“Nothing is forever except change.” And in the life of a woman, change is inevitable. A woman has to go through several phases of life – puberty, pregnancy, and finally menopause. Menopause marks the ending of your menstrual cycle, which brings crucial changes in your life.
During menopause, the estrogen levels in your body drop excessively, which results in various symptoms like mood swings, night sweat, sleeping struggle, vaginal dryness, and low sex drive. However, hormone therapy for menopause can make your life easier and resolve your symptoms.
Menopause In Woman
Menopause, in a woman’s life, indicates the end of the menstrual cycle. It occurs when you stop ovulating, and your ovaries can no longer produce estrogen, female sex hormones. If you go without 12 months without a menstrual cycle, the doctors diagnose menopause. Usually, in the USA, women encounter menopause in around their 40s or 50s.
Due to excessive decrease of estrogen hormones, women face several symptoms. However, these symptoms vary from woman to woman. For a few, it causes minor symptoms; for a few, symptoms are pretty severe and life hampering.
Symptoms
The common symptoms that women face during menopause include-
- Hot flashes
- Night sweats
- Mood swings
- Thinning of the vaginal wall
- Vaginal dryness
- Irregular menstruation
- Chills
- Slowed metabolism and weight gain
- Vaginal and bladder infections
- Lower fullness of the breast
- Decreased sex drive
- Hair loss or abnormal hair growth
- Memory loss
- Pains and aches
- Dry skin
- Palpitation
- Insomnia
How Can Hormone Therapy For Menopause Make Your Life Easier?
Menopause is a challenging period for your life with all the troubling signs and symptoms. To relieve the symptoms of menopause, doctors often prescribe hormone therapy. The therapy can include the medication of either estrogen alone or with another hormone, progesterone.
Estrogen therapy restores the hormonal levels in your body and maintaining the regular function of your body. As a result, your mood swings resolve, you revive yourself with energy, better sex drive, and sufficient sleeping.
In addition, doctors may suggest tropical estrogen or vaginal estrogen for vaginal dryness and thinness of the vaginal wall that can make your sex life pleasurable and comfortable.
Hormone replacement therapy can make your menopausal period stressless and easier. It can-
- Decrease the number and severity of hot flashes
- Reduce vaginal dryness
- Reduce bone loss
- Help with trouble sleeping
Hormone Therapy For Menopause.
During menopause, your estrogen levels fall, for which you primarily face all the symptoms. So doctors suggest estrogen therapy to keep the estrogen hormones optimum in your body. In addition, your doctor may prescribe progesterone therapy with estrogen hormone therapy for menopause, depending on your condition.
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Estrogen Hormone Therapy
Doctors usually suggest estrogen hormone therapy to resolve your menopausal symptoms. Estrogen comes in various forms- pills, patches, vaginal rings, gel, or spray. Women with a hysterectomy (uterus removal surgery) and bilateral oophorectomy (the surgical removal of the uterus and ovaries) usually get a low dose of estrogen. Depending on your condition and doctors’ suggestion, you can take it daily or only on certain days of the month.
Estrogen Pill
Estrogen hormone pills are usually the most common menopause hormone replacement therapy that doctors suggest. You typically need to take estrogen pills once a day, without food, more precisely on an empty stomach. Depending on your condition, you may need to take a combination of estrogen and progesterone pills.
Estrogen Patches
Estrogen patches are another standard treatment to manage menopause. You usually need to wear a patch on the skin of your abdomen. You can replace some patches every few days, while others you can wear for a week, depending on the dose.
Alora, Climara, Vivelle are few well-known patches doctors usually suggest. In addition, Menostar is a patch that helps you reduce the risk of osteoporosis only. It doesn’t benefit you to resolve other menopausal symptoms.
Tropical Estrogen
Topical estrogen is a hormone therapy where doctors use other ways like creams, gels, or sprays to put estrogen into your body. Similar to patches, the tropical estrogen treatment works by absorbing through the skin into your bloodstream directly. The application of topical treatment may vary; however, usually, it’s once a day.
If you use gel (Estrogel), you need to apply it on the arm, from your wrist to the shoulder. For cream like Estrasorb, you apply it on the leg, and Evamist or the spray on the arm.
Vaginal Estrogen
Vaginal cream, vaginal rings, or vaginal estrogen tablets are the three ways of vaginal estrogen therapy. Doctors usually suggest them if you have vaginal dryness, itchiness, and burning or pain during sexual intercourse.
The dose of vaginal estrogen depends on your condition. Usually, you need to replace vaginal rings every three months. Vaginal tablets, you need to take them daily for few weeks. Then you have to use them twice a week. For vaginal cream, you may need to apply it daily, various times a week.
However, whatever method you apply for your HRT, remember to follow your doctor’s instructions.
Progesterone Hormone Therapy
To resolve menopausal symptoms, doctors often suggest progesterone hormone therapy, aka combination therapy. It includes the combined doses of estrogen and progestin, the synthetic form of progesterone.
Women who still have their uterus usually get this hormone therapy. In addition, doctors often choose combination hormone replacement therapy after menopause to maintain your body’s normal function.
However, primarily used as birth control, progesterone treats many menopausal symptoms. In addition, estrogen, along with progesterone, lowers your risk of endometrium cancer, the lining of your uterus. It usually comes in pill forms and includes medroxyprogesterone acetate. It’s a synthetic progestin pill.
However, currently, doctors usually prefer prescribing natural progesterone instead of synthetic progestins. The reason being, natural progesterone is suitable for women with high cholesterol levels and has almost no side effects.
Pellet Therapy For Menopause
Pellet therapy is the most suitable, safest, and natural way to boost hormone levels in your body nowadays.
This convenient and unique method includes inserting 2-3 pellets, the size of a grain of rice containing testosterone or estradiol, beneath your skin. Usually, doctors insert the pellet into the fatty tissue of the hip, from where these pellets deliver a steady release of hormones directly into your bloodstream.
The in-office procedure is uncomplicated and painless that takes only a few minutes- numbing of the skin, a tiny incision that requires no stitches, and inserting the pellets. The pellets usually dissolve on their own, without leaving any residue. You need to replace the pellets every 3-5 months.
The best thing about pellet therapy is it provides a consistent dose of hormones in your body like natural hormones with minimum side effects. In addition, you don’t remember to take your pill every day.
Pellet therapy allows you to resolve many menopausal symptoms that include-
- Hot flashes
- Night sweats
- Fatigue
- Lowered sex drive
- Vaginal dryness
- Painful sexual intercourse
- Decreased energy
- Declining muscle mass and bone density
- Trouble sleeping
Side Effects of Hormone Therapy
Every medication comes with potential side effects. Hormone replacement therapy is no different. It may cause some side effects in many women that include-
- Weight gain
- Bloating
- Increased facial hair
- Breast tenderness
- Nausea
- Mood swings
- Vaginal bleeding
- Pain and acne
Bottom Line
Menopause is a crucial period of a woman’s life that indicates the ending of her menstrual cycle and invites several unwanted signs and symptoms. These symptoms may often be severe to change the quality of life. However, hormone therapy for menopause can make your life easier.
Dr. David Nazarian at Hormone Replacement Therapy is an expert who has extensive medical training in hormone replacement therapy. He can ensure the best procedure to treat your menopausal symptoms to make your life easy and stressless. Call today for an appointment and revive the woman in you.
