Menopause brings certain lifestyle benefits, but also a range of symptoms and underlying metabolic and biological compromises that you may find unsettling and ultimately uncomfortable. This is due to, among other things, a drop in essential hormones, such as:
Estrogen
Testosterone
Progesterone
These hormones are not only responsible for your secondary sex characteristics, but also keep your body youthful and strong. As your hormones decrease, your tissues and bones begin to degrade. You may experience:
Vasomotor symptoms — hot flashes, night sweats, palpitations, and migraines
Urogenital symptoms — stress incontinence, urge incontinence, dry vagina, uncomfortable sex, loss of libido (sexual desire)
Psychogenic symptoms — anger, irritability, insomnia, loss of self-esteem, brain fog, memory loss, global cognitive decline, anxiety, and depression
Accelerated Cardiovascular decline: menopause is associated with significant deterioration in cholesterol and other lipid and blood sugar control parameters that cause heart attacks, strokes, and vascular obstruction illnesses. Menopause is simultaneously associated with other increased risk factors including increased incidence of diabetes and obesity that are independent harbingers of heart attacks and strokes.
Most women are expected to live 1/3 or more of their lives in menopause. Infinite Health Integrative Medicine Center’s health optimization and longevity expert, Trip Goolsby, MD, believes you should enjoy this important phase of life being symptom-free, which is why bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) is one of our core pillars.
While you may have heard erroneous and outdated information from the media and even other paramedical and medical practitioners about traditional HRT — which was made from animal hormones — the negative conclusions associating HRT with adverse health events are now considered flawed and unreliable. Trip Goolsby, MD recommends BHRT because it helps resolve symptoms and preserve healthy physiology and biology, while working with your body’s own natural systems.
Here are five benefits of taking BHRT while you’re in perimenopause or menopause:
BHRT are an identical match to your body’s own hormones: With bioidentical hormones, you’re not trying to balance your human hormones using another animals’ such as those found in female horse urine. Instead, bioidentical hormones are created from plant sources such as soy and yam. The estrogens in the plants are synthesized so they exactly the same chemical structures of hormones found in the human body. At Infinite Health we go a step further by tailoring your BHRT program specifically to meet your unique health optimization and longevity goals. Because the structure of bioidentical hormones is the same as the chemical structure of your own hormones, your body identifies and accepts them more readily. You’re less likely to have side effects and can take them safely over the long term.
BHRT controls hot flashes and night sweats: Those uncomfortable surges of heat that make you peel off layers during the day or wake up sweating at night are caused by your hypothalamus, which is your body’s thermostat. When your hormones are out of balance, your hypothalamus overreacts to even slight changes in temperature. After BHRT, your hormone levels stabilize and your hypothalamus becomes less reactive.
BHRT makes sex fun again: The loss of interest in sexual activity (libido) will subside. Drops in estrogen reduces the amount of moisture in your vagina and how much lubrication it produces during sex. Common symptoms of menopause are dry, itchy vagina and painful sex. The estrogen in BHRT promotes vaginal moisture and lubrication. The hormone also rejuvenates your entire vulvar and urogenital area so that it looks and feels younger. You will notice fewer urinary symptoms, too, such as leaking when you sneeze, cough, or laugh.
BHRT promotes better sleep and mood: Balanced hormones help your body and brain function optimally. Getting a good night’s sleep also helps improve your mood by giving your brain the restorative rest it needs.
BHRT gives you better skin, hair, and bones: You don’t feel old, so why should you look it? When you restore your body’s healthy hormonal balance, your skin starts to act younger again, too. Your body ramps up the production of the proteins collagen and elastin, which give your skin support and flexibility, so you have:
Less sagging
Fewer wrinkles
Smoother skin
Tighter skin
A healthier glow
The drop in testosterone during menopause may cause you to develop a “V” shaped hairline that’s usually associated with male-pattern baldness. Restore your estrogen, and your follicles start to produce new hair again. When you’re in menopause, your body produces more osteoclasts, which breaks down old bone, than it does of fresh new osteoblasts (new bone cells). Restoring estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone levels with BHRT normalizes bone resorption and bone building, reducing your risk for osteopenia, osteoporosis, and potentially fatal hip fractures as you age.
Put menopause biology, risks, and symptoms behind you while preserving your cardiovascular health, brain health, bones, skin, and hair. Schedule a discovery call today!