At our Happy Hormone Cottage, we focus on educating and treating hormone imbalance issues (sex hormones of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone; cortisol; and thyroid) that occur as a result of aging in all women. The biggest misconception I hear almost daily deals with menopause. We are NOT a menopause facility. We are all about natural hormone balance. Hormones play an important role through-out our life from birth, through the inception of our periods, through pregnancy, periomenopause and menopause through death. Just because we may notice our hormonal changes as adults approaching menopause, doesn’t mean our hormones and all of the many jobs they perform in our bodies become any less important after menopause.
Hormone imbalance is an aging issue that starts around age 35 and continues on through menopause and beyond. Why? Because as we age, we stop making these hormones that we need. So replacing these hormones with bioidentical hormones in the exact amount we need (we call this physiological dosing) to refill our hormone receptors is key. Suzanne Somer’s doctor, Prudence Hall, has my favorite quote, “Hormones are to women, what water is to plants.” This is the motto we live by at my Happy Hormone Cottage. Why aren’t we hearing this truth from our doctors? After all, there are many studies and books by doctors on the importance of refilling our hormone receptors (go to www.invigom98.sg-host.com and click on Readings/Resources for a plethora of information on natural hormone balance.) The sad truth is because doctors only get 4 hours of hormone education in medical school.
As women approach their mid-30s and 40s and hormone levels begin to deplete, symptoms begin to occur. Since progesterone is the 1st hormone to diminish, thanks to our aging ovaries, symptoms of this progesterone imbalance are prevalent:
-Sleep issues
-Anxiety
-Weight Gain around the mid-section
-Fatigue
-Low Libido
-Mood Swings, Irritability
-Sugar Cravings
-Aches & Pains
-Increased risk of breast cancer due to estrogen dominance (because progesterone levels deplete first, we naturally become estrogen dominant. By the way, estrogen is a fat storer. So balancing our estrogen with progesterone is our first step to hormone balance.)
As we age into our 50s, our estrogen and testosterone levels deplete. Did you know that estrogen performs 300 jobs in our bodies, with two BIG jobs being to protect the brain from dementia and the heart from heart disease? Testosterone signals the osteoblasts in our bones to make new bone, helps memory recall, helps energy, and as we also heal our adrenal glands (cortisol), testosterone helps our libido come back. All of this does take time. The further we are from optimal hormone health, the longer it takes. But our goal is between 3 weeks – 3 months to significantly notice the improvement of many of our symptoms. Libido takes about 8 months to return, and is dependent on refilling hormone receptors and healing tired adrenal glands.
A comment about our testing methods. Whereas standard of care checks hormone levels in blood, we use cutting edge technology in dried urine strip testing. Blood work only provides us with a number that falls within a large range. We are more concerned with HOW our hormones are metabolizing and methylating in our bodies. For example, did you know that estrogen travels down three methylation pathways. One of these pathways is breast cancer promoting, while another one is breast cancer protective. Knowing the specific methylation pathways allows us to reroute the estrogen down a more healthy pathway, as needed.
From this dried urine strip take home test, our nurse practitioner spends an hour with each client, not only going over the extensive test results, but also going over symptoms, and creating a hormone balance strategy with our customized, compounded hormone creams using physiological dosing; amazing adrenal support products created by Jeff Hogrefe R Ph, FAARM; and attention to thyroid, if needed. Refilling our hormone receptors as we age into our late 30s, 40s, and beyond is a life-long strategy. We do this daily for the rest of our lives. Doing so helps prevent the afore-mentioned diseases. And it is never too late to start. We even have women coming to us in their 20s for fertility issues, heavy or irregular periods, PCOS etc. Hormones are everything. Combined with other preventative strategies like eating right, exercising, having a supplement strategy……we CAN live a high quality of life for the long haul.
We recently had a memorable client who found a lump in her breast. Her doctor sent her to an oncologist, who removed the lump. He wanted to do chemotherapy to make sure no cancer cells were involved. She refused and came to us instead. We referred her to Jeff, who did a TK1 blood test on her. This is a specific test that identifies if there are any cancer cells in the body. Her test came back negative. Today, she is owning her journey to her best health naturally, is hormonally balanced, has gotten off her blood pressure medicine she was on for 15 years and says, “I look and feel terrific, too, from all of the help and info I’ve received at the Happy Hormone Cottage and from Jeff Hogrefe at the Piqua Compounding Lab. Thank you all!!” (For many more testimonials, go to my website’s testimonial webpage.)
Although our Happy Hormone Cottage focuses on women, in early 2015, Jeff opened a health center for men called BioMale Center, located in West Chester and Kettering, that focuses on hormone balance for men. To learn more, visit www.biomalecenter.com.
For more information on the Happy Hormone Cottage and its locations, to make an appointment, to purchase a copy of Lyn’s book, “Own Your Journey……to Optimal Hormone Balance,” or to learn more about Lyn’s Women’s Health Initiatives Foundation that supports New Hope for Cancer, go to www.invigom98.sg-host.com.
