Natural Hormone Replacement for Menopause & Andropause
It’s a fact of life that things start to change drastically in your body as you age. Your joints get stiffer, your eyesight gets worse, and your hair turns gray. Some of the biggest changes, however, can come from changes in your hormonal levels as you age. These hormonal changes are called menopause for women and andropause for men. They can cause major effects in the body, not all of which are very pleasant, and occasionally these symptoms can get in the way of you living a full and healthy life as you get older. However, you don’t just have to suffer through it! Hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, can be an effective treatment for the symptoms of menopause and andropause.
What is Menopause?
Menopause is the natural decline of reproductive hormone levels as a woman reaches her 40s and 50s, eventually leading to the complete stop of her menstrual cycle. Symptoms of a woman entering menopause can be things like hot flashes, chills, night sweats, mood changes, thinning hair, dry skin, vaginal dryness, and more. This is a natural occurrence in a woman’s life, but the symptoms can be difficult to cope with.
What is Andropause?
Andropause is the male counterpart to menopause– natural decline of reproductive hormone levels as a man ages. Its most common symptoms are fatigue and decreased libido, but other symptoms can include decreased muscle mass, mood changes, erectile dysfunction, depression, and other problems that can get in the way of you enjoying your life in and after middle age.
Replacement Hormones
To counteract the effects of menopause, a woman needs to increase her estrogen and progesterone levels. Estrogen does many things, including maintaining healthy blood cholesterol levels, influencing how the body uses calcium and preventing osteoporosis, and maintaining a healthy vaginal environment. Progesterone regulates blood pressure and helps to improve mood and sleep.
Treating andropause with HRT requires testosterone. Among its many jobs, testosterone regulates sex drive, bone mass, fat distribution, muscle mass and strength, and the production of red blood cells.
How Can HRT Help?
Hormone replacement therapy seeks to add hormones back into your system to help boost your levels and alleviate your system. Replacement hormones can come in pill, patch, cream, gel, or spray form, or they can be given in suppository form or by subcutaneous delivery. By using natural, bioidentical hormones like the ones at Renewed Vitality, you can help to counteract the symptoms of menopause or andropause that you experience.
Hormone changes as you age can leave you uncomfortable, unhappy, and feeling like you’ve lost control of your body and your life. With hormone replacement therapy, you can have your life back again! If you’re interested in this form of treatment, be sure to contact Renewed Vitality today to get started.
The changes of pregnancy and the postpartum period are some of the most intense hormonal changes that a woman’s body will ever go through, and even though they’re normal, they can be difficult to manage. Right after birth, some hormone levels fall dramatically while others rise, and this is what leads to the postpartum issues that so many women experience– depression, extreme fatigue, hair loss, and more.
Knowing what to expect and some ways to cope with these changes can really help to make it easier for you to get through this stressful time! Here are some of the things you should know.
How do your hormones change postpartum?
Estrogen and Progesterone
Over the course of a pregnancy, estrogen and progesterone are at very high levels. Right after delivery, whether you deliver vaginally or via C-section, these two hormones drop very fast. This is a natural change– your body doesn’t need the high levels anymore and there are other hormones that need to get to work.
However, the sharp drop is often part of the reason (combined with the stress of labor and a new baby) that many women feel low or just “off” physically and emotionally right after the birth, and it’s a large contributor to postpartum depression in the following weeks and months. This change is also what leads to postpartum hair loss, and can contribute to some additional sleep disturbances on top of your new baby.
Around three months after your baby is born, your estrogen and progesterone levels will begin to return to normal.
Prolactin and Oxytocin
At the same time that your estrogen and progesterone levels are falling, your prolactin and oxytocin levels are rising. Oxytocin plays a role in labor– it’s the hormone that stimulates uterine contractions. It also plays a major role in early mother-child bonding. Prolactin, on the other hand, is the hormone involved in milk production.
If you choose not to breastfeed, these hormone levels will drop off fairly quickly, but if you do nurse your baby, they will stay elevated until the baby is about six months old. Around this time they start to eat solid foods, so their demand for breast milk will slowly start to taper off, which is why this hormonal change happens.
What can I do to manage postpartum hormonal changes?
