1. Hormone therapy needs to be specifically tailored to the stage of your life, and the symptoms you are having. In the active throws of incessant hot flashes, hormone therapy can be life changing. For those with other menopausal symptoms we may be trying to improve mood, help libido, maintain your weight and your waist, give you healthier bones and skin, as well as control sleep and cognition. But it’s not for everyone, and both men and women benefit by an individual approach.
2. Identifying your individual risks is the first way we are unique in our approach. There are risks of starting, risks of continuing, and now we know if you were ever taken off hormone therapy there are risks to discontinuing hormone therapy. There are individual risks and benefits, for sure, and to that end there is still a call to action as to the research. The good news is that there has been aggressive study of the following menopausal helpful strategies other than just life span because there are many potential risks and there has occasionally been overemphasis, and thus ‘misinterpretation,’ of the risks of hormone therapy.
3. Keeping up to date with new advances, advocating a switch in dosing, formulas, timing also will help us customize your therapy. There are many choices in how to take hormone therapy. A search for effective but even safer dosages, you may need more or less dosage than other women you know. A search for alternative therapy, especially if you are very early or very late in menopause you might be better off considering specialized dosing, or dosing that is modified with the right nutrition and supplements.
4. Appropriate testing can help direct our advice, and can monitor if you are on an optimal dosage. We also use advanced testing protocols to see if the dosages and formulas are responding as we like.
5.. A better understanding of long term body and bone health and the risks of alternative therapies, for this information we need to test your bones as well as your body composition test. Some physicians will not monitor bone heath for healthy individuals until you are age 65 because the need for additional therapy beyond hormones will be minimal.
6. . Nutritional and fitness management of menopause. Can you pass some very simple fitness tests? Let us check your abdominal muscles, your posture, and your gait to give you proper advice.
7. Hormone therapies cannot solve all problems associated with aging, being over weight, cognition, or mood. For vaginal dryness, pelvic floor health, and libido issues there are now maintenance therapies that can help sex, improvement of the appearance of the vulva, correct minor labial issues, help prevent ingrown hairs. Non-medication radiofrequency or laser therapy can prevent ever having sexual pain with menopause. As with other aspects of your medical care, prevention is an important strategy.
8. Hormonal management of irregular bleeding in perimenopause is one of the most common reasons gynecologists prescribe hormone therapy, of utmost important is to get proper tests for uterine cancer as well as breast cancer, cervical cancer, colon and skin cancer.
7. We know that genetic testing is not accessible for all just yet. But we do take your personal risks into consideration when prescribing therapy. Understand your genetic risks in context of the type of hormone, the age of initiation, your response to hormone therapy, in the future genetic testing as part of hormone therapy will be very important.
