HORMONAL REPLACEMENT THERAPY
Compounding medication for Hormone Replacement Therapy near me
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is often prescribed for women and men experiencing signs and symptoms of aging. Even though there are numerous commercially available HRTs, not all patients respond appropriately to standard dosing strengths or methods.
Compounding Bio-Identical Natural Hormones are hormones of the same chemical structure as those generated by the human body. These hormones produced naturally in the body cannot be patented, and companies have no financial incentive to commercialize them.
Compounding pharmacists create bioidentical hormones from a doctor’s prescription and offer them in various forms, including nasal, sublingual, and percutaneous administration, as well as patches, injectables, and suppositories. Plant-derived Bio-Identical Natural Hormones are biologically identical to hormones released by our bodies when we were younger, allowing your body to restore its natural balance.
Some examples of Bio-Identical Hormones include:
- Progesterone
- Estrogens
- Testosterone
- DHEA
- Pregnenolone
Benefits of Hormonal Replacement Therapy:
- Compounded preparation can be adjusted to suit your own hormone levels.
- Compounded preparations are also custom-made for a patient according to a health care provider’s specification, unlike medications licensed by the FDA to be manufactured and marketed in standardized dosages.
- Compounding is used to prepare a drug to treat patients where the exact drugs needed are not commercially accessible or when patient intolerances necessitate different ingredients, preservatives, or routes of administration. For example, there is an FDA-approved progesterone product that contains peanut oil for menopausal hormone therapy. The prescription of progesterone compounds to remove peanut oil may enable a patient with an allergy to using the drug safely.
- Benefits of compound hormone therapy over FDA-approved traditional hormone therapy include increased dose flexibility, low-dose preparation, and potentially lower costs.
Disadvantages of Hormonal Replacement Therapy:
- Custom mixing commercially available drug products can lack a clear biological justification and medical proof of efficacy.
- The drug is made from several sources for the drug, so effects and side effects making it impossible to pinpoint the active ingredient. Compounding formulations are commonly regarded as inferior to FDA-approved drugs, which have far better-defined pharmacokinetic properties.
- There is not enough evidence to back up arguments that compounded bioidentical hormones are better than traditional menopausal hormone therapy.
- Custom compound hormones pose additional risks. These preparations have varying levels of purity and potency and a lack of effectiveness and safety information.
- Both under dosage and overdosage are possible due to variable bioavailability and bioactivity.
- Mostly, conventional hormone therapy is preferred over compounded hormone therapy.
Female hormonal therapy
Estrogens, progesterone, and testosterone, both manufactured products and compounded preparations, have been used and clinically accepted internationally since the 1940s. Millions of women depend on bioidentical hormones, infertility challenges, menopausal problems, and other hormonal imbalances. Collaboration with patients and doctors, compounding pharmacists, offers custom hormonal therapy in the most appropriate strength and dosage form to meet individual women’s needs with the hormones. Hormonal therapy should be started carefully after assessing the woman’s medical and family history. Each woman is unique and will respond differently to therapy. Closer monitoring and modification are required.
- Estrogens:
Estrogens mean a group of related hormones, each of which has a unique activity profile. The circulating estrogen levels of a woman fluctuate in normal circumstances based on her menstrual cycle. These hormones are often combined to restore a normal physiologic balance for Hormone Replacement Therapy. The three principal estrogens produced in women are:
- E1 (Estrone; 10-20% of circulating estrogens) estrogen produced after menopause.
- E2 (Estradiol; 10-30% of circulating estrogens) major secretory product of the ovary, and estrogen produced before menopause.
- E3 (60-80% of circulating estrogens)
- Progesterone:
Perimenopausal women are commonly prescribed to counteract “estrogen dominance,” which occurs when they have less progesterone than their normal levels compared with estrogens.
It enhances bone mineral density alone or combined with estrogen. Reduces the risk of cancer of the endometrium in women receiving estrogen. In females who are replaced with estrogen, the benefits of progesterone are not limited to preventing endometrial cancer. Not only women with an ‘intact uterus,’ but women with hysterectomy also require Progesterone therapy. Vasomotor flushing is the most uncomfortable menopause complaint and is the most common reason women look for and continue to comply with HRT. Over 40 years of therapy with hot flashes have been supported by estrogens, but progesterone can also be effective.
- Androgens:
Androgens are hormones that play an important role in maintaining libido and are important for the integrity of the skin, muscle, and bone both for men and women. Serum testosterone decreases are associated with DHEA, and DHEA-sulfate decreases because of hysterectomy, menopause, or age-related gender. DHEA is an androgen precursor that can lead to testosterone in your body. However, most androgens made in the female body, even before menopause, come from peripheral conversion of DHEA. The woman’s ovary continues producing androgens after menopause. As the body ages, DHEA is reduced so that DHEA production is often insufficient when a female undergoes menopause. Furthermore, ERT may cause ovarian and adrenal androgen deficiency, creating the simultaneous replacement of physiological androgen. Recently, the added androgens to the HRT regimen of a woman have been focused on reducing recalcitrant menopausal symptoms, protecting them from osteoporosis, immune loss, obesity, and diabetes.
- Male Hormone Replacement Therapy:
Serum testosterone levels decrease steadily with age in most men. Total serum testosterone levels in men aged 75 years are approximately two-thirds of the levels at 25 years of age. Some men can, however, experience a remarkably sudden change in the level of testosterone. Signs and symptoms may include:
- weakness
- osteoporosis
- heart disease
- depression, anxiety
- slow wound healing
- reduced libido
- erectile dysfunction
- prostate problems
- reduced muscle mass
- disturbed sleep; insomnia
- reduced cognitive function.
A person can be hypogonadal at all ages when the total testosterone is under 200 ng/dl, or the bioavailable testosterone is below 60 ng/dl. It is recommended that older men start hormone replacement therapy when a total testosterone level < 300 ng/dl. When hormones are replaced or restored to physiological levels considered normal for younger men, many signs and symptoms may change dramatically. Proper laboratory monitoring and clinical response are critical to optimal replacement therapy with testosterone.
Testosterone Replacement Therapy for men provides a lot of benefits, including:
- Increased strength and stature
- Improvement in mood and depression
- Improvement in sleep and quality of life
- Decrease in cardiovascular risk and normalize blood clotting.
- Improvement in libido and sexual function
- Increased muscle mass and body composition
- Enhanced cognition, concentration, and memory
- Reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome
- Lower cholesterol and triglycerides
Conclusion:
Although dozens of commercially available hormone-containing products for safety and efficacy have been evaluated, individual compound preparations for millions of patients are still needed to evaluate. Compounding enables individual patients to customize and titrate the dose, dosage form, and route of administration to achieve the desired clinical effect while minimizing any potential side effects. Therefore, many individual patients prefer cHRT for limited dosage forms and strengths compared to produced products.
