Bioidentical Hormones

Do you remember your twenties? Remember how you felt back then, physically and mentally? Now, you may feel completely different. Maybe you’re depressed, irritable, moody, fatigued, or just simply unhappy?  PMS is no longer “that time of the month”, it has become a permanent fixture in your life. Some doctors may say you’re just suffering from depression and prescribe some antidepressant that will make you feel even worse. Others will tell you that this is just a period in your life when menopause is basically unavoidable. Now that we are well into the 21st century, these standard excuses can no longer be accepted. There are ways to improve your quality of life that you must be introduced to; Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) is most assuredly one them.  

Is BHRT for you?

Women as early as in their thirties are suffering from hormonal balance everyday and over 90 percent of women in their fifties experience low estrogen levels. Weight gain, mood swings, body aches and pains, lack of concentration are just a few of the numerous issues that have these otherwise healthy women living miserably as their families and friends suffer along with them. Big name celebrities such as Oprah and Suzanne Somers provide testimony to the real effects of BHRT. In O, The Oprah Magazine, Oprah claims that just after a few days “the sky was bluer, my brain was no longer fuzzy, my memory was sharper”.                  

Why are some doctors unfamiliar with Bioidentical hormones?

In short, the answer is money. Originally, hormone replacement therapy consisted of synthetic hormones that were intentionally modified by the big pharmaceutical companies so that they may make a profit by placing a patent on them. The problem with Bioidentical hormones for these companies is that one cannot patent something that is found naturally in the human body. Bioidentical hormones are just that: biologically identical to the hormones in your own body so you know that they are completely safe. Not only this, but they are more effective than their synthetic counterparts and have a much lesser risk of heart disease and breast cancer. Synthetic hormones have so much money backing them from the pharmaceutical companies that doctors are favoring them despite the fact that Bioidentical hormones are superior across the board. Natural progesterone can brighten the mood and increase the quality of your sleep while progestin, the synthetic progesterone, can confuse your body’s chemical receptors and lead to chronic fatigue, body aches, and increased risk of heart attack in women over 40. Educate yourself to figure out what’s best for your body and not the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry.

How Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy Works

Bioidentical hormones have several forms, depending mainly on personal preference of the patient. Bioidentical progesterone can be taken as a cream, over-the-counter nasal spray, lozenge, or prescription pill while the estrogen can be in forms such as skin patches, sprays, vaginal rings, or creams. One takes the smallest possible dosage that relieves the symptoms, but taking too much at first is not harmful. Eventually dosages may be reduced by 50 percent.  Signs of improvement usually occur within one or two weeks, but some severe cases may need up to three months. These hormones are sold at your local pharmacy and a month’s supply generally cost no more than $20-$70, depending on the dosages.

 New Features in Hormone Replacement

A common misconception is that hormone replacement is only used by women because they are the only ones who suffer from menopause, but men undergo a similar condition known as andropause and they see many similar symptoms such as weight gain, fatigue, decreased libido and some exclusive symptoms such as erectile dysfunction. Testosterone, just like estrogen and progesterone, can be used in hormone therapy for both men and women. A new method of testosterone therapy is testosterone pellets (also available for estrogen). These pellets are the size of a rice grain and are implanted into the body at the top of the rear hip pocket in a ten minute procedure under local anesthetic. It will gradually release testosterone into your body on its own for up to six months till a new one is inserted. Instead of a daily cream or pill, the pellet will do the work for you.

If you are experiencing the signs of depleted hormones, contact Dr. George Solomon today and come in to get your hormone levels tested for a balanced tomorrow.