As we age, our hormones start to dwindle. For women, this means brittle bones, hair loss, mood swings, and a slower metabolism, among other awful side effects. For men, it can be a loss of drive- sex, loss of muscle mass, and loss of bone density.
Good times!
So how do you get your groove back? I’ll tell you what we did: Bio-identical hormone replacement therapy.
Huh?
I first learned about BHRT from a book recommended to me by a medical provider. The fact that Suzanne Somers wrote it made me want to dismiss it immediately. (Oh great. ANOTHER “Celebrity” dishing out health advice? Puh-leeze!)
However, I read the book anyway! Suzanne has done a surprising amount of research on BHRT, and was able to get the top Doctors in Gynecology and Endocrinology to share their thoughts and treatment plans using BHRT.
What prompted the research into BHRT was that I was heading headfirst into peri-menopause. I just couldn’t get a good night’s sleep, and when I woke up I felt exhausted. I needed a nap after lunch, and I had no energy anymore.
So I went to Kaiser for a full workup. Long story short, my doctor announced that I was NOT in peri-menopause and basically offered no solutions for my sluggishness. That is exactly what I suspected would happen, so no surprise there.
After more comprehensive blood work (all out of the scope of Insurance, spoiler alert), it was determined that I was indeed in peri-menopause and my hormone levels had dropped significantly.
So I was prescribed medications from the Compounding Pharmacy (again, Insurance won’t cover BHRT) and took Thyroid, Progesterone, Estradiol, and Testosterone (yes, women need testosterone!). Boy did I feel better!
That was in 2007. We have since then switched over to a Naturopathic Doctor whose specialty is BHRT. She has been so methodical and detailed with our hormone plan (My husband is doing BHRT too), and performs even more detailed lab work than before. Turns out I was being over-prescribed with Thyroid, and my husband was too. So my dose went waaaaay down, and Ron went off Thyroid completely.
Our ND, Dr. Aliza Cicerone, from Spark Personalized Natural Medicine, is absolutely amazing. She has us do blood work twice a year to make sure our hormones are balanced. She recommends supplements and supports our grain-free way of eating. She is methodical in our follow up visits, spending 30 minutes on the follow-up call and reviewing our results.
So if you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, and refuse man-made “hormone replacement therapy” (which uses pregnant horse urine as it’s estrogen base. So many things wrong with that on so many levels), I can’t encourage you enough to seek out a Naturopathic Doctor who specializes in BHRT. You’ll be glad you did.