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"  That Saturday night\u2014early last October, in Fort Lauderdale\u2014was unlike any other in my fortysomething years on the planet. Within an hour of meeting Mitch, 44, at the hotel bar, we had seized the moment for a flyaway fling. But it wasn&amp;#039;t the dalliance itself that set my head spinning, especially since my paramour was no Kama Sutra master. And though the liaison did loose in me a great rush of intemperance, perhaps that was only to be expected after a punishingly long spell of abstinence by happenstance. The drought was an exception, as I have long relied upon extramarital indiscretions to gratify my baser needs throughout my marriage, two full decades of which have been sadly, painfully, and mystifyingly barren of physical intimacy with the man whom I most deeply love and to whom I have no regrets about being wed. (After fruitless counseling and a trial separation, we nonetheless reconciled as eternal soulmates and adopted an unspoken policy: Don&amp;#039;t ask, don&amp;#039;t tell.)  In the absence of a tantric epiphany or the headiness of first-time adultery, what lent momentousness to my few hours of Floridian free love? The profound transformation they triggered within me. I felt, as if in a time-lapse photograph, that I&amp;#039;d suddenly molted a brittle outer casing\u2014an emotional chrysalis, if you will\u2014that I had unconsciously been building up for nearly two years. What was I shielding myself from? The all too imminent reality of aging and its scary unknowns, that&amp;#039;s what! There was no hiding my terror of getting older and the toll it would take on my mind, my body, the world&amp;#039;s perception of me, and, most of all, my female sexuality\u2014the core of my identity. And that was what abruptly shifted: I was reborn\u2014and also borne back to the self I used to know, who, fingers crossed, will now stick around for the long haul. I had been hoping just to hang in there, adapting to the changes as best I could, a foregone struggle\u2014 that I already knew\u2014since going with the flow was never my way. But now I have high hopes for a future pulsing with vitality so long as I hold fast to how I felt in that moment, on that October night in Florida, where it really seemed that my best self had returned to life, and I was again sensual, fearless, and free. In July, I&amp;#039;d received an e-mail from Life Extension\u2014a group that sells supplements and a magazine and finances research on extending our lifespan\u2014announcing an October event titled, I&amp;#039;m not kidding, &amp;quot;Yes, You Can Think Outside the Box!&amp;quot; at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida. As I scrolled over the topics\u2014bioidentical hormone therapy, folic acid metabolism, the links between women and stress, hormonal disruption, and immune suppression\u2014I knew this was a powwow I couldn&amp;#039;t miss.  For nearly 15 years, I have been an anti-aging crusader-cumconsumer of cosmetic medicine, but having fulfilled most of my personal agenda, I was at a crossroads, shifting my laser focus from my much-rejuvenated exterior to my rapidly declining interior. For the past year and half, between my joyriding hormones and catatonic gut, my health had been on the skids, running me into the ground, where I lay curled up in a ball, praying that tomorrow wouldn&amp;#039;t be another unendurable day. I registered straightaway for the conference, feeling a new and incipient strength, a sense of possible control over the wild and foreign forces bedeviling my body\u2014not to mention the number they were doing on my head. Now I would bridge the great divide between my intimate understanding of the human facial pore and my failure to do so much as a walkathon, let alone read anything about the almighty thyroid gland. Mine had first started to slip in early 2007, when my 5&amp;#039;3&amp;quot;, 104- pound frame\u2014which I&amp;#039;d diligently kept trim and fit through ballet, tae kwon do, and disciplined eating habits, helped by Mother Nature, who graced me with a hummingbird&amp;#039;s metabolism\u2014was body-snatched. Suddenly, when I attempted to put on one of my lovingly chosen designer garments, I found myself grunting and groaning to smoosh my suddenly fleshy hips, belly, and fanny into skirts and pants that I&amp;#039;d bought only months earlier. All this was terrifying. I went up two dress sizes. What was the cause of my Hulk-like transmutation? Blood tests indicated to my gynecologist, Nancy Lebowitz, MD, every fat person&amp;#039;s dream come true: weight gain due to medical diagnosis. I had hypothyroidism: I wasn&amp;#039;t