Focus on Your Diet
One of the most effective ways to get through rising and falling hormones during the postpartum period is to focus on eating a nutritious diet. Adding in plenty of healthy fats and proteins as well as fruits and vegetables will not only help your energy and mood, but can set your body up as well as possible to produce the hormones you need.
Accept Any Help You Can
As much as hearing it is probably exasperating, reducing your stress levels and getting plenty of sleep and gentle exercise will do wonders for how you feel as you recover from birth. Obviously, with a new baby, that’s much, much easier said than done! As a result, one of the best things you can do for your physical and mental health is to get help.
From your partner to friends and family members to professional services if you can afford them, there are plenty of ways for you to get the assistance you need so that you can care for yourself and your baby as efficiently as possible. Let loved ones cook you meals or come clean the house and do laundry! Split nighttime feedings and diaper changes as evenly as possible with your partner, and enlist them to hold the baby while you take a shower and have some time to yourself. Any way you can find to focus on your own wellbeing in addition to your baby’s will help you to feel better as you ride out these hormonal changes.
Speak to Your Doctor
When all else fails, difficulty with hormone levels during your postpartum period is definitely something you should speak to your doctor about. They can help you with any concerns about your health, so make sure to prioritize yourself and make an appointment if you feel like you need it!
Eventually every woman begins to experience some of the symptoms of menopause, and even when you know it’s coming, it can still be a challenging time! As the partner of someone who is going through menopause, it can be difficult for you to know what the right course of action is. You want to help the person that you love, but oftentimes it doesn’t seem like there’s much you can do at all, and you end up feeling powerless to make this transition easier for them.
While you certainly can’t stop the natural process of you and your partner aging, there are some ways that you can show support and help your partner as they go through menopause. Here are some good things to keep in mind.
Learn What to Expect
One of the best ways for you to support your partner is to do your homework. If you’re not familiar with what the effects of menopause actually look like and what your partner is and will soon be experiencing, now is the time find out!
Educate yourself on things like mood swings, hot flashes and night sweats, sleep problems, weight gain, hair thinning, and the many other physical effects that menopause can have. Not only will this help you to be more understanding of what your partner is going through, it can keep you from blundering into awkward situations where you make hurtful comments about something that they can’t control.
Be Understanding of Mood Swings
While not everyone experiences mood swings during menopause, it is a common symptom. The occasional bad mood is normal, but sudden and intense changes of mood that disrupt a person’s daily life and relationships are most likely a result of changing hormone levels during menopause.
Even when you know that your partner’s crankiness is caused by menopausal mood swings, pointing this out to them is probably not the best idea. No one likes to be told they’re being irrational and hormonal when they really feel upset! Instead, try not to take them personally and if needed, discuss the situation with your partner later when they’re in a better headspace.
Communicate
You’re never going to be able to get through this next phase in your relationship together if you and your partner simply rely on assumptions about each other to understand what’s going on between you. Now is the time to focus on open and honest communication more than ever.
Discuss with your partner what the best ways are that you can offer support, and what you need from them in order to feel content and fulfilled in your relationship. Build a plan for how to handle fights and other disagreements. Practice active listening and being mutually patient with each other. All of these things can help your relationship to become stronger through this transitional phase.
Stay Healthy Together
Focusing on physical health like diet and exercise can help to make the symptoms of menopause easier to manage, so make forming healthy habits a part of your relationship that you do together!
Evening walks, weekend yoga sessions, or healthy cooking classes can be a great way for you and your partner to spend time with each other, and building in these healthy practices will help to make menopause a less challenging time for them. Plus, you get to reap the benefits of a healthier lifestyle as well!
Look Into Treatments
Sometimes, the symptoms of menopause are unpleasant enough that treatment is required. If this is something that your partner is open to, you can help them by assisting in researching possible treatments and therapies that can alleviate their symptoms and make their life easier as they continue to age.
Hormone replacement therapy (or HRT) has been shown to be extremely helpful in alleviating the symptoms of menopause, and at Renewd Vitality in Wyomissing, PA is the premier facility for HRT in the Berks County area. If your partner is interested in hormone replacement therapy for menopause, contact us today!
