“I am a Bio-identical hormone compounding pharmacist and work with local providers as a BHRT consultant.”
I have been providing compounded and commercially available bio-identical hormone therapies to patients since 2005. Since 2006, I have served my community as a BHRT consultant, working with many local physicians and medical practices. I have established working relationships and trust in this community with the providers, and hundreds of patients. Some of our patients have been working with us for over 10 years, and we have seen many success stories with BHRT in that time. We also engage in saliva testing our patients periodically to check current free hormone profiles, as both a diagnostic tool and a means of checking the success, or failure, of our recommended dosing. Many local providers, based on clinical evidence and what they hear from their patients, send patients to us not only to provide BHRT but also to consult with us and make recommendations to them. We have an extensive and systematic method of collecting pertinent patient family, medical, and hormone histories to aid us in making our recommendations. The information we use to help make our decisions can be referenced from many publications including those of Leon Speroff, a name well known in the publication of textbooks of Obstetrics and Gynecology. We do not, nor have we ever, made any claim that BHRT is "safer" than traditional hormone replacement therapies. I would say, however, that any hormone replacement therapy, when properly and appropriately "balanced", can potentially mitigate some risks. It is not the hormone therapy, whether traditional or bio-identical, that lowers risks, but the appropriate and well-studied balancing of these hormones in the correct ratios, as well as a thoughtful and diligent collection of patient data, that can help mitigate risks. It should also be noted that bio-identical hormone replacement therapy is not limited to compounded products. Bio-identical simply refers to hormones with the same molecular structure as hormones secreted by the human body. Therefore, some commercially available estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone products are bio-identical. Does the fact that these products are manufactured in a pharmaceutical company's lab somehow render them "safer" than products being compounded in any number of local compounding pharmacies staffed by people educated and licensed to provide a service as old as the profession of pharmacy itself? We comply with all pharmacy board and USP regulations including the periodic assay of our products and also strive to provide the best service and high-quality compounded products possible as it is a reflection of our professionalism and the backbone of our business. I challenge anyone who fails to see the importance and necessity of small, locally-owned compound pharmacies to ask yourselves, in a properly regulated and professionally overseen environment, can compound pharmacies coexist with large pharmaceutical manufacturing corporations by filling in patient care and treatment gaps that are very difficult if not impossible for the current US healthcare system to accommodate? Should so many women who have benefitted from these services not continue to have these therapies as an option? The voices being expressed in this forum are not backed by deep pockets and teams of attorneys, but they need to be heard.
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