Sunday, June 30, 2013

Menopause Symptoms Reduced by BHRT: My Wife Is In Her 3rd Week of Treatment


As you will remember, I wrote about my wife beginning Bioidentical Hormone Replacement therapy. Our decision for her to do this, came about because my wife and I are both dealing with her perimenopause. This process for her has been an ongoing research for 10 years. It seemed that every time we learned something useful there would be some improvement, but still we could not get her feeling and acting like herself. It has always been in the back of her mind that she had the symptoms of hypothyroidism. But, curiously the symptoms of perimenopause and thyroid low function are nearly identical. She has been considering Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) for 2 years, but putting it off due to the fact that she was unsure if she had learned enough about it.

She has found the medical group that she wanted. They specialize in BHRT. She started treatment two weeks ago.

The way we got here, was through the belief that the blood tests that our primary physician was looking at for her were showing a normal thyroid. But it was in the very low normal range. Therefore the doctor did not look at other hormone levels. We understand the doctor's actions, but we disagreed. We wanted to know what her HORMONE levels were. Well this new medical group added the full range of hormone levels to their very comprehensive blood tests. My wife was completely out of wack on 9 out of 10. She signed up for their program and began it immediately.

Her first treatment included a B-12 shot, which she will continue weekly for some time. There was an immediate energy boost that was mirrored by a reduction in fatigue. At the same time she had some very small capsules (the size of a grain of rice) in a time release configuration implanted just under the skin of her buttocks.

The tests had showed she was way off of the scale on: Estradiol; FSH; Progesterone; TSH; Testosterone; Vitamin B12. No other physician had tested for these. Yet, these are some of the supplements she is being given now. I will find out more about each and write another article on the progress next week.

The daily changes were subtle but noticeable and all positive. But, each day I could not be sure that it was not just my perception of change since that was what I was looking for.. But the "overall changes" during the entire two weeks are noticeable and dramatic. She is waking up earlier. Making a lot more jokes. Laughing harder and working harder. It is my initial judgement that the balancing of hormones is real and it is working. In the next week she will go in for an evaluation. I expect it to be positive.

We still have not found out how much of the cost is covered by our insurance, which is Blue Cross Blue Shield. But, we expect to hear soon and I will include this in the next article.

I'll let you know how the evaluation goes too. Expect to hear from me next week again.

If you want to share your experience, or ask questions you can visit the website mentioned below.

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