When to Consider Hormone Replacement Therapy for Menopause

Each year in the United States, about 2 million women enter menopause, and, in any given year, about 8-10 million women are in the full throes of this transition.

From hot flashes to mood changes, menopause is no walk in the park for many women, as there are a whopping 34 potential symptoms linked to this hormonal transition. 

One of the most effective ways to better navigate menopause is through hormone replacement therapy, which we offer here at Bay Area Physicians for Women’s Health. Are you questioning whether hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is right for you? Here’s some information from our team.

Hormone replacement therapy moves forward

Recently, hormone replacement therapy made the news as the FDA has removed what are called Black Box warning labels from the therapy. The FDA applied this warning label decades ago based on a faulty study that linked HRT to reproductive cancers, a study that has since been debunked.

So, the FDA is catching up with the latest science, and it now approves hormone therapy, without warnings, to help women relieve the often life-altering symptoms that can come with menopause. 

Good candidates for hormone replacement

As we mentioned, there are dozens of potential side effects of menopause, which occur when your reproductive hormone levels suddenly drop off. We aren’t going to cover all 34, but here are some of the more common:

• Hot flashes and night sweats, which occur in 75% of menopausal women
• Vaginal dryness, which affects more than half of post-menopausal women
• Bone loss
• Mood changes
• Sleep disturbances
• Weight gain
• Incontinence
• Digestive changes

The reality is that these changes can affect women to varying degrees — it’s safe to say that no two women share the same menopause journey.

So, if you’re sailing through with ease, you probably don’t need hormone replacement therapy. If, however, you're like millions of other women whose lives have been disrupted by the hormone transition, HRT can help.

Tailoring your hormone replacement

Another great benefit of HRT is that you can tailor the therapy to your needs. You may be experiencing hot flashes, mood changes, or be concerned about bone loss. To address those worries, we may recommend systemic hormone therapy, which delivers estrogen and progesterone hormones through pills, patches, or pellets.

If you want to address a more specific complaint, such as vaginal dryness, we can try a hormone cream that you apply directly to your vaginal tissues to restore health and lubrication.

Women are living longer lives

If you’re on the fence about hormone replacement, we want to bring up an important point about the therapy. Humans used to live only to their 40s and 50s, so menopause occurred toward the end of a woman's life. These days, women live much longer and have to go 20, 30, or more years without the benefits these hormones offer.

So, HRT can make good sense to improve the quality of life and boost health after your 50s and beyond.

Ultimately, the choice is yours, and we’re here to help make things easier for you. If you want to sit down with us to discuss how HRT might help you better manage your menopause symptoms, please contact our office in Mobile, Alabama, to schedule an appointment.