HRT - Hormone Replacement Therapy - Hormone Treatment

In the US, there are plenty of baby boomers who are females. In fact, in 2006, the oldest of the baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 started turning 60 years of age. As of July 1, 2005, an approximation of 78.2 million baby boomers was noted, and 50.8% of which are females. That means that as per projections, 7,918 people turned 60 each day in 2006, or about 330 hourly. (Source: US Census Bureau)

This is the main reason why there are a lot of women today who are experiencing menopause symptoms. If you are one of more than 40 million women feeling discomfort from menopause, then you need to know the facts.

So what is menopause? To define, it’s the cessation of the menstrual cycle for a period of 12 consecutive months. Menopause marks the end of a woman’s reproductive years, and normally occurs naturally around age 51 or 52 when the ovaries stop producing estrogen.

There are several women, though, who experience menopause immediately - this occurs when their ovaries are surgically removed. But in either case, the symptoms of menopause affect women’s health, mental state of mind, and quality of life for the remainder of her lifetime.

In 2003, however, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) scared both women and doctors with their warning of not taking hormones. This is, largely due to the fact that many women do not know the real facts about WHI. The results comprehensively discussed cardiovascular disease, cancer as well as osteoporosis in women over 65 years-old on PremPro and Premarin only. Bioidentical hormones were not part of this study.

The WHI was instituted to address the most common causes of death, disability, and impaired quality of life in postmenopausal women. It was an organized attempt to amend the inequities in women’s health research and therefore provide practical information to women and their doctors. The study was focused on how synthetic hormone replacement therapy, dietary patterns with calcium and Vitamin D supplements can help in the prevention of heart diseases, cancer as well as osteoporosis. The reason being because the incidence of these three conditions increases after a woman reaches menopause.

In 2003, there was an estimate of 9 million women who are still taking a certain form of Premarin. One is PremPro. The other one is Premari-, which stands for PREgnant MARes’ UrINE or PMU for short. These are both synthetic hormones.

The release of the WHI results had an effect on the above-mentioned statistics. In 1999, for instance, the number of women taking PMU-based medications decreased to 25%.

Around 1/3 of the 55 million post menopausal women in the US are on synthetic estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), or hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Of these women, about 49% presently use “PMU” based products, which are down from a high of 79% in 1999.

There are still many women who do not fully comprehend hormone therapy, and for those women who are scared, and still do not take any Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), the concept of natural bio-identical hormones is becoming more interesting. And with so many products on the market, even that has become perplexing. The fact that the government is controlling all bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) remedies adds to all this quandary.

Women no longer need to be baffled about hormone replacement therapy. Interestingly enough, many women have gotten used to taking BHRT in menopause medicine. But this terminology is not truly accurate because hormones are not really bio-identical. They can’t be considered as restoration unless what’s been lost is actually replaced; natural hormones aren’t bio-identical and can only be considered so if the body can recognize them as hormones. For the most part, they can only be mimicked, and shall never be identical. They can only be restored, and never replaced. And in order for hormone therapy to be truly accurate, it should be rhythmic, or biomimetic.

How do biomimetic hormones vary from bio-identical hormones? Biomimetic hormones are derived from natural sources, and mimic in the body the natural undulating rhythms of the hormone blood levels in a usual menstrual period. Undulating, as defined, is the tendency of causing something to move in a smooth, wavelike motion.

To be consistent with the chemical structure of hormones produced naturally by the human body, bio-identical hormone products are usually made from plant sources. Technically, the body cannot differentiate bio-identical hormones from the ones that are produced by the ovaries, however, different forms can be recognized by the various cells. So it makes sense that bio-identical hormone effects might also be different.

Bio-identical hormone compounds have to be presented biomimetically for them to be biologically as authentic as human hormones. A great part of recognition at the receptor cites depends on presentation, i.e. serum levels and timing, as well as molecular structure.

