The hormonal changes that drive menopause can give rise to physical, emotional, and sexual symptoms that vary in nature, severity, and duration from one woman to the next. While these symptoms may be normal and even expected, they’re often irritating and disruptive, too.
As primary care experts who provide a full scope of women’s health services at Primary Care Walk-In Medical Clinic, our skilled team offers hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help you counteract persistent menopause symptoms and improve your quality of life.
Here, we discuss common side effects of menopause and explain how HRT can help.
Menopause, or the end of menstruation and female fertility, is the inevitable change of life that every woman expects to go through.
Most women reach menopause naturally — typically in their early 50s — after a years-long transitional phase called perimenopause. Women may also enter menopause earlier and more directly, following a hysterectomy.
Whether it’s long, gradual, and natural, or direct and induced by surgery, the menopause process is defined and driven by reduced levels of estrogen and other female reproductive hormones.
Most of the side effects that emerge during perimenopause and/or menopause are the result of this significant and sustained sex hormone decline. As your ovaries produce and release estrogen and progesterone at ever-diminishing rates, you may experience:
Some of the most notorious menopause symptoms are purely physical. These include:
Declining reproductive hormone levels can undermine your mental and emotional well-being, giving rise to extreme moodiness or mood swings, persistent symptoms of anxiety and/or depression, and chronic sleep problems, including insomnia.
Menopause can also affect your sexual wellness. While many women experience chronic vaginal dryness, some develop a more severe case of persistent dryness and irritation called vaginal atrophy. Low libido, stress incontinence, and discomfort during sex are also common.
Healthy lifestyle habits — including daily exercise, healthy eating, improved sleep hygiene practices, and stress control — can often alleviate mild menopausal symptoms. Persistent or severe symptoms, on the other hand, usually require a more targeted approach.
That’s where hormone replacement therapy comes in. HRT can ease or stop any of the unwanted effects of menopause, including the top five symptoms that many women find most bothersome:
We use a prescription blend of supplemental hormones to offset your hormonal deficiencies, thereby alleviating or stopping severe, persistent menopause symptoms by restoring normal hormonal balance across your body systems.
HRT works fairly quickly to ease your menopause symptoms. Most women experience some level of relief within days, followed by increasing relief as their hormone levels reach a more optimal balance.
Your hormone prescription may be in the form of:
Many women opt for the slow-release HRT pellet, which we implant just beneath the skin, usually in the upper buttocks area.
The implantation process is painless, and the rice-sized pellet begins releasing its hormones in a controlled manner right away. It lasts for several months before it needs to be replaced.
If your HRT regimen becomes less effective as time goes by, we can reassess your hormone prescription needs to keep your levels optimized and your menopause symptoms at bay.
To learn more about the HRT services available at Primary Care Walk-In Medical Clinic, call or click online to schedule a consultation at your nearest office in Gilbert, Fountain Hills, Mesa, or Scottsdale, Arizona, today.
