Staying healthy is a lifelong pursuit that involves adaptation to accommodate your body’s evolving needs. As you age, it feels more important to stay physically active, but it’s also much harder to do so.
Fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, and mental health issues may prevent you from living your life to the fullest. While many people just accept these as symptoms of growing older, our team at Dynamic Health & Wellness rejects this thought.
You can’t stop aging, but you can make it a graceful process with hormone replacement therapy near The Villages. Hormones influence your physical appearance, emotional state, and overall health, impacting everything from aesthetics to mental health and bodily functions.
To learn more about why our team is passionate about hormone replacement therapy, read this article. We’ll discuss the importance of hormones and how we can restore balance.
What are hormones?
It’s both amazing and frustrating how much our teenage problems can follow us into adulthood. You might remember how difficult your hair and skin were in your high school years, or how your body weight and muscle composition changed so rapidly. You might have even struggled with emotions and experienced depression or anxiety. We could go on and on, but to sum it up: your hormones were to blame, and they still are.
Hormones are chemical messengers in your body that control many bodily functions, including the following:
- Metabolism
- Growth
- Sexual function
- Reproduction
- Sleep
- Mood
Specialized glands in your endocrine system, like your thyroid, pancreas, ovaries, and testes, make and release hormones.
Age-Related Hormone Decline
As you get older, the production of vital hormones, like estrogen and testosterone, declines. Men and women experience an age-related decline in hormones. You may recognize these events as menopause (for women) and andropause (for men).
Menopause
This transitional period in a woman’s life looks much less frightening with hormone replacement therapy near The Villages. Often occurring between the ages of 45 and 55, menopause marks the end of a woman’s menstrual cycle, meaning she can no longer get pregnant. While many think it’s a relief to be done with monthly periods, cramps, and other uncomfortable symptoms, menopausal women can still experience the following:
- Hot flashes
- Night sweats
- Insomnia
- Mood swings
- Vaginal dryness
- Urinary urgency
- Dry skin
- Low libido
Natural estrogen replacement therapy aims to alleviate these symptoms. Estrogen affects more than just your reproductive system. It also regulates your skeletal, cardiovascular, and central nervous systems, impacting your brain function, blood circulation, body temperature, and blood sugar.
However, some of these side effects also result from a decline in testosterone, which impacts your mood, energy, bone strength, and sexual behavior. The female body quickly converts this and other androgenic hormones into female sex hormones, making testosterone necessary for optimal bodily functions.
Andropause
Men also experience a decline in their primary sex hormone, testosterone. While it’s not a “male menopause,” as it’s a more gradual decline that starts after the age of 40, it still has an effect on men’s health and wellness. With this decline, men can experience the following symptoms:
- Lowered sex drive
- Erectile dysfunction
- Decreased bone density
- Difficulty concentrating
- Depression
- Lowered self-confidence
- Insomnia
- Increased body fat
Hormone replacement therapy near The Villages can help men regain their stamina by replenishing their hormone levels.
What is hormone replacement therapy?
Hormone replacement therapy is exactly what it sounds like: treatments to increase testosterone and estrogen in individuals. We only use bioidentical hormone replacement therapy from BioTe, as these hormones have been thoroughly tested and are held to much higher standards than those of many other manufacturers.
What is the importance of bioidentical hormone replacements?
Bioidentical means that the hormones used closely replicate the molecular structure of your own naturally occurring hormones. Sourced from plants like wild yams and soy, these hormones boast fewer side effects than synthetic hormones, which can come from sources such as pregnant horse urine. Furthermore, the body more readily uses bioidentical hormones, meaning you can feel relief faster and more effectively than with synthetic hormones.
Hormone Replacement Therapy Administration Options
There are 3 delivery methods for your hormone replacement therapy. Our team recommends pellet therapy, but we allow you to choose your preferred administration method.
Pellet Therapy
Pellets gradually release hormones into your bloodstream, allowing for consistent delivery and absorption. Women typically need to revisit every 3 months to replenish their hormone levels. This therapy lasts 6 months for men.
For this minimally invasive administration method of hormone replacement therapy near The Villages, we insert the pellets underneath the skin, in either the hip or buttock region. With your comfort in mind, we use a local anesthetic before making a 5 mm-long incision. The number of pellets used depends on your unique biology, including baseline hormone levels and your body weight. After each insertion, you should refrain from physical activity for 3 to 5 days.
Injections
Injections will be performed every 3 to 4 days, meaning frequent needle pokes throughout your treatment. However, you can perform the injections at home yourself with in-office appointments every few months to track your progress.
