Hormone therapy is used to treat menopausal discomfort as well as protect long-term health as women age.
Hormone Replacement Therapy is medication that contains female hormones. The medication replaces the estrogen that your body stops making during menopause.
Hormone therapy is most often used to treat hot flashes and vaginal dryness and discomfort. HRT has also been proved to prevent bone loss and reduce fractures in postmenopausal women.
Basic Types of Hormone Therapy:
There are 2 main types of estrogen therapy:
- Systemic estrogen — which comes in pill, skin patch, ring, gel, cream or spray form — typically contains a higher dose of estrogen that is absorbed
- throughout the body. It is use to treat any of the common symptoms of menopause.
- Low-dose vaginal preparations of estrogen — which come in cream, tablet or ring form — used to minimize the amount of estrogen absorbed by the body.
- This is why low-dose vaginal preparations are usually use to treat only the vaginal and urinary symptoms of menopause.
If you haven’t had your uterus removed, your doctor may prescribe estrogen along with progesterone or progestin (progesterone-like medication). This is because estrogen alone, when not balanced by progesterone, can stimulate growth of the lining of the uterus, increasing the risk of endometrial cancer. If you have had your uterus removed (hysterectomy), you may not need to take progestin.
Who Benefits most from Hormone Replacement Therapy?
- Systemic estrogen therapy remains the most effective treatment for the relief of troublesome menopausal hot flashes and night sweats.
- Estrogen can ease vaginal symptoms of menopause, such as dryness, itching, burning and discomfort with intercourse.
- Systemic estrogen helps protect against the bone-thinning disease called osteoporosis. However, doctors usually recommend medications called bisphosphonates to treat osteoporosis. But estrogen therapy may help if you either can’t tolerate or aren’t benefiting from other treatments.
- If you had your ovaries surgically removed before age 45, stopped having periods before age 45 (premature or early menopause) or lost normal function of your ovaries before age 40 (primary ovarian insufficiency), your body has been exposed to less estrogen than the bodies of women who experience typical menopause. Estrogen therapy can help decrease your risk of certain health conditions, including osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, dementia and mood changes.