The accurate terminology then is biomimitec hormone restoration therapy - it’s biomimetic and it mimics the rise and fall of hormone blood levels during a normal menstrual cycle. Bear in mind that it’s not bio-identical, but biomimetic.

What is the rhythm? Think of the body’s rhythm as having a master clock. It strikes up one section of the body’s orchestra as another quiets down, taking its main cue from light signals in order to stay in sync with the 24-hour day. Our body’s hormones surge and ebb to this wand of the maestro.

The circadian clock that our cells follow is in reality, one 24-hour spin of the planet. For 28 days, the moon tracks the repeating of that cycle - and so does your body. There’s only one patented bioidentical hormone product on the market that uses this natural rhythm of nature to establish the proper doses of estradiol and progesterone that mimic the natural hormones produced by your body. To restore the hormone levels of youth, topical creams need to be applied in differing amounts throughout that 28-day cycle.

The most recent treatment for women in menopause is multi-phasic rhythmic dosing of bio-mimetic hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) using natural hormones in a bio-mimetic way. Over 2 million women in the United States use customized hormones for menopause symptoms.

Another projection: by 2030, there’ll be 57.8 million baby boomers and 54.9% of them will be female. By then, the age of those baby boomers will be between 66 and 84. With the relief provided by BHRT, hopefully, all these women will have a happier post-menopausal life.

Are you 45 years old or above and are experiencing the following hormone imbalance symptoms? If so, then you probably will want to consider something gaining popularity called rhythmic bio-identical hormone replacement that is designed for women in menopause.

You may seriously like to consider such a treatment option if you have any or a combination of the following experiences: anxiety, allergies, foggy brain, weight gain, depression, dizziness, endometriosis, dry skin, fibrocystic breasts, hair loss, and headaches, suppressed libido, osteoporosis, or urinary tract infections. These symptoms are largely caused by the aberrant relationship between the levels of progesterone and estrogen in your body - and are usually associated with menopause.

Simply put, there are two female hormones (estrogen and progesterone) that co-exist in a very delicate balance - every little variation in their relationship will have a great impact on your overall well-being. The amounts of these hormones that the woman’s body produces every month can vary, depending on factors such as age, nutrition, stress, exercise or ovulation or the lack of it.

At perimopause, our hormones begin to fall off and put them back to the same range as is the case during the time between adrenarchy and puberty. As a woman’s estrogen levels goes back into that same range again, she may still experience some regular periods, or periods that come at fairly regular intervals within the year, but the reality is, that she is possibly no longer ovulating. That just means she cannot be pregnant any more.

This instance is almost the same as the experience of a girl at the time that her reproductive system is maturing as a teenager. At that time, her adrenal glands were attempting to jump-start your brain to turn on your ovaries, and once the ovaries kicked in, she had sufficient estrogen generated by a full basket of eggs.

Some 20 years later, once a woman is in middle age, she has just sufficient estrogen to make a real thin lining in her uterus but not enough to peak. Then comes the time when the periods are shorter, breasts are lumpier, and the mind is foggier - a phase called perimenopause. A woman is said to be in peri-menopause when she does not peak estrogen with regularity. The destruction of the rest of a woman’s eggs are basically due to the loss of rhythm during the perimenopausal stage. It’s the action of excessive FSH, using up the remainder of her eggs. Indeed, in this stage, hot flashes are observed - because that is exactly how her system shuts down for good. In some instances, it takes a decade before menopause is reached.

Menopause is described as the cessation of menstruation for twelve consecutive months, in clinical terms. Menopause signals the end of a woman’s reproductive years, and this normally occurs naturally around the age of 52 when her ovaries stop producing estrogen, and there are no more fertile eggs. In terms of blood work, menopause is determined by an FSH score that’s higher than five.