If you’ve taken a high school health class, you probably know the basics of what estrogen is. It’s the female sex hormone, the counterpart to testosterone, the male sex hormone. All human bodies produce some level of estrogen, so men do make estrogen in the same way that women make testosterone, but if you’re biologically female, estrogen is the main chemical that your body will use to keep your reproductive system on track. But what does this hormone actually do in the literal sense? What will happen in your body if your estrogen levels are healthy, and what will happen if they aren’t? To answer that question, let’s take a look at some of the functions of estrogen.
Ovaries
When it comes to the ovaries, the biggest job of estrogen is to stimulate the production of eggs. MIdway between the start of a woman’s period and the start of her next period is ovulation, and this is the time when estrogen levels in the body are highest. The ovaries produce estrogen and use it to stimulate the egg follicles, which are small, fluid-filled sacs inside the ovaries. One (or sometimes more than one) will release an egg to either be fertilized or be released from the body during the period. After ovulation, estrogen levels in the body begin to drop again.
Uterus
Just as estrogen plays a role in helping the ovaries to release an egg during ovulation, it also helps the uterus prepare for the potential fertilization of that egg. The uterine lining, or endometrium, is the tissue that becomes the placenta if a pregnancy occurs and that is shed as blood during a period if a pregnancy doesn’t occur. Estrogen helps to enhance the endometrium during the leadup to ovulation.
Estrogen also has an effect on cervical mucus, a substance produced by the cervix that changes over the course of the menstrual cycle. Estrogen makes the cervical mucus take on a slippery texture similar to egg whites when a woman is most fertile in order to encourage sperm to find their way towards an egg. Many hormonal birth control methods, like the pill or the IUD, use progestin, an artificial form of progesterone, to do the opposite of what estrogen would do and thicken the cervical mucus in order to make it harder for sperm to enter the uterus.
Vagina
Estrogen’s effects are not only noticeable on the internal organs. In the vagina, estrogen helps to maintain the thickness of the vaginal wall and also encourages lubrication. This is a place that many women will start to feel the effects of falling estrogen levels during menopause. Vaginal dryness, thinning, inflammation, or a loss of elasticity are fairly common things for women to experience later in life, but they can be uncomfortable, unpleasant, and have a damaging effect on a woman’s sex life. Hormone treatments can help to alleviate these symptoms!
Breasts
Estrogen is one of the main hormones affecting changes in the breasts. (This is one of the reasons that if you’ve ever taken the birth control pill, you might’ve noticed a change in your cup size.) Estrogen works together with the growth hormone during puberty to encourage breasts to grow, and the rising and falling levels of estrogen during the menstrual cycle can lead to small changes in breast size and increased tenderness or soreness, depending on the person. When nursing a baby, estrogen also steps in to help stop the flow of milk after the baby is weaned.
As you can see, estrogen is a hormone with many purposes in the body, and that means that in order to be healthy and functioning optimally, your body needs to be producing estrogen in the right levels. If you’re experiencing symptoms such as vaginal dryness, breast tenderness, hot flashes, headaches, and irregular periods, an estrogen imbalance may be the culprit. If this is the case, hormone replacement therapy from Renewed Vitality may be able to help you! Contact us here to learn more about what this revolutionary treatment can do for you.
Happy National Women’s History Month! It’s March, and that means it’s time to look back and celebrate the accomplishments of incredible women of the past and present who made amazing advances in their field. Medicine was regarded as a man’s profession in many places and times throughout history, but that didn’t stop their female counterparts from making contributions to the medical sciences in spite of the barriers in their way. For instance, Florence Nightingale is the reason that nursing is a profession today, and many of our modern medical sanitary practices can be traced back to her work. There are plenty of other amazing women in medical history to be discussed, so let’s take a look at some of them!
Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in America to receive a medical degree. Early in her life, she had an experience in which a friend of hers became very sick and remarked that if she had been able to have a female physician, she might not have suffered so much, and this inspired her to pursue medicine. Blackwell, who began her professional life as a schoolteacher, began applying to medical schools and was turned away almost everywhere she applied, except for Geneva Medical School, which is now the Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University. Her admittance there was put to a vote of the all-male student body, with the rule that if even one of them voted no, she would not be admitted. As the story goes, the students assumed it was a joke and unanimously voted to accept her. Blackwell got the last laugh, as she graduated from Geneva Medical School in 1849. Ultimately she went on to found medical schools and infirmaries, organize nurses for the Union during the American Civil War, and publish several books on medicine.
