest difference has been my energy. Not in a jittery, over-caffeinated way, just steady, consistent energy and strength that lasts throughout the day. The debilitating exhaustion I was fighting through everyday is lifting. I have more energy and the ability to do more things around the house every day. I finished a women’s fantasy series this week that required major brain power due to the time travel aspect. I was able to find inconsistencies and create a better story because the brain fog was gone. It like I have been reset back to my 40’s brain (with some back pain, but I’m not complaining.)
My husband noticed the shift before I even said anything, which says a lot.
There have been a few unexpected improvements too. There was an open sore on the inside of my nose I’ve had since September, that I had seen both my PCP and a specialist about, and neither of their prescriptions did anything to heal it. It was cracked, bleeding, and extremely irritating. After 10 days on the glop, it is COMPLETELY HEALED.
Looking back, I suspect I simply wasn’t getting enough protein. I was probably averaging around 50 grams a day, when I likely needed more than double that. Once I started hitting those higher levels consistently, my body bounced back quickly, almost like it had been starving for it.
I believe my body has responded to the glop because I was very deficient and still struggling with (psoriasis driven) inflammation. Full disclosure: I don’t like meat, I have to force myself to eat it, and eggs aren’t very high on my desirable list either. So I was lucky if I was getting 50g per day. According to most doctors and nutritionists, you should aim for .7 to 1g per pound of your goal weight. For me, that’s about 110–145g per day. When I started hitting that consistently for several days in a row, my energy came roaring back.
I have also lost about half of my hair volume, and I’m hopeful this will improve with glop as well, but hair regrowth is slow and it will likely take a year before I really know if it’s helping.
During this journey I have discovered that gut health is the ANSWER to almost any ailment. Glop addresses it, skirting around my aversion to meat, and packs the protein punch I need for energy.
Alcohol is poison. Any amount is detrimental to my liver. If I want to be flake and itch free, I can’t drink it anymore. At first, this felt like a punishment, I was the girl who lived for tacos and margaritas. Now, my guy makes me a virgin version of a Paloma that scratches that itch so my scalp doesn’t.
Also, I hated Greek yogurt, but when it’s mixed with protein powder and wild blueberries, it becomes a lot more palatable. The prebiotics in the psyllium husk and the probiotics in the yogurt shifted my gut health in a week, and the difference in such a short time was so profound, my husband has decided undertake his own experiment. After a week, even a taste shift has happened. I now look forward to my glop, have become a glop evangelist, trying to force it on every person I know and love. It is straight up nourishing.
So if you’re tired, if you have any of the autoimmune challenges I have (or your own), or if you simply know you aren’t getting the protein you need, I urge you to give this a try. Read the articles I linked, learn more about what your body needs, and give it that. There are answers to be found if you’re willing to do the work. Do your own research, start asking questions, and understand that the healthcare system isn’t always designed to get to the root of the issue. Doctors are pressured to treat and street, even the good ones. Most people want to take the easy route, the pill, the shot, and continue eating for taste. Eating for health is a different path and now after a year and a half, I know it is the only one for me.
Have I lost the 25 lbs I’ve always wanted to? Not yet. Resetting my hormones will take longer than 10 days, and hormonal weight is often the last thing to go. But even if it doesn’t…DANG, I feel GOOD! The energy alone makes this experiment a huge success.
Every body is different, and I’m just sharing what’s working for me as a 50-year-old perimenopausal woman with psoriatic arthritis, psoriasis, hypothyroidism, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. If you have similar challenges, maybe some of this will help. If not, start researching your own. You deserve to feel your very best.
XOXO,
Blair Bryan
P.S. The first three bowls of original glop I ate were ROUGH. I added high protein milk because the consistency was like eating a brick of cream cheese. It was not easy to choke down, especially first thing in the morning before coffee. Now I wake up, drink an Oikos protein shake for a quick 30g to start my day before coffee like Victor suggests, then have my coffee, and eat my glop around 10 a.m. The rest of the day, I focus on eggs, chicken or beef, real foods, to get the other 30–40g I need to hit my goal.
P.S.S I also write hilarious and heartwarming Paranormal Women’s Fiction with fierce, 50+ heroines teaming up with Karma to take down bad men. If that is your jam, order my books here.
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