Women like Oprah, Robin McGraw and Suzanne Somers are all talking about it. Talking about taking care of you! Taking control of your own health!  With doctors only willing to spend a few minutes in the room with their patients can leave a woman struggling with hormone imbalance feeling completely deserted and confused.  Not only do we need doctors that are willing to take the time to listen, we need doctors who are willing to help us look at our individual needs, rather than a blanket pharmaceutical with eighteen side effects.  Here at Aging Younger, we look forward to spending the time with you to get you feeling like yourself again. 

For women, there are many signs of menopause and perimenopause.  We are told that it is just a part of life and we have to except it, but THAT IS NOT THE TRUTH!

Let’s look at some of the issues and how hormones effect women.

How can bioidentical hormones help?  A lack of estrogen can make the body look for other areas to pull from.  Where do they choose? They choose fat cells.  Your body begins creating fat cells in order to make up for the estrogen it is lacking.  If you lack progesterone, it can make you bloat and hold water, increasing your weight. Insulin resistance and stress can be huge factors in weight gain also.  The weight loss will come automatically with the right nutrition and exercise when combined with bioidentical hormone treatment. 

Many women go to their doctors looking for an antidepressant, when in fact the depression could just be a hormonal imbalance.  Studies show that 8% to 15% of women struggle with depression beginning in perimenopause.

Signs of depression

Depressed mood (sometimes shows up as irritability)

Loss of interest or pleasure in life (don’t enjoy things you used to enjoy)

Significant change in appetite (up or down)

Abnormal changes in sleep pattern (too much or too little)

Fatigue or loss of energy

Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate excessive guilt

Diminished ability to think or concentrate

Becoming indecisive or easily overwhelmed

Thoughts of death and suicide

Estrogen is essential in fighting depression.  It helps boost your serotonin levels and helps you sleep. Progesterone works hand in hand with estrogen in helping to find that balance. It helps normalize your libido and is a natural diuretic. In addition to progesterone and estrogen is cortisol, the stress hormone.  Too much of it can not only effect your weight, but also your moods.

As the saying goes, “Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.” So many of us say that getting older means forgetting things as if it is a rite of passage. Memory loss would be considered forgetting something like an old recipe you have made a hundred times. The occasional mind burp begins to increase and soon you realize you are forgetting more than you remember.  When estrogen and cortisol levels are off, it effects the neurotransmitters in your brain to create lapses in memory.  Just by simple adjustments, you do not have to suffer with this issue.

Food allergies are the culprits of a lot of bloating issues, especially, if you are eating dairy products, beans or onion.  However, if you are chronically bloated, estrogen and progesterone are the typical causes.  If your estrogen levels are up, women will retain water.  Progesterone is a natural diuretic and when levels falls below where it needs to be, women will experience bloating.  It is also important not to have too little estrogen because it will effect the production of bile.  Bile helps break down fats in food and helps with cholesterol synthesis as well as acting as a lubricant for our small intestines.  If all of this is not working properly, then bloating will occur.

While hair loss in women isn’t as prevalent in women as is it is in men, because women have more estrogen, it can be an issue when women enter menopause.  Stress multiplies this issue. Just like when women are pregnant, their hormones effect their hair.  As the hormones begin to decrease, women begin experiencing thinning hair.  While Vitamin D-3 is extremely helpful as well as sermorelin, balancing your hormones can fix this embarrassing issue.

This is probably the most known side-effect of menopause.  Hot flashes can last minutes or up to an hour and sometimes finish with a cold chill. The lack of estrogen is the culprit of hot flashes.  Estrogen is directly linked to the hypothalamus which effects body temperature as well as other important things in a women’s body, such as sex hormones, appetite and sleep.  Low estrogen tricks the hypothalamus into thinking that the body is too hot, and tadah, there is your hot flash.  Bioidentical hormones are a balm to this annoying side-effect of menopause.

Did you know that when you do not get enough sleep, approximately 10 different hormones are effected?  Lack of sleep causes a multitude of issues. The reason why sleeplessness causes such a problem for menopausal women is that during sleep is when your hormones works their healing process.  This makes this a circle of cause and effect to make many women feel worse after they wake up, then before they went to bed.  Both estrogen and testosterone are insomnia hormones.  Estrogen helps you to stay asleep and a lack of testosterone can cause snoring and sleep apnea.  It is truly amazing how much better women feel, simply by having a good night of rest.

Low libido is the #1 complaint among women as they enter menopause.  When progesterone begins to decrease during perimenopause, estrogen becomes the predominant hormone.  This imbalance creates vaginal dryness and effects a women’s ability to have orgasms.  And while it is thought that testosterone is the male hormone, it is important for a woman to have enough testosterone.  Testosterone increases sensitivity and orgasms.  It goes without saying that other factors contribute to this issue when a woman does not feel at her best, but when you balance the hormones it goes a long way in helping a frustrating issue for women.

Do you find yourself switching from mad to happy to sad to angry to tears?  You know it can’t just be the PMS. What is going on?  Mood swings go hand in hand with menopause. When a woman’s body begins changing so rapidly and hormones decreasing, it is to be expected that your mood can swing erratically. When estrogen levels are off, it effects the serotonin that you produce.  There is no need to reach for the nearest Prozac cocktail.  Simply adjusting to bioidentical hormones can change those mood swings.

You’ve checked the air conditioner before you went to sleep, but despite feeling chilled you wake up covered in sweat.  Why is that?  This is one of the primary things that happen to a woman that signal a woman is beginning menopause.  It’s all about the hypothalamus.  The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that controls your body temperature.  When your estrogen level decreases, the hypothalamus thinks the body is overheating.  In order to counteract that, your body produces a night sweat.  Sermorelin alone can improve this annoying effect of menopause.