Currently, with hormone replacement, women can stop the aging process and forego experiencing the indications of hormone imbalance and menopause. But the extent at which she can outsmart nature (covering the fact that she no longer has eggs) is only to some extent - if the hormones are replaced exactly as they would be generated in youth, in the exact amounts and a certain rhythm. It is from this premise that the rhythmic, bioidentical hormone therapy is based from. To further explain, varying amounts of estrogen and progesterone are administered at different days of the month. Interestingly, women who use this rhythmic cycling would experience menstrual cycles again.

Women using rhythmic bioidentical hormone replacement therapy are raging about how good they now feel. No more sleep deprivation because of hormone-related insomnia and hot flashes. No more brain fig or depression. The skin’s youthful glow is also restored. And more often than not, women who had experienced the awful symptoms of menopause are now saying that they got their lives back.

The real “fountain of youth,” that is what rhythmic bioidentical hormones are truly all about.

Perhaps one of the most significant symptoms of menopause is the hot flashes which can cause you to sweat at night or even during the day when everyone else is comfortable or even cold. These hot flashes may or may not be accompanied by red blotchy skin, flushed skin or even a prickly kind of heat.

As a woman and a mom, I can give you a non-clinical or college educated medical description of some of the early menopause symptoms. I can define menopause for you in my own words. It is a women’s final menstrual period. This phase may take anywhere from one year to several years. Every woman’s experience with their period is slightly different. During the years that a woman is menstruating, her body produces estrogen and progesterone. She has a higher production of estrogen prior to each ovulation and high estrogen and progesterone levels after ovulation. These hormonal changes cause the mood swings, headaches and other adverse symptoms during the time leading up to her period or during her cycle.

Signs & Symptoms

The symptoms experienced during a woman’s period are very similar to the first symptoms of menopause, except possibly magnified by 10 in some situations. The first noticeable sign will be irregular menstrual cycles or periods that may last longer. In my situation my period mysteriously (and happily) stopped for about 3 or 4 months. Then I experienced very heavy menstrual bleeding (unhappily) lasting much longer than a regular period. Then it would cease again for sometimes a few weeks or maybe a few months. The biggest problem is in the not knowing when it will occur again. I was forced to carry supplies (or change of clothes) with me at all times. After about a year of this my period (joyfully) stopped altogether. I still carried those supplies with me just in case of a surprise attack! I will have to say that, as a rule, if you experienced rather mild menstrual cycles, with few adverse symptoms, your experience with menopause will generally be with the same intensity.

Hot Flashes and Weight Gain

I then began to experience another one of the first signs of menopause, hot flashes. These are called, in clinical terms, vasomotor symptoms. These happen mostly at night. They would occasionally surprise me during the day. Being a fair skinned blond, I blush easily. I would be sitting in a business meeting and suddenly begin feeling very warm and flush. This would be quite apparent to others in the room. During the night I would wake during one of these hot flashes, my clothes damp and sweaty. The ten pounds I gained during the next few months is another one of the first symptoms of menopause.

Exercise Prescription

Hot flashes, gaining weight, and lack of sleep can result in moodiness and depression. There are a few things you can do to prepare for this time of life or relieve some of these first symptoms of menopause if you are already experiencing them. I started an exercise program. Exercise can help reduce these symptoms and decrease the possibility of heart disease, osteoporosis, and obesity. I joined a local gym and sought the advice of a female personal trainer. She helped develop an individualized exercise routine according to my medical and exercise history.

Find a Good Physician

Whether you feel you should begin an exercise program or possibly go a step further and start hormone replacement therapy seek out a trusted physician that specializes in menopause. She will help guide and direct you to the proper therapy. There is a lot of documentation and personal opinions available on how to provide some relief from the first signs of menopause. The important thing for me was to start something immediately after I started experiencing these first signs of menopause. For me it hasn’t been all that bad. My menstrual cycles when I was young were very regular, lasting 2 to 3 days, and I rarely experienced any adverse symptoms of headaches and cramping. Now my husband may have a different opinion, especially when (on a very rare occasion) I may suddenly lash out at him or ask him to turn the heater off on a very frigid winter night.