HRT for Menopause
Menopause is a normal, natural event that can start anywhere between 40-55 years of age. As we age our hormones drop, and those hormone changes create many symptoms. Hormone replacement therapy HRT for menopause might be the best way for you to relieve many of your symptoms.
We all have different body makeups. Some of us react strongly to hormones, and others don't notice hormone changes at all. As most women know, their ideal hormone levels, or ‘Hormone Cocktail,’ are very different from anyone else's. Because of how unique we all are, each woman deserves her own specially blended hormone cocktail to help relieve her menopause symptoms. Using HRT to replace hormones can give you the opportunity to finally have control over estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
We all likely remember puberty and how it took us by surprise! That was certainly a phase where your hormones raged - specifically estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone. You didn’t have much control over those changes. Or every month thereafter ~ the highs and lows of our fluctuating hormonal cocktail that led to your regular periods.
During your reproductive years, the monthly changes in your hormone cocktail often caused a huge variety of outcomes. For example, some women suffer terribly two weeks before their periods, while others barely notice the increase in estrogen levels, only to suffer two weeks later when their estrogen levels drop. Others seemed to be simply unfazed by it all.
Here you are at peri- and menopause, and finally, you can control your hormone levels. Menopause is the absence of the menstrual cycle for one full year. It usually occurs at about 45-52 years of age, but perimenopause can start at 35. Menopausal symptoms are incredibly variable from woman to woman. Some women have few symptoms, while others feel miserable.
HRT in menopause can allow you the opportunity to replace the changing levels of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone and provides the most effective way to regulate the highs and lows of hormonal changes that you’ve endured most of your life.
What Is a Hormone Cocktail
Your ideal hormone levels or ‘Hormone Cocktail’ are very different from anyone else's. We appreciate that every woman is unique and especially as you enter into peri- and menopause you will need optimal hormone therapy or ‘hormone cocktail’ that is unique to you in order to help you feel good and stay healthy.
While there is no ‘treatment’ for menopause, there are ways to treat the often-chronic symptoms that result from menopause. Menopause is a positive beginning, with opportunities to take preventive action against major health risks associated with decreased hormones as we age. Winona’s goal is to help you relieve your symptoms safely and effectively.
As we learn more and more about reproductive aging we are able to provide effective treatment options for menopause symptoms including hot flashes, anxiety, weight gain, sleep disruption, and even mental fogginess. The symptoms are all caused by a decreased production of the hormones estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone and occur naturally as women approach menopause.1-4
By working with our Winona providers you can perfect your ‘hormone cocktail’ to reduce symptoms and improve your menopausal journey.
Symptoms of Menopause
Menopause is defined as one full year without a menstrual period. Some of the symptoms include:
Hot flashes
Weight gain, increased body fat, low muscle tone
Insomnia and restless sleep
Drier and more noticeable skin wrinkles
Decreased sex drive and painful intercourse
Vaginal dryness, and irritation
Fatigue, low energy
Headaches and migraines
Anxiety and the feeling of uneasiness, mood changes, depression, and a low sense of well-being
Hormone Cocktail Ingredients
Estrogen: Naturally decreases during menopause, but in a very irregular fashion. Estrogen has many jobs, but one is mental processing. Estrogen “lubricates the brain.” Taking HRT in menopause may improve memory, concentration, and cognition.
Estrogen can also help protect against heart disease, strokes, decrease blood cholesterol, lower the incidence of Alzheimer’s/dementia, improve mood swings, decrease water retention, reduce hot flashes, prevent osteoporosis, and reduces the chance of Type 2 diabetes.
Winona provides estrogen that is chemically identical to the kind made by women's ovaries, and described as "bioidentical." Shipped by Winona’s private pharmacies it comes as a pill, transdermal cream, or patch. Once a woman hits her mid to late 30’s she can enter perimenopause, and progesterone production starts to decline. Once she reaches menopause, circulating progesterone levels are so low, they are similar to levels normally seen in men.
Progesterone: Once a woman hits her mid to late 30’s she can enter perimenopause, and progesterone production starts to decline. Once she reaches menopause, circulating progesterone levels are so low, they are similar to levels normally seen in men.
Research shows that adding back progesterone can improve brain function, mood as well as cardiovascular, and nervous system health. Progesterone can protect against uterine and breast cancer, helps fat metabolism, normalize blood sugar, reverse osteoporosis, improve thyroid function and act as a natural antidepressant, and reduce anxiety.5-6
Testosterone: Although many think of it as a ‘male’ hormone, testosterone is also an important female hormone that plays a critical role in women’s health.4 Testosterone maintains normal metabolic function, muscle and bone strength, urogenital health, mood, and cognitive function.4 A deficiency in testosterone can lead to low sexual desire, arousal, and orgasm.
Tiredness, depression, headaches, cognitive problems, osteoporosis, and lean body tissue loss are additional complications from low testosterone.4 Testosterone levels peak in a woman’s ’20s and start to drop years before perimenopause. By menopause, most women’s levels are half of the peak levels.5 Winona offers DHEA, a testosterone precursor, to gently yet effectively replace the testosterone that can be missing with menopause.
Summary
HRT for menopause is the most studied and effective form of treatment to date for hot flashes and night sweats. Scientists have yet to unearth a more effective remedy for menopause symptoms than estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone supplementation to improve the profound mind-body shifts that occur during menopause.1-4
Winona can help offer a solution for women that may include pills, creams, and patches. We provide other replacements for women to help improve long-term healthcare AND the way they look and feel. In addition to alleviating the symptoms of low estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone, hormone replacements can also aid you in losing weight, and improve your skin, hair, memory, mood, sex drive, and create an overall sense of well-being.
Let the Winona healthcare professionals answer your concerns and mix the ideal “hormone cocktail” that replaces the missing ingredients to help you feel, and stay young and healthy. We can create a customized plan to help you balance your hormones that can have you looking and feeling better than you have in years.
HRT for menopause can normalize hormone levels. Leading experts recommend HRT in perimenopause and menopause not only to help with symptoms but in order to prevent long-term disease.1 Let the Winona women’s health care experts walk with you on your menopause journey.
You can also check: Youth Hormones