Margaret Higgins Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger is one of the pioneers of the field of contraception, which was a dangerous profession during the early 20th century. Her work was so controversial, in fact, that at one point she was forced to flee America and stay in Britain until she knew it was safe to return. She was arrested for opening a birth control clinic in 1916, but was undaunted, and went on to found the American Birth Control League in 1921, which later became Planned Parenthood. In New York City, she organized the first birth control, which was staffed by all-female doctors, and she also organized a clinic in Harlem with an all African-American advisory council. Her work was pivotal in contraception becoming not only legal but socially acceptable in America.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Rebecca Lee Crumpler was America’s first female African-American physician, which is especially amazing given that when she attended medical school and was named a Doctor of Medicine, America was in the midst of the Civil War, and Crumpler faced not only sexism but intense racism in opposition to her becoming a physician. After the war, she worked in Richmond, Virginia, caring mostly for poor African-American women and children, which she considered to be excellent missionary work. Eventually she published a book, titled A Book of Medical Discourses, in 1883, which focused mostly on the care of women and children based on what she learned working in Richmond.
Gertrude Elion
Gertrude Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist who won a Nobel Prize in 1988 in Physiology or Medicine, an honor she shared with George H. Hitchings and Sir James Black. Their work focused on a principle called rational drug design for the creation of new medicines. Her parents were Eastern European Jewish immigrants, and after she graduated from Hunter College in New York, she had to work as a secretary and teacher and take an unpaid position doing research in a lab, since it was incredibly difficult for women to find paid research jobs at the time. The work she went on to do later in her life would lead to the creation of AZT, one of the first drugs available to treat HIV and AIDS. She also helped create immunosuppressants used for organ transplants, treatments for leukemia and viral herpes, and other lifesaving drugs.
Becky McClure
Last but certainly not least, Becky McClure is an incredible woman in medicine! She helps to change people’s lives with her individualistic approach and cutting-edge hormone replacement therapy. Her work helps both men and women to feel revitalized, active, and healthy. She’s been in healthcare for over 30 years now and has been practicing state of the art pellet therapy for over 10 years, and helping people to take their lives back is her passion. Her work might be able to help you too, so don’t hesitate to contact Renewed Vitality today to learn more!
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a major threat to public health, and vaccinations are proving to be incredibly helpful in slowing the spread and the virus and reducing the intensity of the illness in those who do contract it. Although the available vaccines against COVID-19 have all been authorized by the FDA, many people are still concerned about the safety and efficacy of the drug. Some wonder if the vaccine will affect their period and their reproductive health.
As of now, injection site pain, fatigue, and fever are the most common side effects of the Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, and Moderna vaccines, but changes to the menstrual cycle are not listed as side effects for any of them. However, there have been some women reporting that their periods were disrupted after receiving the vaccine. Dr. Victoria Male, a reproductive specialist at Imperial College London has been calling for further research into the effects of the vaccines on reproductive health, and says that over 30,000 people have reported some change to their period following vaccination. However, she also reports that cycles typically return to normal the next month and that there is no evidence that receiving a COVID-19 vaccination has any negative effects on fertility.
About 213 million Americans are currently fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The 30,000 that Dr. Male reports have experienced menstrual changes make up a comparatively small number. Dr. Male believes that the reason the effects of the vaccine on periods is not currently well-researched is because the percentage of people who experience them is so small. However, she believes that this research is important in order to dispel public fear around the lifesaving vaccine, especially the idea that it will cause infertility.
“Vaccine hesitancy among young women is largely driven by false claims that covid-19 vaccines could harm their chances of future pregnancy,” she writes in an editorial for the BMJ. “Failing to thoroughly investigate reports of menstrual changes after vaccination is likely to fuel these fears.”
