“Compounded hormones for relief from peri-menopause symptoms”
I am a forty-eight year old cis female. About four years ago I started having symptoms that my body was moving toward menopause. Contrary to popular belief most women don’t simply stop having periods one day; for most of us, it’s like going through second puberty: heavier, more erratic periods, mood swings, brain fog, night sweats, irritability. This is because in many cases natural progesterone production falls off but the ovaries continue to produce estrogen unchecked, which leads to “estrogen dominance.” I’ve read this referred to as “the ovaries’ last hurrah.”
I first heard about it from a book published in the 1980’s called “No More Hot Flashes And Other Good News,” which my mother read when she was in my position 20 years ago. The author of that book, a female gynecologist, recommended bio-identical or compounded progesterone. This progesterone is chemically different from the synthetic progesterone, commonly known as progestin, found in birth control pills and in IUDs. Many women who have trouble with hormonal birth control have a bad reaction to progestin.
Unfortunately, the first doctor I saw four years ago seemed not to have heard of compounded progesterone treatment or pretended not to. She insisted it wouldn’t help me and tried to make me buy an IUD, or have my uterine walls cauterized, despite the fact that there was no medical reason for such extreme and expensive treatment.
I found a different doctor who promptly suggested compounded progesterone, which I take orally in liquid form. Prior to taking it, my periods had become so heavy I was anemic and having dizzy spells. I was waking every night with night sweats, which affected my sleep, which in turn affected my memory, attention, and emotional control at work.
Taking the compounded progesterone has improved my quality of life and that of my family, as well as my productivity at work. Restricting access to such a simple, harmless treatment would be detrimental to a great many women just when they are in their most productive work years.
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