Bio Identical Hormones and Your Aging Skin Part Two
by KJude on February 4, 2010
I am 53 and I personally was on bio-identical hormones for over 18 months. I have had one hot flash in that entire time. Even though it took about 4 months to normalize various things it was nothing like my previous hot flashes and other issues. I still had heavy and long periods; but everything ran so smoothly that PMS was a definite thing of the past; and lots of other things got better too. In November of 2009 I began phasing out of bio-identical hormones. I found that I was having too many problems with my periods which were still very heavy and long. While I did not have PMS or night sweats and my moods were even, the main reason I was interested in them was because of my heavy periods , AND face it! I understood that it would help with facial skin, my body; the inner workings, my outer shell. My aging skin was like parchment paper and my body was dry. Everywhere. The bio identical hormones DID help with that. A lot.
The process of changing from bio-identical hormones to OTC – over the counter solutions has been a pain. I have had 3 very heavy cycles; some lasting 15 days. I had to take the herb Shepherd’s Purse to calm the heavy flow down enough to be able to work since I stand on my feet for several hours to do so. I am working with Dawn Welch, a Naturopath/Homeopath to make the transition and I am hoping that one more cycle will have me pointing in the right direction. In addition to other situations I have been dealing with, this has been extremely hard because my night sweats came back and I had a raging case of PMS right before Christmas that had me embarrassing my poor son who was home from college. (he and his friends had the audacity to wake me from a sound sleep and I informed him that my home was not a dorm room. note to all: do NOT wake me up, it’s hard enough to stay asleep as it is!) But the cost of bio-identical hormones is really astronomical and if I can get the same relief by allowing my body to work the way it is supposed to – I’m better off. Please Note as well on Yeast Infections and Bio-identical Hormones: With your hormones out of wack; you can become much more susceptible to yeast infections as it causes imbalances in your bacteria. I had that lovely experience as well and thought I would never ever ever get through it. I in a way blame myself as I still had bio identical hormones left over from after I was unable to consult with my doctor on them. And without monitoring I was still following the exact same protocol. (there were lots of other issues at stake here; one being an enormous amount of stress that isn’t good for anyone) Please see my next post on bioidentical hormones.
You pay a lot of money every month to have them ‘monitor’ your progress, which they only do about every 4 months with a new blood test. You do want to be in close contact with your doctor – but honestly; I do not feel that I had that great of followup in the first place. I really feel like it is another ‘business’; a money maker – and the one thing that makes it different than mainstream HRT therapy is the fact that it is bio-identical to your own body; which is best. It has about a 98% success rate as far as alleviating symptoms of peri and menopause – and it’s 150 times better than problems discovered by women in the Women’s Health Initiative Study back in 2002 that followed women who were on mainstream HRT. If you recall; they shut that ’study’ down years earlier than scheduled because too many women were getting cancer and other problems were surfacing.
Previous Post Hormones Part One
See my next post on Hormones Part Three
Tagged as:
aging skin,
bioidentical hormones,
dim,
hormones and your skin,
maca,
night sweats
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I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Alena
http://ovarianpain.net
Thank you! So glad you are enjoying it.