Dr. Male hypothesizes that “if there is a connection, it is likely to be a result of the immune response to vaccination rather than a specific vaccine component. Vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) has also been associated with menstrual changes. Indeed, the menstrual cycle can be affected by immune activation in response to various stimuli, including viral infection.” Essentially, the correlation between the vaccine and menstrual disruption does not mean that part of the vaccine is having a negative effect on a woman’s cycle. Periods can be skipped or even stop altogether over something as simple as stress, and as the vaccine produces the necessary immune response that helps the body to fight off COVID-19 in the future, it’s possible that the stress of that response on the body could cause a change to your cycle.
This reported side effect of the vaccine is not fully understood at this time, but neither is menstrual health. In an interview to Medical News Today, Dr. Sarah Gray– a general practitioner and women’s health expert based in Cornwall, England– said that “Women’s health has not been a research priority for the last 20 years and there is much we do not know.”
The situation at hand requires further research into both the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine on women’s health and into women’s health in general. The first half of this two-part dilemma is already beginning to be addressed, with a study published in January of 2022 that included nearly 4,000 individuals and turned up that the vaccine has minor effects on the length of the cycle, but that these changes were temporary. Continued research will need to be conducted, but women receiving the vaccine should rest assured that although there is a small chance they will notice temporary changes to their period, the COVID-19 vaccine does not pose a danger to their reproductive health and fertility, and the virus remains a greater threat than the vaccine.
Every woman knows to expect menopause as she ages. The average age to experience it is 51 for women in the United States, but any time between ages 45 to 55 is considered within the normal range. Menopause before age 45 is considered early, and before age 40 is premature.
So, how do you know if you’re in premature menopause? For starters, there is a difference between menopause and perimenopause, which is the process of heading into menopause itself. When you’ve gone more than twelve months without a period, you’ve entered menopause, but prior to this as your ovulation slows, you’ll be in perimenopause and begin experiencing the symptoms that you always hear people talking about– hot flashes and chills, mood changes, sleep problems, and of course, irregular periods. A changing period is the main sign of menopause, and while there are many reasons to have irregular or missing periods, you should always discuss it with your doctor. If you’re presenting other symptoms and not within the typical age range, they may diagnose you with premature menopause. There are many reasons that this might happen to you, and they will help you to determine the cause and cope with the changes. Here are some of the reasons you might begin menopause prematurely.
Previous Illnesses
If you’ve undergone chemotherapy, had your ovaries removed, or had any other treatment or procedure that would damage your estrogen production, it may lead to premature menopause. However, damaged or missing ovaries are not the only potential cause, and you can still experience premature menopause if your ovaries are intact.
Genetics
It is likely that there is a genetic component to when you will naturally begin menopause. If other explanations don’t fit, this may be what it comes down to. If your mother experienced menopause early or prematurely, it’s possible that you will as well.
Lifestyle
There are some habits that you might’ve had (or might still have) in previous years that can affect your reproductive health, with smoking being a major one. Long-term or regular smoking has been proven to have a correlation to earlier menopause than that seen in women who don’t smoke. Other lifestyle choices that may contribute are vegetarianism, lack of exercise, lack of sun exposure, and low BMI.
Chromosomal Defects
There are several chromosomal abnormalities that can lead to premature menopause. Most of them do this by affecting the function of the ovaries. Turner syndrome, pure gonadal dysgenesis, and Fragile X syndrome are all possible causes. If you or any family members have premature menopause and you suspect that one of these conditions might be the cause, it’s important to discuss genetic testing with your doctor.
Autoimmune Disease
Autoimmune diseases can cause a whole host of health issues, including premature menopause. When inflammation caused by these diseases affects the ovaries, their function is altered or stopped. Rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid problems are potential autoimmune diseases that may be the cause of your premature menopause.
Epilepsy
Epilepsy can sometimes cause the ovaries to fail prematurely, and resultantly lead to early or premature menopause in about 14% of women with the disease.
Depending on the cause of your premature menopause, hormone therapy might be a good treatment option for you to help lessen the symptoms. Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, like the kind offered at Renewed Vitality, can improve your quality of life during perimenopause and menopause. Most of the adverse symptoms of menopause stem from a change in your body’s estrogen levels, and by adding in estrogen that is no longer being produced, some of those symptoms can be eased. Bioidentical hormones are exactly what they sound like– they’re biologically identical to the ones naturally produced in your body. Renewed Vitality’s bioidentical estrogen is 100% natural, created using a plant-based source. Their exact chemical structure matches the kind made by the human body, and their natural makeup allows them to be more easily processed than artificial varieties.