producing enough thyroid hormone, which controls our metabolic rate. Mine had become sluggish, and instead of burning calories I was converting them to blubber. On top of that, my testosterone level had bottomed out. Although testosterone is dominant in men, women also produce it in small amounts, helping maintain muscle and bone mass as well as bolstering mental acuity, emotional stability, and a vital libido. Testosterone seemed worthy of replacing, so I let Lebowitz insert a rice-size pellet of SottoPelle, a timed-release bioidentical hormone, under the skin on my hip. &amp;quot;It should take a few weeks to kick in, and then you&amp;#039;re going to feel great, and you&amp;#039;ll want to have sex, and you&amp;#039;ll start losing that weight,&amp;quot; she assured me. For my hypothyroidism, my internist referred me to an endocrinologist who put me on Synthroid, a synthetic hormone normally prescribed as the starter medication for hypothyroidism.  But contrary to all expectations, I only felt more exhausted, bloated, constipated, and miserable. Thus began my descent into a morass of medical specialists. Over the course of the next year and a half, I was treated by six different endocrinologists and gastroenterologists, during which time I endured a needle biopsy of a cyst on my thyroid gland (nothing to worry about), had endless blood drawn at all hours, tried various dosages of thyroid medication, eliminated lactose and wheat from my diet, tested mail- order colonic cleansing remedies, added MiraLAX (an over-the- counter laxative) to my diet, submitted to a colonoscopy, underwent electrolysis for the dark hairs that grew on my upper lip due to the testosterone pellet, and had liposuction to vacuum away the love handles on my &amp;quot;flanks,&amp;quot; as my surgeon, David Hidalgo, MD, indelicately called them. And yet, though no tsunami of calories ever washed over my lips, the pounds kept on coming. In March 2009, my latest endocrinologist, a venerable practitioner whose name always appears in the yearly Best Doctors issue of New York magazine, pronounced that my medication was working. My thyroid tests were normal. But how could that be? I could barely comprehend what I was reading in the newspaper each morning. Come 6 p.m., I was crashing on the living room couch. I&amp;#039;d given up exercising, lacking the energy to lift a limb for any task more taxing than clicking the remote.And, oh, yeah\u2014smack me on my Botoxed forehead!\u2014my sex drive had gone totally AWOL. How long had it been? Let&amp;#039;s see...camels can go without water for several months. That didn&amp;#039;t seem like such a stretch to me. Maybe elephants: They gestate in the womb for 22 months. So my best guess was somewhere between camel and elephant. Men? Sex? Me? I&amp;#039;m sorry, but you must have me mixed up with I&amp;#039;ve no idea who.... Ironically, with my libido in deep freeze and me past my childbearing prime, on three occasions the paunch protruding from my middle prompted strangers\u2014a pedicurist, a hairdresser, and a salesperson\u2014to ask me the I&amp;#039;d-rather-you-just-gore-me-with-afork- in-the-eyeballs question: &amp;quot;When are you due?&amp;quot;  I&amp;#039;m not kidding\u2014and each time I broke down in tears. So in April 2009, I flew to Torrance, California, to investigate my alternatives, or rather, a practitioner of alternative medicine: Kent Holtorf, MD, a high-octane hormone guru, board-certified in anti-aging medicine, who can answer your medical questions by instantly offering an informative handout or medical study as if pulling a rabbit from a hat. After a gamut of tests, Holtorf determined that I was not metabolizing the synthetic thyroid hormones and that I was suffering from a deficiency of iodine, an element essential to thyroid production. And my estrogen level was zero. Was I having hot flashes? No, but I was enduring other discomforts, like dry eyeballs and a desperate case of arid female nether regions. Holtorf plied me with dietary supplements and bioidentical products\u2014 estrogen gel, progesterone pills, and thyroid hormone. All that was missing was a wheatgrass chaser. Five months later, I flew off to Florida for the Life Extension conference. I arrived on Friday night at Fort Lauderdale&amp;#039;s Westin Hotel on the aptly named Corporate Drive, and despite being a night owl, I made the 8 a.m. start time of the two-day program. But as the hours rolled by, my eyes glazed over, not merely from exhaustion but from sheer boredom. I wasn&amp;#039;t hearing anything new. I mean, nostrums about healing foods? Wasn&amp;#039;t the real news that Sirtris Pharmaceuticals had just announced