Personalized Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is all the rage! You’ve seen it on Oprah, Dr. Phil, or The Doctors Show, you’ve heard it from Robin McGraw and Suzanne Somers, and your friends are talking about it. The BUZZ is out there… so what are the next steps?
First things first: Educate yourself on natural hormone replacement therapy: read up, gather information, and talk to other women.
Step Two: Start a symptom diary. Hormonal imbalance causes a wide variety of symptoms, both obvious and subtle. You need a baseline to know where you are right now so you can clarify and measure your success. Keep a symptom sheet and start monitoring your daily symptoms. How are you on a normal day? How do you wake up? What is your stress level? How much exercise do you do? How is your diet? Do you have headaches? Weight gain? Blood pressure? Humor changes? What is your energy level? The key is to know yourself and recognize the difference between the way you used to feel and the way you feel now.
Step three: saliva test. Because hormones are tightly bound to proteins called sex hormone binding globulins (98% of hormones are bound), you must use saliva to measure hormone levels. Saliva tests measure hormones at the tissue level, better reflecting how they interact in the body. Research suggests that using saliva tests gives us the best picture of current hormone levels. Once you know where your levels are, you can work to get back to where you need to be for a healthy and vital life.
Step Four – When you receive your saliva test results, contact your doctor to schedule an appointment. Explain that you are interested in using personalized HRT and map out what you have done and your goals for the appointment and treatment. Try and estimate the comfort level of your MD. Hopefully you have had a good long-term relationship with your MD and he/she will appreciate this opportunity to partner with you. Often, they will refer you to someone else if they don’t feel comfortable with you. At least you know that in advance and your time won’t be wasted. If you do not have a doctor, you should contact a compounding pharmacy in your area for a list of doctors they normally work with on personalized HRT. You can also go to the Internal Academy of Compounding Pharmacies (lacprx.org), enter your zip code and they will provide you with a list of compounding pharmacies in your area.
Step Five: Monitor Your Success. Continue with your symptom journal to gauge improvement and also to identify areas that need further adjustment. Revaluation is the key to continued success and growth. Some symptoms improve dramatically allowing you to improve your quality of life. Other symptom improvements are more subtle. Recheck the saliva test in 6 months, if necessary. Look for improvements in your hormone levels, as well as opportunities to make dosage adjustments. Evidence gives us a roadmap to improve treatment. You may need to improve your adrenal gland with adrenal support supplements, watch your thyroid gland function, or add/subtract nutrients to improve the function of your cells and organs.
Final step: final result. Personalized HRT requires a partnership with your doctor and pharmacist with the overall goal of achieving hormonal balance so that the body functions at its highest level. It’s up to you to get tested, get treated, and get better!
