What is hormone replacement therapy?
Hormones are responsible for maintaining a wide range of body functions, and when they are off-balance, it causes health complications that can range from acne to diabetes. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is a treatment that uses synthetic hormones to adjust abnormal levels of natural hormones in your body. This treatment is administered orally or by injection.
What disorders does HRT treat?
HRT can be used to treat a wide variety of issues relating to your endocrine system. Some of these include:
Abnormal thyroid function
Complications from abnormal thyroid function can lead to issues with your renal, digestive, and cardiovascular system, among others. HRT works to restore thyroid levels and reduce any resulting symptoms.
Pituitary gland disorder
Hypopituitarism is a condition in which your pituitary gland isn’t producing the hormones it should, or is producing them at lower levels than normal. The hormones produced by your pituitary gland are particularly important because they stimulate other glands to produce their hormones. HRT replaces missing pituitary hormones and prevents further complications that may result from a lack of the hormonal chain.
Adrenal gland disorder
If your adrenal gland isn’t producing hormones like cortisol, you can develop issues with maintaining blood sugar levels. Over time, unregulated blood sugar can result in diabetes. HRT uses synthetic cortisol and other hormones that may be missing to restore regular hormone levels and alleviate resulting symptoms.
Osteoporosis
This bone disease happens when you get older and your body produces lower levels of certain hormones. It is most common in women as estrogen decreases during menopause. HRT can replace estrogen and prevent any complications with your bone health.
The practice also uses estrogen therapy to treat women’s menopausal symptoms and testosterone therapy to treat testosterone deficiency in men. HRT helps reduce symptoms that these patients experience and rebalances hormonal levels to protect their long-term health.
Since hormones control such a variety of body functions, HRT can be used to treat an equally wide range of disorders that are caused by abnormal hormonal levels.
How do you determine which hormones I need?
Before starting hormone replacement therapy, your specialist at Thyroid Endocrinology and Diabetes performs a comprehensive physical exam and asks you questions about your medical history and current symptoms.
The team will do the necessary blood, urine, and saliva tests to assess your hormonal status and try to figure out why your hormones are abnormal. Then the team will discuss the pros and cons of hormone replacement therapy and suggest a tailor made therapy for you. We utilize all available formulations of hormones including pellets, creams, gels, patches, injections, and pills in order to achieve the best version of you.
Once your diagnosis is confirmed, your specialist develops a HRT treatment plan to address your hormonal imbalance. Each therapy is unique and tailor-made for your particular hormonal deficiency and its resulting symptoms.
To learn more about how you can benefit from hormone replacement therapy at Thyroid Endocrinology and Diabetes, call or use the online booking tool to schedule an appointment.
