Getting Yourself Back with Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy
Need a bioidentical hormone therapy for women? At a certain stage of our lives, most of us realize that we just aren’t looking or feeling like ourselves anymore. For some of us, it’s the changes staring back at us in the mirror — thinning hair, tired eyes, excess belly fat.
For others, these changes are internal — low mood, lack of energy, and poor sleep. Women may experience menstrual symptoms, such as abnormal bleeding or irregular or painful periods.
Depending on your specific symptoms, causes can range from nutritional deficiencies and hidden infections to hormone imbalances and exposure to environmental toxins.
Often, multiple underlying causes are at work. After all, the body is a complex organism consisting of a dozen interacting systems, including the digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, and nervous systems — and that’s just half of them. It’s to be expected that ill health will often involve more than one system.
Here at BioDesign Wellness Center, we practice integrative and functional healthcare, which is better equipped than conventional healthcare to deal with complex health issues. We start with a thorough medical evaluation and order targeted tests to identify the root cause of a patient’s symptoms.
We continue to test over the course of treatment as the patient’s health improves, and then we fine-tune our recommendations based on the results. For some patients, usually those over the age of 40 who display relevant symptoms, our evaluation includes an examination of hormone levels.
Listening to Our Patients
Patients are great at describing how they feel:
- “I don’t feel like myself.”
- “I have no sex drive.”
- “My hair is thinning.”
- “I’m a hot mess.”
This is what we hear from patients daily, a large majority of whom are women. Many of these women are going through hormonal changes and can benefit from bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).
With each decade, changes to sex hormones are inevitable. Levels of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone can increase, decrease, or become imbalanced. This can translate to a variety of unwanted symptoms, including the following:
One way to tackle these symptoms is through BHRT.
What is BHRT?
Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) is a treatment that involves adding one or more hormones to your system if levels are too low or need to be increased to bring them into balance with other hormones.
Bioidentical means that the manufactured hormones used in BHRT are exactly the same, on a molecular level, as the hormones the human body produces and uses on its own.
In addition, instead of receiving a pill that’s been mass-produced by a big pharmaceutical company, the hormones we prescribe are compounded specifically for you based on your symptoms, health and fitness objectives, and lifestyle.
How Long Before I’ll See an Improvement?
As with any medical treatment or procedure, results when employing BHRT vary among patients. You can expect to feel noticeable improvements within a few weeks, but it can take up to three months to feel the full effects.
Over the course of that time, you may start to experience increased energy, relief of any menopausal symptoms, improved sexual wellness, a sharper mind, and an improved sense of well-being.
Many of our patients experience either temporary or no side effects. You can count on us to monitor you closely over the course of treatment and adjust your prescription, as necessary, to address any side effects. After all, the goal is to make you feel like yourself again — your best self.
Our Approach to Bioidentical Hormone Therapy for Women
Balancing hormones requires much more than simply adding a little of this or a little of that. Numerous factors play a role in hormone production and how your body processes and uses hormones.
We take a personalized approach that begins with restoring whole health. Hormone therapy is like icing on the cake — optimizing your health so that you feel at your very best.
Our approach to BHRT begins with a consultation with our hormone specialist manager. This gives us insight into your medical history and your specific health and fitness goals.
We order blood draws and lab tests, and our doctors carefully review the results. We examine your levels of sex hormones — estradiol, estrone, progesterone, testosterone, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and luteinizing hormone (LH).
In addition, we check your levels of thyroid hormones, vitamin D, blood sugar, and biomarkers that may indicate underlying inflammation.
You will then meet with a BioDesign doctor to thoroughly review your lab results and discuss treatment options, which may include prescription medication, supplements, and adjustments to diet and lifestyle. If BHRT is recommended, we offer the following options:
- Oral hormone replacement — pills, liquid, or sublingual (under the tongue)
- Topical creams (absorbed through the skin)
- Injections
- Tiny pellets inserted under the skin
- A combination of the above options
We will advise on what we think is best, but the ultimate decision is up to you. All options use bioidentical hormones.
Follow-up appointments will be scheduled to monitor and adjust your dose as needed. Hormones are constantly in flux throughout life, so your treatments will need to be adjusted accordingly.
It’s important to be on the right bioidentical hormones for the right amount of time and to adjust levels and ratios as needed to optimize your well-being.
Our objective is nothing other than to help you look and feel your absolute best, and we seek to achieve that by fine-tuning your treatment and making adjustments to address any changes in your biology over time.
For more about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in general and specifically our approach to BHRT, see our previous post, “Finding Safe, Effective Hormone Replacement Therapy in Tampa.”
To schedule an initial consultation, contact us here.
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Disclaimer: The information in this blog post about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect current medical thinking or practices. No information contained in this post should be construed as medical advice from the medical staff at BioDesign Wellness Center, Inc., nor is this post intended to be a substitute for medical counsel on any subject matter. No reader of this post should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, this post without seeking the appropriate medical advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a licensed medical professional in the recipient’s state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction.