Hormone Replacement Therapy

Aging, diseases, illness, and daily stress can affect your hormones, making levels drop and causing many possible symptoms. If you have a hormonal imbalance, Victor Mendoza, MD, Umut Tufan, MD, and the rest of the Fountain of Youth Medical Spa team can restore hormone levels and improve your health through hormone replacement therapy. Call the office in Birmingham, Alabama, or book online today to schedule an appointment to learn if your symptoms are related to low hormones. You can meet with the team in person or through telehealth.

What is hormone replacement therapy?

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) restores healthy hormone levels. Women and men can have hormonal imbalances at any age for many reasons.

Stress, nutritional deficiencies, autoimmune diseases, obesity, and health problems affecting hormone-producing glands may cause hormonal imbalances. Aging also influences men and women.

Hormone production naturally declines with aging, resulting in lower levels of insulin, human growth hormone, and thyroid hormones (to name a few). Estrogen and testosterone levels also decrease — dramatically in women and gradually in men.

What symptoms indicate I need hormone replacement therapy?

Hormones regulate every system and function in your body. As a result, you could have many possible symptoms, depending on which hormone is out of balance.

For example, low thyroid hormones (hypothyroidism) may cause:

• Fatigue
• Constipation
• Hoarseness
• Sensitivity to cold
• Muscle weakness
• Joint pain
• Weight gain
• Slow heart rate

Since many women and men seek hormone replacement therapy for symptoms related to low estrogen and testosterone levels, let’s explore those separately.

What symptoms indicate estrogen and testosterone problems?

Women experience a dramatic hormone imbalance at menopause when their ovaries stop producing estrogen. Low estrogen causes many possible symptoms, including:

• Hot flashes and night sweats
• Mood swings
• Vaginal dryness
• Loss of sex drive
• Pain during intercourse
• Urinary incontinence
• Memory problems
• Dry, aging skin
• Hair loss
• Insomnia
• Weight gain
• Depression
• Weak, brittle bones (osteoporosis)

Even if they’re healthy, men’s testosterone levels naturally drop by up to 2% every year after 30. As testosterone declines, men experience one or more of the following:

• Low energy
• Declining sex drive
• Erectile dysfunction (ED)
• Loss of muscle mass (muscle weakness)
• Loss of body and beard hair
• Weight gain
• Insomnia
• Memory loss
• Difficulty concentrating
• Depression and anxiety 

Hormone replacement therapy reverses or prevents all the symptoms caused by low estrogen and testosterone.

What hormone replacement therapy will I receive?

If blood tests reveal you have low hormone levels, your Fountain of Youth Medical Spa provider may recommend bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) to restore your balance.

Bioidentical hormones duplicate the molecular structure of the hormones produced in your body. As a result, BHRT produces predictable, safe results, an advantage you won’t get with synthetic hormones.

Connect with Fountain of Youth Medical Spa if you have symptoms or concerns about hormone imbalances. You can schedule a telehealth or in-person appointment online or by calling the office today.