it was developing a drug to mimic resveratrol? Clearly one person in the room had been doing her homework. That was when I knew that a lot had happened to me in the two and a half months since I had registered for this snoozefest. For starters, Holtorf&amp;#039;s hormonal goody bag was delivering on its promises. Having shed 10 pounds, I was feeling brighter and lighter. By the late afternoon of day one, it was clear that the conference was a dud. But the trip wouldn&amp;#039;t be a total bust, because my brother, who lived in Miami, was taking me to dinner. As we headed off in his silver BMW roadster, I let myself feel the balmy night rush over my bare arms and legs and through my paisley silk shift. My hair flapped and tangled in the wind. We dined al fresco at an East Las Olas Boulevard restaurant, where the scene was hilariously Nip/ Tuck Live. A parade of human blow-up dolls with full-length hair extensions and unnaturally dark bronze full-body spray tans, every curve carved out of silicone\u2014it all left me agape. On the drive back, my brother got all chatty while l leaned against the headrest, my eyes closed, the tropic night feeling floaty and peaceful. It was only 9:30 when he dropped me off at the Westin, and the airless, lifeless property I had left that morning was now pulsing and percolating with excitement. A professional football team had arrived. I&amp;#039;m a teetotaler, but since the night was young and I was feeling easy, I yielded to the pull of energy just off the lobby, where black and silver decor, the chromatic vernacular for &amp;quot;anything after dark,&amp;quot; indicated the hotel bar. Rather than slink into a corner and wait for trouble that might not come, I targeted the broad back of a man seated on a barstool watching a football game. Snaking my way past the cocktail tables, I slid myself atop the stool beside him. &amp;quot;Hi, I&amp;#039;m Mitch,&amp;quot; he said, dazzling me with a grin of picket-fence, lightning-white Chiclets. Ooh! He was cute: eyes dark brown and shiny, face round and boyish, and 6&amp;#039;4&amp;quot; and 240ish, which I just L.O.V.E.! Nothing beats the embrace of a hefty fellow\u2014sturdy arms wrapping nearly twice around me, rendering me small, delicate, and ultrafeminine. He was friendly and open. He had played pro ball and now owned a sports bar in Chicago, and he&amp;#039;d just flown in to meet his buddy, now the coach of the team staying here, but the guy was running late, so he had some time to kill.  But once poor Mitch let me flip on my verbal switch, my turbocharged motormouth ran at full throttle. From my blathering, you might have concluded that I&amp;#039;d just been released from some form of solitary confinement\u2014which, from a very skewed perspective, I had. Over that dread year and a half, I had begun to feel less and less attractive or desirable and eventually became disgusted at the mere idea of anyone wanting or touching me. Once my streamlined silhouette began to resume something like its former shape, however, it was close to being struttable in a sexily cut one-piece swimsuit. That was just one of the umpteen thoughts racing parallel to the endless run-on sentences flowing from my mouth, which Mitch seemed to find utterly charming, as he was laughing, smiling, and holding my hands. But what really got him was my Technicolor recounting of the scene with my brother at the restaurant full of pneumatic women. &amp;quot;They were fabricated out of polymers,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;It was an assembly line of injection-molded manslayers, with big blond hair, big fake boobs, long tan legs\u2014&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Stop,&amp;quot; Mitch interrupted, looking me right in the eye. &amp;quot;That type just doesn&amp;#039;t melt my butter.&amp;quot; Whoa. In that instant, I was struck dumb for the first time since &amp;quot;hello.&amp;quot; Just doesn&amp;#039;t melt my butter? How sexy was that line? Such a couth way of putting it. So adorable. But was Mitch also saying, by way of innuendo, that I was the type who melted his butter? From that moment on, he had me. We shamelessly made out at the bar. When that grew old and Mitch suggested we take a walk outside, I nodded and slipped my hand into his, and he led me to the back of the hotel, where a pool and patio overlooked a lagoon. He immediately got busy pushing together a pair of chaise longues, then went hunting for extra cushions and towels. When his back was to me, I unzipped my silk dress and unhooked my sheer bra, letting the flimsy articles fall softly from my shoulders and drift to the ground. Edging my thong down my thighs, I let