Oral Medication
If you’re averse to needles and incisions, we offer oral medications to help you balance your hormones. This requires daily administration, so we recommend setting an alarm to remind you to take the hormones at the same time every day.
Hormone Replacement Therapy at Dynamic Health & Wellness
Together, we can discuss the best hormone delivery method for you, starting with a complimentary consultation.
Consultation
At Dynamic Health & Wellness, consultations are always free. We encourage everyone to come in and talk to our advanced nurse practitioner, Wendy Clow, FNP-C. Wendy has over 30 years of experience in healthcare, and she focuses on providing compassionate, affordable healthcare services to our community.
Here, you can feel comfortable to speak openly and honestly with Wendy about your medical history and your symptoms, no matter how intimate. She uses this information to determine whether hormone replacement therapy near The Villages is right for you.
If she believes hormone replacement therapy will help relieve your symptoms, she will conduct labs and bloodwork to assess your current hormone levels and identify any imbalances, as well as highlight other potential health concerns. These tests include the following:
- Complete blood count (CBC)
- Thyroid
- Hormones: testosterone and estradiol (estrogen)
- Complete metabolic panel (CMP)
- Prostate-specific antigen (PSA—male only)
- Vitamin D
- Luteinizing hormone test (LHT)
- Ferritin
- Prolactin
- Vitamin B12
We partner with Access Labs, which usually sends us results from your tests within 4 days. Labcorp or Quest Diagnostics are other options for patients, with results usually returned within 10 to 12 days.
Customizing Your Treatment
Once we receive the results from your lab work, we determine the necessary amount of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone you need.
Your choice of administration determines whether we teach you how to perform the injections yourself or schedule office visits for monitoring and pellet replacement. For injections and oral medications, prescriptions are delivered directly to your home, eliminating the need for pharmacies. We favor direct delivery to prevent supply chain problems that could alter your dose concentration without notice, resulting in improper dosages.
Results From Hormone Replacement Therapy
The results from hormone replacement therapy vary from person to person. Some people experience higher energy levels, improved mood, and a stronger libido within weeks of their first treatment; however, it could take up to 3 months for others. Results can vary depending on your biology and your delivery method of hormone replacement therapy near The Villages.
Duration of Treatment and Results
The duration of results from your customizable hormone therapy also varies depending on your delivery method. However, as long as you continue your treatment, you will experience the benefits of the hormones. This treatment is intended to be a lifelong medication that we will adjust and tailor to your changing needs.
Should you wish to discontinue, we can discuss either an immediate cessation or a tapering off of your hormone treatments. Once you end your treatment, you will stop experiencing the benefits from hormone therapy, and the symptoms of andropause or menopause may resume.
Ongoing Care
Treatment can bring several benefits, including better sleep, more energy, and improved skin. We hope that you will use this renewed vitality to make healthy choices, like exercising regularly and eating a healthy, balanced diet. You can always come to us for recommendations and guidance on making these lifestyle adjustments. If you do experience symptoms throughout the course of your treatment, we encourage you to reach out for dosage adjustments as well.
You’ll return monthly or quarterly so we can answer questions, re-insert the pellets, or conduct follow-up lab work. You can also visit us for services beyond hormone replacement therapy near The Villages. As a primary care practice, we focus on women’s and men’s health and offer weight loss services, IV therapy, and pelvic floor strengthening treatments. Our goal is to help you feel dynamic and youthful throughout all of life’s transitional stages.
Financing at Dynamic Health & Wellness
What we see as individualized treatment to help your body restore its hormone levels and function optimally, you may see as accumulating medical costs. Healthcare isn’t exactly known for being affordable, and we understand that. However, at our family-owned, patient-centered wellness center, we aim to change that.
We are a cash pay wellness center, meaning you pay the cost upfront, without the need for insurance. This puts you in control of your care—not your insurance provider. We still allow for insurance to cover the costs of labs or imaging, but we also offer in-house labs at a cash-based price. We can discuss your options for financing during your consultation.
Restore Balance to Feel Dynamic
Aging gracefully means that you’re able to enjoy your favorite activities and live life dynamically. To do so, balancing your hormones is key, and that’s why we offer customizable hormone replacement therapy near The Villages. To get started, you can try our treatment planning tool, which allows you to pinpoint specific areas of the body and symptoms that you’re experiencing.
Alternatively, you can tell us yourself in a complimentary, face-to-face consultation.
