What is Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)?

The uncomfortable symptoms perimenopause and menopause bring with them are primarily due to your changing hormones. After menopause, you produce less estrogen. Replacing the lost hormones with hormone replacement therapy pellets can relieve some symptoms, including:
· Hot flashes
· Night sweats
· Vaginal dryness
Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is the use of plant-derived compounds that most closely reflect the hormones that your body produced before menopause.

What hormone replacement treatment does Ovation Women’s Wellness suggest?

Ovation Women’s Wellness offers all types of hormone replacement but these most often involve bioidentical hormones. These can be given via creams, gels, troches (like a lozenge) or pellets. Hormone pellets are about the size of a grain of rice.

Bioidentical hormone pellets have some advantages over the other ways to take hormones. Because they are inserted into your fatty tissues, usually in the buttock region, they form a network of blood vessels that picks up the hormone at the pellet source and delivers the hormone throughout your body.

This matters because when you are exercising or stressed and your blood is pumping harder and faster, you need more hormone so more will be delivered, much like when you had natural production. Likewise, when you are relaxed or sleeping, you need less so pellet therapy tends to give you a more stable blood level of hormone than most other approaches.

Pellets are plant-based compounds specifically formulated to align with the molecular structure of human hormones. Their goal is to replicate, as close as possible, your natural hormones. The pellets are derived from a natural plant source of soy and other plant-based ingredients. They contain no horse urine or synthetic fillers. Ovation Women’s Wellness stands behind the quality of the pellets and their ingredients.

What are the benefits of the hormone replacement therapy pellets?

BHRT pellets can:
· Improve sexual desire
· Provide relief from anxiety and depression
· Stabilize moods
· Increase mental clarity, focus and memory
· Improve your energy, muscle mass, and stamina
· Maintain bone strength
Men also benefit from hormone replacement therapy pellets in the form of testosterone, if they’re found to be low in this hormone and this fact is not lost on us. Our providers are trained to treat men and while we do not advertise this, we do offer this to partners of our female patients who need help.

How are the pellets inserted?

Instead of taking them orally, the pellets are inserted just under the lower abdominal wall or in the hip area through a small incision and a trochar. This procedure requires local anesthesia. You may need to avoid water sports and baths for several days following insertion and may experience minor bruising. The pellets are slowly metabolized by your system, so you experience a natural, steady release of hormones. They do need to be replaced every 3-4 months.

Do they carry the same risks as other hormone replacement therapies?

Hormone replacement therapy got a bad rap in the early 2000s as research showed it increased risks of blood clots, heart disease, breast cancer, and stroke in menopausal women. Doctors stopped recommending it in many circumstances, even if a woman was suffering with symptoms of menopause. However, most of this data has been retracted and now hormones are recommended in women without significant risk factors. Also, the risk for blood clots and stroke comes from the effects on the liver after swallowing a hormone pill so we recommend non-oral approaches to replacing hormones. Pellets bypass your liver so they don’t negatively impact blood clotting factors, lipid levels, liver function, or blood pressure as much as the oral route.

Click here to read:Hormone Replacement Therapy Safety Confirmed by Landmark Study

This article is shared with permission from Well-Being Magazine. It was originally published in the magazine’s November/December 2017 issue. For more from Well-Being visit wellbeingmag.com