Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy
What Is Bioidentical Hormone Therapy?
Hormone levels decline as we age; bioidentical hormone therapy replenishes the hormones that your body needs to function. Phoenix Regency Medical Aesthetics doctors use natural or bioidentical hormones versus bio-similar or synthetic hormones. Bioidentical hormones are molecule-by-molecule, exactly the same as the hormones (estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, cortisol, dhea, estradiol and estriol) present in the human body. Your bioidentical hormone replacement physician will assess your individual needs and work to restore these hormones and customize a medical plan specifically for you.
Why Test Hormone Levels?
Hormones are powerful molecules essential for maintaining physical and mental health. We frequently think of estrogen as being a female hormone, and testosterone as being a male hormone. But men AND women make both, plus several more that need to be in balance for optimum health. An imbalance of any one hormone can throw your physical and mental health out of balance, causing aggravating and even serious health problems.
One size does not fit all when it comes to hormones! For decades western medicine has prescribed Hormone Replacement Therapy as if everyone needed the same thing and the same amount. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your hormones are like your fingerprints and in order to achieve optimal health, you need to know what your specific imbalances are.
There are several ways to test for hormones (saliva, serum and urine), but the state-of-the-art method is through saliva. This is because only the active portions of hormones are measured and it is these portions that determine how individuals feel. So if your seeking bio-identical hormone replacement (BHRT), you’ll need to know active hormone levels. In addition, if your planning on using a topical (transdermal) hormone preparation for treatment, saliva testing is the most accurate tool to measure and monitor hormone status.
Testing
The Basic Hormone Panel provides a basic evaluation of the sex hormones and a brief glimpse at adrenal function with the AM cortisol level. This panel is useful when retesting patients who have begun hormone therapy, but we encourage use of the Comprehensive Panel for initial evaluation. This is the minimal test recommended for symptoms that include:
Women Experiencing:
* Hot flashes
* Anxiety/Depression
* Night sweats
* Breast tenderness
* Irritability
* Forgetfulness
* Irregular menstrual cycles
* Vaginal dryness
* Urinary incontinence
* Uterine fibroids
* Increased facial / body hair
* Acne
Men Experiencing:
* Decreased libido
* Erectile dysfunction
* Loss of stamina
* Decrease in mental sharpness
* Reduced muscle size
* Tearful episodes or increased moodiness
* Metabolic syndrome
* Prostate enlargement or cancer
* Hot flashes
* Irritability
Treatment
The state of the art delivery system for bioidentical hormones is transdermal. By applying hormone to the skin rather than ingesting it, the liver first-pass is averted, thus therapeutic levels can be reached with far less hormone. Studies have shown that measurement of transdermal hormones is best done through saliva rather than serum. Overdosing of hormone supplementation is often seen when using serum to monitor topical hormones (often 4-5 times higher than is needed).
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