The demand for hormone replacement that effectively relieves the hot flashes, fatigue, and irritability of menopause without causing more problems with painful side effects has brought bioidentical hormones onto center stage. Movie actresses and books promote them. Patients who take them describe their sweet relief from menopausal symptoms. Some women talk about how they have made them feel younger and even brought their sex life back again.

As a result, we see new patients who want to talk about bioidentical hormones every day. The basic question women ask if, “Are they for me?”

Just what are “bioidentical hormones?”

Bioidentical hormones are developed in the lab and are dispensed by a compounding pharmacy with a prescription. They have the same exact molecular structure as hormones made by your own body. That is important. It means your body knows how to use and rid the hormones effectively without the bloating and side effects synthetic hormones have. By contrast, synthetic hormones are intentionally different. Drug companies can’t patent a bioidentical structure, so they invent synthetic hormones that are patentable.
(Premarin, Prempro, Provera, and Activella being the most widely used examples).

Though bioidentical hormones have been around for years, many doctors and practitioners are unfamiliar with them. There are several branded versions now available for use in this kind of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Those and others are available at a compounding pharmacy where they make the prescriptions that your doctor or practitioner has written with your name in mind. We call this individualized or custom care.

In our practice, the staff members have extensive experience and success with the individualized approach to bioidenticals. . We begin with a comprehensive review of your symptoms. Testing is done with blood analysis. When appropriate, we then prescribe a dosage of bioidentical estrogen, testosterone, Progesterone. Each patient is then monitored carefully through regular follow-up visits to ensure we get symptom relief at the lowest possible dose.