Menopause – Hormone Treatments

Transcript

So symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, vaginal dryness, and even mood swings or brain fog maybe associated with that drop in hormones around the time of perimenopause and menopause. And if your symptoms are incapacitating and affecting your quality of life, then it’s time to think about taking something for your menopausal symptoms or your hormone symptoms. And some of the treatments would therefore be hormone treatments. So menopausal hormone therapy in the form of estrogen, or if you have a uterus, estrogen, and progesterone would be first-line treatment for a lack of hormones or perimenopause and menopausal symptoms. And estrogen and progesterone formulations come in many forms. They come in a pill, a patch. They come in an application that you can use a gel, and ultimately that discussion needs to happen with your healthcare provider to determine what medications would be best for you. Now, I said, if you have a uterus, you should take progesterone. And that is because the progesterone component is used to balance or offset the estrogen effects on the uterus and thereby reduce your risk of having uterine concerns you are in pre-cancer or uterine cancer. So that progesterone or progestin is very important. If you have a uterus and you’re considering menopausal hormone therapy, you cannot take estrogen by itself. If you have a uterus, because of that additional risk.