Hormones and Pain Management
Hormone replacement therapy has become a hot topic, and for good reasons. A youthful hormone profile is intensely health-restorative. Our patients undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) find that energy levels soar, inflammatory pains plunge, and a sense of youthful vim and vigor they thought lost forever returns.
The HRT landscape can be confusing. New options and approaches become available every month. At Revive Pain Solutions, we scour the literature for new data and stay abreast of “the latest and greatest” in this rapidly developing subspecialty. Our job is to provide our patients with the safe and effective options our clinical experience supports.
Every doctor approaches HRT differently. I’ll explain my treatments in upcoming blogs where we will use fictional but typical patients to demonstrate, keeping in mind that each patient is unique, and what may be appropriate for one will not be advisable for another.
For now, I’d like you to remember a few key hormone points that will help you understand how HRT works.
-All of us need free T3 thyroid hormone to feel alert, alive, and metabolically active. Very often, levothyroxine, aka Synthroid, does not produce adequate levels of free T3. If your doctors only measure TSH and T4, never measuring T3, I feel they are missing the boat.
-All of us need testosterone to develop and maintain lean muscle, shed fat, build strong bones, maintain sexual desire, and fight the inflammation that causes pain. Men need roughly 10 to 20 times as much as women, but women need it too! Testosterone is measured as total testosterone and free testosterone, but FREE testosterone is what counts!!! If you’ve not had a FREE testosterone level taken, you are not being properly assessed.
– All of us need estradiol (a subset of estrogen) to protect heart, vascular, and brain health. Women need estradiol to maintain the health of the pelvic floor and the vagina. Because estradiol is in part derived from testosterone, men rarely need to take additional estradiol.
-Only women require progesterone. For women, progesterone is critically important. We’ll discuss this at length in future blogs.
Check back for much more on hormone replacement therapy and what it can do for you to fight pain and restore energy!
