Hormone therapy (HT) is complex, needs to be tailored to a variety of medical, lifestyle and nutritional issues and here’s how we make hormone therapy unique. HT can improve moods, improve sex and libido, your weight, sleep and thought. But a unique approach is to evaluate risk by monitoring over time enhancing safety. There are risks of starting hormone therapy. There are risks of continuing and risks to discontinuing hormone therapy. However occasionally there is overemphasis on risk relative to benefit. Thus is the root of ‘misinterpretation,’ of the risks of hormone therapy.
Dosing, Nutrition and Supplements
Over a course of therapy switching dosing, formulas, and timing in administration of hormone therapy can improve effectiveness. There are many choices in hormone therapy for both men and women. A search for effective but even safer dosages, you may need more or less dosage than others you know.
A search for alternative therapy, especially if you are very early or very late in menopause you might be better off considering specialized dosing, or dosing that is modified with the right nutrition and supplements. Appropriate nutritional testing can help direct you to the right solution, and can monitor if you are on an optimal dosage.
Women on weight loss medications benefit from additional attention to hormone balance. Whereover, weight loss can improve many health aspects, muscle wasting has been reported as a side effect of the medications in some people.
Bone Health and Fitness
A better understanding of long-term body and bone health and the risks of alternative therapies, for testing your bones as well as your body composition is more helpful than just hormone levels. Some physicians will not monitor bone heath for healthy individuals until you are age 65 because the need for additional therapy beyond hormones will be minimal.
Nutritional and fitness management of menopause also needs management. Can you pass some very simple fitness tests? Your physical fitness teachers and trainers can be part of management of hormonal health. For example they can check your core strength, your posture, gait and your ability to build strength and endurance.
Hormone therapy is not the Only Strategy for Aging Pelvic Floor
Hormone therapies cannot solve all problems associated with aging, being over weight, cognition, or mood. For pelvic floor health there are now maintenance therapies that can help sex, improve the appearance of the vulva, correct minor labial issues, and help prevent ingrown hairs. Non-medication radiofrequency, Emsella treatments, or laser therapy can prevent ever having sexual pain with menopause.
Prompt attention to Women with Unusual Menstrual Bleeding
Non-hormonal management of irregular bleeding in perimenopause is one of the most common reasons gynecologists prescribe hormone therapy, of utmost important is to get proper tests for uterine cancer as well as breast cancer, cervical cancer, colon and skin cancer.
The future of hormone therapy
Understand your genetic risks in context of the type of hormone, the age of initiation, your response to hormone therapy, in the future genetic testing will be very important. New compounds including those that are SERMs, TSECs, and NK3 inhibitors fill gaps in theapy for those who still have unsolved issues. We at Hada and at Women’s Health Practice look forward to working with you into the future.