it go, too, and stepped out of my sandals. It felt sexy disrobing in a public place, yet so far escaping even Mitch&amp;#039;s notice. At the same time, I was grateful for the moments I had to myself to rediscover how I felt about my physical nakedness. With an erotic interlude impending, what was the status of my libido now that my self-imposed embargo had been lifted? Standing nude at night, en plein air, in an Edenic 80 degrees, I closed my eyes and let my hands explore the shapes and curves of my body, reacquainting myself with its form, which felt lean and vital, and then my skin, the texture more lax than I would have liked\u2014but, overall, the topography felt more than fine. I spread my hands, stretching them out and over my head like great big wings as the breeze drifted off the water, puffing past my underarms, where air currents almost never blow\u2014such a feathery feeling, I realized. I was free of worry, lucidly homing in on the minutiae of sensations coursing over and through me. And thus there was no way to miss the first stirring: My most precious nerve bundles, after a year and a half of lying dormant, were twitching back to life. From his audible gasp when he turned around, Mitch clearly was not expecting to find me buck naked, glorying in my exhibitionism. Instantly grabbing a towel, he attempted to cover me, but I refused to participate in his prudery. I dropped my hands limp at my sidesrather than holding on to the terry cloth and let it, too, fall. Moving to Plan B, Mitch scooped me up and lay me down on his makeshift love nest. For half a minute, as he stroked my hair, kissed me tenderly, and murmured his affection for my body parts while running his hands over them, I thought: This is the epitome of living, being intimate with a man, on any level. The closeness of kissing even a stranger, if you haven&amp;#039;t been smooching for a while, is out of this world. And it&amp;#039;s a fine way to fire up the kindling for a steamy one-off, which was how I misinterpreted the flying sparks. Suddenly, with neither warning nor panache, Mitch threw himself on top of me, his Goliath-size body blanketing me from head to toe and beyond. Immobilized and oxygen-deprived, I let out a whimper to alert this human king-size mattress to my imminent suffocation. Fortunately, he heard my muffled cry and peeled himself off, but the torque from shifting his massive weight also pulled apart his double-chaise handiwork, and he went overboard to the hard patio floor. I, in turn, bolted upright, stunned to find my lungs intact and myself alone on a single lounge chair. Instead of being humiliated into calling it a night, Mitch was gung ho to try alternatives to the missionary position. These involved him in all manner of sitting, kneeling, and crouching\u2014fully clothed throughout, mind you\u2014while lifting, swinging, perching, dangling, bending, and rocking my rag-doll body in a futile effort to accommodate the bizarre physics of our mismatched union. Plainly put, we never actually got the job done. Despite resolving my whole existential/midlife/feminine identity crisis and earning myself an extended warranty on sex appeal, guess who got gypped out of an orgasm? Yup! Can you believe that? The guy didn&amp;#039;t even bother trying. Not that it mattered: I still got a helluva lot more than I could have imagined when I booked my trip. As for Mitch, he fiddled and diddled, heaving and hoeing his way to self-satisfaction\u2014but what did it get him? Only a loss of dignity. After he said goodbye on the patio and disappeared into the hotel, I stayed behind to ponder the mystery of it all. Still naked, I lay on a chaise looking up at a blue-black sky dusted with white stars. The moon was pale gold and round, its edges soft and diffuse like a pat of butter melting. There I saw the answer. At a certain age, assuming you&amp;#039;ve kept up your looks, maintaining your sexual allure requires a new and gentle management of your animal drives, such as slightly cranking down the sound of your ecstatic jungle cries. As for your nakedness, present it in all honesty, though preferably from its more flattering angles, and always in forgiving lighting. At all costs, avoid physical positions that are baldly candid or overly exposed, unless you&amp;#039;re dancing on a pole at the gym. Lastly, remain beguiling by melting beneath his touch, your heat no longer needing to scorch, your nakedness leaving his bed with only an imprint of your presence\u2014now gone, but still lingering with the memory of your warmth. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/beauty/health-fitness/advice/a10845/women-hypothyroidism-lost-libido-393229/>