Everything You Need to Know About Hormone Replacement Therapy for Menopause

Once, hormone replacement therapy for women seemed to answer several conditions for aging women. Most medical practitioners thought that hormone therapy would ward off heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer and improve the quality of life in women. 

 As you age, significant internal changes occur, affecting the production of two female hormones, estrogen and progesterone. These hormones produced by the ovaries are essential in regulating the menstrual cycle and having a successful pregnancy. During the period before menopause, often termed peri-menopause, your ovaries start to shrink. Levels of estrogen and progesterone fluctuate as your ovaries help in regulating hormone production. You begin having irregular menstrual cycles with unpredictable episodes of heavy bleeding during menstruation. Peri-menopause usually lasts several years.

If you want to achieve relief from menopausal symptoms, it is better to have detailed knowledge about hormone replacement therapy for menopause.

What is Hormone Replacement Therapy for Menopause?

During your menopause, estrogen levels start to drop. Several women experience uncomfortable symptoms like hot flashes and vaginal dryness. Menopausal hormone therapy is the most effective treatment method for women experiencing menopausal symptoms.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is a medication containing female hormones. The medical practitioners prescribe specific medications to the patients to replace the estrogen your body stops making during menopause. The therapy boosts your hormone levels and relieves some symptoms of menopause, and it prevents bone loss and reduces fractures in postmenopausal women.

Research states that there might be some risks associated with the therapy. However, these risks depend on the type of hormone therapy, the dose, the duration of consuming the medications, and your health conditions. The best clinics for hormone replacement therapy for women, such as The Encore Clinic, customize each patient's treatment and reevaluate it often to outweigh the risks.

The Types of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)

Hormone replacement therapy for women is mainly of two types. These are:

Estrogen Therapy

In this therapy, women take the hormone estrogen without any other hormone. Usually, medical practitioners prescribe a low dose of estrogen in a pill or patch every day. Other forms of taking estrogen include cream, vaginal ring, gel, or spray. The practitioners recommend taking the lowest dose possible to relieve the menopausal symptoms and prevent osteoporosis.

Estrogen therapy has two forms:

Systematic Hormone Therapy

Systematic estrogen that comes in pills, rings, skin patches, get, cream and spray contain higher levels of estrogen, which gets absorbed in the entire body. Usually, it helps in treating any typical symptoms of menopause.

Low-dose Vaginal Products

The low-dose vaginal estrogen preparations of estrogen, which come in creams, tablets, and rings, minimize the amount of estrogen absorbed by the body. Doctors use these preparations to treat vaginal and urinary symptoms of menopause.

Estrogen Progesterone or Progestin Hormone Therapy (EPT)

Often termed combination therapy, this form of hormonal replacement therapy combines the doses of estrogen and progesterone or progestin, the synthetic form of progesterone.

HRT: Which is the Right Therapy for Me?

The type of therapy depends if you have or have not undergone a hysterectomy surgery.

If you have your uterus

Doctors usually prescribe progesterone along with estrogen. Taking estrogen without progesterone increases the risk for endometrial cancer (cancer in the uterus lining). During the reproductive years, the cells from the endometrium get shed during menstruation. When the lining stops shedding (during the menopausal period), estrogen causes an overgrowth of the cells in the uterus, a condition that might lead to cancer.

Progesterone reduces the risk of endometrial or uterine cancer as it thins the endometrium. Consuming progesterone might cause monthly bleeding or no bleeding at all. The appearance or non-appearance of bleeding depends on how patients take hormone replacement therapy for women.

If you have undergone hysterectomy surgery

In such a situation, your doctor will never prescribe you progesterone. It is an essential point, as estrogen taken alone has fewer long-term risks than combination hormone replacement therapy.

The Benefits of HRT

The benefits of BioTE hormone replacement therapy for women outweigh the risks if you are healthy. Usually, the treatment helps treat menopausal symptoms in women above 40 years of age. HRT is ideal if you:

Experience moderate to severe hot flashes

Systematic estrogen therapy remains the most effective treatment for relieving you from troublesome hot flashes during menopause.

Have bone-related problems

Systematic estrogen helps protect against osteoporosis, one of the most common bone-related diseases. Your doctor will recommend medications, especially bisphosphonates, for treating osteoporosis. However, estrogen might help if you either cannot tolerate or are not benefitting from other treatments.

Experience early menopause of having estrogen deficiency

Often women undergo hysterectomy surgery before the age of 45 (early or premature menopause) or lose the normal functioning of the ovaries before the age of 40 (primary ovarian insufficiency). Your body gets exposed to less estrogen than other women experiencing typical menopause in such a situation. Hormone replacement therapy for menopause helps in decreasing the risk of specific health problems, including osteoporosis, heart diseases, strokes, dementia, and mood swings.