Are You a Candidate for HRT?

In order to be able to know what to do and what to know regarding hormone replacement therapy, it’s important to know what it is. It is a treatment that is given to help regulate the body’s natural hormone levels. This is helpful to people with low testosterone or if they have had a hysterectomy or are going through extremely early menopause for some reason or another. There are some women that are still candidates even if they are experiencing menopause naturally during their midlife.

There are many benefits of hormone replacement therapy but there are also risks to the different kinds of hormone treatment that is available these days. You have to make sure that you are a candidate before you start trying to get the treatment done. Here are some things that you need to do and know in order to find out if you are a candidate for low testosterone treatment or any other kind of hormone replacement therapy.

Things to Know
Hormone therapy may be referred to as replacement therapy but it’s not actually a replacement. Usually when someone gets estrogen therapy or low testosterone treatment, it’s because they aren’t producing enough anymore.

Another important thing that you should know is that there are two different types of hormone treatment; systemic and low dose. Systemic is usually used to treat hot flashes by raising blood hormone levels. Low dose is usually used more often for things like vaginal dryness.

Furthermore, if you are going through menopause naturally, if you only take estrogen to help relieve symptoms, but you find yourself at a increased risk of cancer of the lining of the uterus. That’s why you may have to take both estrogen and progesterone simultaneously.

The thing is, hormone replace therapy or low testosterone treatment is not the cure all that it seems to be. While hormones do cause a lot of problems when they are not functioning properly, some severe cases do not receive the relief that they want from it.

If you insist on hormone replacement treatment, then settle for the lowest dose that you can get and still feel the effects and for the shortest time possible.

Who should or should not consider hormone replacement therapy?

If you have breast cancer, heart or liver disease or a history of having blood clots, then you will not be a candidate for hormone replacement therapy whether it be estrogen/progesterone or low testosterone treatments. If you do not have menopausal symptoms, you likely will not be considered either. However, if you do have the symptoms or you have people in your family that suffer from osteoporosis then you will be considered a candidate for the treatment.

Things to Do

The very first thing that you’ll want to do before anything else, is to talk to your doctor. There are going to be a myriad of questions that you’ll want to ask and that you will be asked. Extensive conversations will take place and medical history inquired about. Don’t get frustrated with the process. Your doctor is trying to help you as much as he or she can but there are certain policies in place to stop hormone replacement therapy being given to someone who won’t respond correctly to it.

If your doctor says you should start with a low dose, don’t try to convince him or her otherwise. They have a lot of experience with these thing and know what they are talking about. If your body responds properly, then you may have your dosage upped as time goes on, depending on how things go. Just be patient and trust your doctor’s orders.

This is a popular symptom treatment for menopause as well as low testosterone but it is still quite controversial. This is why there are still a lot of hoops to jump through if you’re going to find out if the therapy is right for you or not.

Arm yourself with knowledge and medical opinion in order to make an informed decision about what you are going to have to go through. You should research the risks as well as the benefits. There are definitely unpleasant side affects that some people go through and then there are people that only experience the benefits.