3 Steps to Decide if it’s Right for You
If you want to know how if HRT is right for you as you transition through menopause — then this video is for you.
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I’m going to show you how Hormone replacement therapy specifically bioidentical HRT can help make your transition through menopause easier.
If you follow these three easy Hormone Healing tips, you’ll be able to make the best decision about whether to treat your menopausal symptoms with BHRT.
#1: Get to Know Your Hormones
Going through menopause means your ovaries are making fewer hormones. Each of your three sex hormones affect you differently.
Estrogen is the fertilizer. It helps everything grow and stay beautiful. Your hair, skin, eyes, bones, vagina, breasts, uterus, even your colon, nerves, and blood vessels. Yet estrogen is indiscriminate. It doesn’t know the difference between the flowers and the weeds. So too much unopposed estrogen can promote tumor growth.
Progesterone is the gardener. It keeps your normal tissue healthy and culls the abnormal tumors. Progesterone turns on the cell death gene P53 which helps protect you from cancer. Your ovaries make 95% of the progesterone needed by your adrenals to make the stress hormone cortisol. Once you’re menopausal, your adrenals are on their own.
Like I described in my video on depression during menopause, your sex hormones affect your moods
Estrogen is the joy hormone. Progesterone is the calming hormones. Testosterone is the motivator.
Testosterone also promotes bone and muscle growth, as well as belly fat, facial hair, and acne if it’s unopposed by adequate estrogen.
#2: Understand Your Options
If you’re suffering through menopause with hot flashes, insomnia, brain fog, moodiness, saggy skin, hair loss then you may want to consider Hormone Replacement Therapy. Hormone Replacement Therapy comes in two options – pharmaceutical and compounded bioidentical. Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy or BHRT is biologically identical to your own hormones and can be compounded for your individual health needs. Whereas pharmaceutical HRT are patented synthetics that come in standard dosing.
HRT and BHRT can be delivered in a variety of ways- orally, transdermally through the skin via cream or patch, by injection, pellet, or under the tongue which goes directly into your bloodstream.
I do not recommend oral forms of hormone replacement as over time they increase your risk for blood clots. Naturally, hormones are delivered via the blood to the rest of your body. Then your liver takes the excess out of circulation. When you take hormones orally, your liver must process them twice and often changes them to more inflammatory forms.
For instance, your ovaries naturally produce estradiol which gets changed to long-acting estrone by enzymes in your fat cells. There are three types of estrone -the good 2OH which is the safest form, the bad 4OH which is carcinogenic, and the ugly 16OH which is inflammatory but fortunately can be converted to estriol which is the dominant estrogen in pregnancy.
For example, Premarin- a pharmaceutical estrogen derived from pregnant mares’ urine when swallowed is converted by your liver to the carcinogenic 4OH estrone.
So for my patients I recommend compounded bioidentical estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone delivered transdermally through the skin to bypass the liver.
#3: Make An Informed Decision about HRT
Both HRT and BHRT must be prescribed by a health care provider. This means you need to talk with your health care provider about your options. Not all are familiar with prescribing BHRT so it behooves you to find one who is adept in figuring out with you what’s the best hormone regimen for your body.
When you take any type of hormone replacement therapy, you need to be sure you’re getting the proper nutrients to help you metabolize them safely. The EPA from fish oil, the IC3 indoles in cruciferous vegetables, the lignans from flax seeds, the isoflavones from soy protein helps you metabolize estradiol into the safer 2OH estrone. Exercising and keeping your weight under control, avoiding toxins like the endocrine disrupters found in plastics, and keeping your alcohol consumption down also favors a safer estrogen metabolism.
I prefer to prescribe bioidenticals. First, because I can personalize the BHRT to my patient’s needs. Second, because I believe they’re safer. I only prescribe transdermal or sublingual BHRT. And I work very closely with my compounding pharmacist to be sure the delivery mechanism works for my patient. There is not one protocol to fit all. Third, I prefer BHRT as I only recommend to my patients what I would put in my own body. Last, I recommend and take Genesis Gold® to help ensure safe hormone metabolism and enhance cell receptor uptake so we can use less BHRT and get a better effect.
Now you know more about using Hormone Replacement Therapy yet it’s not easy to stay healthy during the menopausal years. So I created the Hormone Reboot Training for you to discover how to get in balance and age gracefully. It’s free!
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