If you are suffering from premature menopause, or if the symptoms of menopause and perimenopause in general are causing you distress, contact Renewed Vitality to ask about our bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. It may be able to help you feel a bit more like yourself again.
Aging changes quite a few things about our bodies. Sometimes we gain weight, we have less energy, and our bodies don’t move like they used to. Mood and mental health can then be affected by these physical changes. This can have an impact on how we take care of ourselves and stand in the way of our health.
Knowing how to best approach these changes makes a huge difference in how they can affect your life. One way to combat the effects of aging is by engaging in exercise as it has been found to improve mood and mental health in aging adults. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of exercises specifically selected to meet those particular needs.
What Is Low Impact?
Low impact exercises generally refer to activities that put less harmful stress on the body. This refers to activities such as running. When you run, all of your weight is bouncing on your skeleton and joints, causing strain and potentially pain. Having that weight coming down on one hip joint, knee, or foot can lead to new pain or exacerbate existing joint problems.
Low impact exercises involve smoother motions where weight and stresses are transferred throughout the body more smoothly—avoiding that jolt of stress that can cause pain. Low impact is all about raising the heart rate and improving health without wearing on your joints.
Walking
We do it every day, and most people don’t consider it that much of a struggle to walk. If you’re looking for a good intro to low impact exercises, walking is a great option. For added difficulty, set your walk on an incline or with added weight like a backpack.
Cycling
Just like walking, cycling is a straightforward low impact exercise. Your body is in fluid motion and muscles are always working. It’s possible to either bike out and about or at home on a cycling machine.
Tai Chi
When it comes to smooth fluid motions, there’s really one activity that stands out as obvious. There are a variety of health benefits associated with Tai Chi, from improved balance and physical self-awareness, to improved mood and reduced stress. Unlike some other exercises, you don’t need any additional equipment to start practicing, and Youtube has plenty of videos for beginners looking to try their hand at this relaxing low impact exercise.
Yogo
Along the same vein of smooth motions and body control, yoga is a fantastic way to improve flexibility and balance. The awesome part about yoga is that you don’t need to be a master contortionist to get started (or even maintain the practice), and you can measure your improvements in easily identifiable ways. After a week or so of these stretches, you might notice you can reach down and touch lower on your legs or even get to your toes when you previously could not!
Swimming
Swimming is the ultimate low impact exercise. Your full weight is being supported in the water, meaning at no point is your body working to support it. Simply treating water is a fantastic way to increase your heart rate and improve cardiovascular health. Walking through water is even less impact than walking on dry land! You also get the added benefit of walking through the resistance of the water, meaning your exercise is even more effective. For an even more practical reason to try out this exercise, consider it a great excuse to hang out in the pool during the hot summer days!
Reaping The Benefits
There are a few reasons to do these exercises as we previously mentioned: physical, mental, and emotional health. Unlike heavy weight training or running where you can mark your success by checking your increased mileage and added weight on the dumbbell, low impact training requires something more internal.
Taking a look at your overall daily experience both in and out of your training is important. Some of these exercises allow for measuring of physical benefits—how far you might swim; can you touch your toes; length of a cycling session—but it’s hard to quantify the emotional benefits.
Try to notice how you feel before, during, and after an exercise. Even if you aren’t motivated before a workout, most people will testify that their mood has improved after the fact. Once you recognize this in your own experience with low impact exercises, that becomes a motivation in itself.
Doing regular personal check-ins about how you feel throughout the day, both before and after, can also put everything in perspective. Having a regular mental check-in regiment about your exercise routine can keep you sharp and improve/maintain overall functionality.
The Takeaway
Getting older doesn’t mean your body can’t continue to improve and maintain mobility and strength. By engaging in these simple and accessible low impact activities, you can hold off the more negative impacts associated with growing older.
Working with a professional to identify which exercises and practices might be most effective for you is always a good idea. The experts at Renewed Vitality are especially knowledgeable about these kinds of practices. Give us a call to set up an evaluation and check in today!
