Aging brings with it wisdom and life experience, but it also brings hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings and other symptoms associated with menopause.
To help relieve these uncomfortable symptoms of menopause, many women are turning to Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).
The benefits of hormone therapy not only fight hot flashes, mild incontinence, and mood fluctuations, but it helps increase libido, avoid fractures as a result of osteoporosis, improve sleep and benefits the cardiovascular system.
While it does have side effects, many women want to engage in the treatment because of its advantages. Here are some of the benefits of hormone therapy
What Is Hormone Replacement Therapy?
Hormone levels decrease in a woman’s body typically due to menopause. The body often needs estrogen and progesterone or progestin, which is a synthetic hormone that acts like progesterone.
Hormone Replacement therapy does what the name sounds like. It replaces and restores hormone levels that have changed in the body.
HRT can be administered in a variety of ways:
- Pills
- Patches
- Gels
- Implants
- Pessaries
Hormone Replacement therapy can be provided by a medical clinic like Core Medical Group.
While the therapy has its risks such as gallbladder disease and raising the risk of breast cancer and endometrial cancer, it offers an abundance of benefits.
Here’s how HRT eases menopause symptoms and improves health in a variety of ways.
1. Reduces Hot Flashes and Night Sweats
Some of the most annoying symptoms of menopause include hot flashes and night sweats. Hot flashes result due to hormonal changes that affect the body’s ability to regulate temperature.
Women feel the heat rushing through the body. This heat can cause women to sweat, have heart palpitations and their skin to turn reddish in color.
This doesn’t occur just once a day. It can occur 10-20 times per day. These annoying hot flashes can continue through age 70 to age 80.
If this has happened to you, you may have awoke drenched in sweat. This is known as ‘night sweats.’
HRT restores your hormonal imbalance and adjusts your body’s temperature so you don’t experience this uncomfortable scenario.
2. Relieves Vaginal Discomfort During Intercourse
As we age we lose lubrication. This causes vaginal dryness which can be painful during sex.
One of the benefits of hormone replacement therapy is lubrication. This can improve the quality of a couple’s sex life and improves vaginal dryness caused by menopause.
3. Improves Loss of Libido
After menopause, some women lose their libidos. This occurs because menopause lowers estrogen and testosterone levels in the female body.
When HRT replaces and restores these levels, the therapy also restores a woman’s loss of libido that’s linked to menopause.
4. Hormone Replacement Therapy Prevents Thinning of Vaginal Walls
Hormone replacement therapy has a tendency to prevent vaginal walls from thinning. Vaginal walls get thinner due to estrogen levels decreasing.
The tissue on the walls can break and get thinner. Thinning of vaginal walls can also cause itching, dryness and sometimes can lead to vaginal and urology infections that may require you to seek out a urologist.
This is also one of the reasons aside from a lack of lubrication why women experience pain during intercourse.
5. Hormone Replacement Therapy Can Prevent Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis causes fractures in aging women. This occurs due to bone loss. Bone density decreases in women during menopause when hormone levels lessen.
Hormone replacement therapy can lessen lower the risk of fractures due to hormone levels dropping.
By age 60 much of the bone loss has taken place. That’s why it’s important to prevent bone loss immediately following menopause.
If you are less than 60 years old, this is something you could potentially benefit from in a significant way.
After 60, much of the bone loss may have already happened. Hormone replacement therapy may help you avoid osteoporosis and preserve bone density and bone integrity before it’s too late.
6. Helps Lessen Mood Swings
One of the other benefits of hormone replacement therapy is the prevention of mood swings. Mood swings are a common symptom of both perimenopause and menopause.
HRT helps because the restored estrogen produces serotonin, a neurotransmitter that balances mood.
By regulating estrogen levels, hormone replacement therapy helps to combat irritability and mood swings caused by perimenopause and menopause.
7. Provides Relief From Anxiety and Depression and Trouble Sleeping
Some women have reported experiencing anxiety and mild depression during menopause due to the physical and emotional changes the body experiences from aging.
While many medical professional opinions vary on the subject of HRT and its impact on depression and anxiety in women with menopause, there exists some support to say it can help ease symptoms.
If you feel mildly depressed due to menopause, you may benefit from hormone replacement therapy. As mentioned before, hormone replacement therapy can help regulate serotonin.
If your mild depression is due to something other than menopause, it may be beneficial for a doctor to prescribe antidepressants.
It’s essential to discuss your particular situation and your medical history with a qualified medical professional.
Sleep Benefits
Some women who take hormone replacement therapy have seen improvements in their quality of sleep and slept more soundly through the night.
HRT can battle restlessness and relieve night sweats making it easier for you to fall and stay asleep. It can help you wake up more refreshed which gives you more energy during the day.
Is Hormone Replacement Therapy For You?
OB/GYN’s and medical clinics prescribe hormone replacement therapy for many women suffering from menopausal symptoms.
HRT has helped many women, but may not be for you if you are pregnant, have high blood pressure, are being treated for cancer, are prone to blood clots or have liver disease.
Final Thoughts on Benefits of Hormone Replacement Therapy
You’ve learned seven benefits of hormone replacement therapy. Let’s review what HRT can do.
- Lower the risk of osteoporosis
- Decrease hot flashes and night sweats
- Lessen mood swings
- Enhance sexual pleasure
- Lessen pain from vaginal dryness
- Help fight mild depression and anxiety
- Improve sleep
Hormone replacement therapy also helps to reduce mild incontinence and urinary tract infections that can occur in some menopausal women.
Is hormone replacement therapy safe? Many women think so, but the best thing to do is to see your doctor or visit a hormone replacement therapy clinic to learn if HRT is right for you.
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