How Hormone Replacement Therapy Can Help With The Side Effects Of Menopause

Menopause and its symptoms can really disrupt your life, throwing you off balance and causing pain, discomfort, and even embarrassment. Hot flashes in the middle of a meeting, lashing out at a loved one for no reason at all then dissolving into tears, and, seemingly, the end of spontaneous romance are just a few of the ways in which menopause symptoms take control.

By definition, the exact point marking menopause occurs when a woman has ceased to have her monthly menstrual period for 12 consecutive months. The average age for menopause is 51, but menopause symptoms can begin to ramp up as early as 10 years prior. This time is known as perimenopause.

Menopause side effects increase in severity as you approach the cessation of your periods. The estrogen your body has been producing with regularity since puberty begins to diminish, causing an imbalance and forcing you to endure those telltale signs of menopause. The severity of your symptoms, along with their timing, may vary, and your symptoms may continue long after your periods have stopped.

Your hormones work together

If it seems as though your hormones have been in the driver’s seat for most of your life, you’re right — not only estrogen and progesterone, but all those other chemicals coursing through your body that work together to regulate many of your body’s functions. That’s why, when your estrogen diminishes, your symptoms are so widely varied.

Among the many uncomfortable menopause side effects attributed to the imbalance caused by lowered estrogen production are:

• Hot flashes
• Night sweats
• Vaginal dryness
• Lack of libido
• Depression
• Mood swings and irritability
• Confusion and memory lapses
• Overactive bladder and urinary incontinence

The good news is there’s no reason for you to suffer these painful and embarrassing menopause side effects. Hormone replacement therapy is a safe and effective way to restore balance to your hormones and your life.

Restore balance and harmony

By replicating and replacing the estrogen, and possibly progestin (synthetic progesterone) you need to create harmony and balance in your body, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can lessen the severity of your menopause side effects and, in some cases, render them completely unnoticeable. The absence of these unpleasant side effects of menopause goes a long way to restoring your quality of life.

Not only can HRT work to eliminate your worst menopause symptoms; it can help your body process calcium for bone strength, essential in guarding against the bone disease osteoporosis. Hormone replacement therapy contributes to heart health and promotes the health of your vaginal tissue. There are plenty of reasons for you to find out if you’re a candidate for hormone replacement therapy.

Individualized approach

The benefits of HRT are many, but your doctor needs to assess your health and find the right therapy plan for you. Hormone replacement therapy is the most effective way to reduce or eliminate your menopause symptoms, but it isn’t the same for every woman. Just as your menopause experience is unique, so is your hormone therapy.

Suffer no more

Don’t suffer the side effects of menopause when you can find relief with hormone replacement therapy. The physicians at The Association for Women’s Healthcare can help. Your doctor goes over your symptoms, assesses your overall health, and determines which hormones you need and in which amounts.

We offer a variety of means to deliver your HRT, from pills to patches to pellets inserted subdermally. We even offer structurally identical synthetic, or bioidentical, hormones. You and your doctor work together to decide the best course of hormone replacement therapy for you.

If you’re tired of being tired and those hot flashes have you hot under the collar, suffer no more. Contact our office today. The Association for Women’s Healthcare offers two locations, in Chicago and Northbrook, Illinois, for your convenience. We look forward to restoring balance to your life.