BHRT Bioidentical Hormone Therapy

Fayard
Fayard Member Posts: 438 Member
Have you heard anything about Bioidentical Hormone Therapy.
I was browsing through Suzanne Somers' book "Knockout", and she mentions to be in this therapy for menopause.
I am going to read about it, but I was wondering if anyone has read, tried of heard about it.

Comments

  • Tethys41
    Tethys41 Member Posts: 1,382 Member
    Not advisable
    Suzanne Sommers is on a very expensive monitoring program to ensure that her bioidentical HRT is not putting her body into an estrogen imbalance. I've had two practitioners, plus my medical oncolgist, tell me that this type of treatment for menopause is perfectly safe for me. Later, when I had my estrogen tested, one of the practitioners, who had said it was safe, looked at my results and said I was not a candidate and it was a good thing I hadn't started it. I had not pursued it because my naturopath said, "Absolutely not." Even though my tumors were not hormone sensitive, she said your body can change at any time and start producing hormone sensitive tumors. My gyn/onc said he had a patient who was in remission for 17 years. Her medical oncologist prescribed bioidentical HRT, and her cancer returned within a few months. Just seems a bit too risky, regardless of what some practitioners will tell you. There are a number of safe alternatives.
  • Fayard
    Fayard Member Posts: 438 Member
    Tethys41 said:

    Not advisable
    Suzanne Sommers is on a very expensive monitoring program to ensure that her bioidentical HRT is not putting her body into an estrogen imbalance. I've had two practitioners, plus my medical oncolgist, tell me that this type of treatment for menopause is perfectly safe for me. Later, when I had my estrogen tested, one of the practitioners, who had said it was safe, looked at my results and said I was not a candidate and it was a good thing I hadn't started it. I had not pursued it because my naturopath said, "Absolutely not." Even though my tumors were not hormone sensitive, she said your body can change at any time and start producing hormone sensitive tumors. My gyn/onc said he had a patient who was in remission for 17 years. Her medical oncologist prescribed bioidentical HRT, and her cancer returned within a few months. Just seems a bit too risky, regardless of what some practitioners will tell you. There are a number of safe alternatives.

    Thank you so much for your
    Thank you so much for your input!
  • Ruffy7
    Ruffy7 Member Posts: 126
    Fayard said:

    Thank you so much for your
    Thank you so much for your input!

    I just recently started
    I just recently started bhrt. Got to be a quality of life thing, ever since surgery in April that took out right ovary, menopause kicked in BIG TIME. My cancer is appendix and my onc says it isn't estrogen dependent so it was ok to be on hrt. Hopefully, I won't need to be on it for long. I started the vivelle dot patch and prometrium - so far it's been a week and still have major hot flashes/night sweats :( We'll see - maybe dose (.05) will need to be increased. At least, the prometrium has been helping me get some better sleep at night. I know some cancers (ovarian, uterine, breast) are estrogen related. Since I'm being followed every 3 months by onc and also closely followed by gyn, I think it'll be ok in my situation... everyone has to decide what's best for them though. Good luck, menopause on top of cancer really sucks!
  • Ruffy7
    Ruffy7 Member Posts: 126
    Ruffy7 said:

    I just recently started
    I just recently started bhrt. Got to be a quality of life thing, ever since surgery in April that took out right ovary, menopause kicked in BIG TIME. My cancer is appendix and my onc says it isn't estrogen dependent so it was ok to be on hrt. Hopefully, I won't need to be on it for long. I started the vivelle dot patch and prometrium - so far it's been a week and still have major hot flashes/night sweats :( We'll see - maybe dose (.05) will need to be increased. At least, the prometrium has been helping me get some better sleep at night. I know some cancers (ovarian, uterine, breast) are estrogen related. Since I'm being followed every 3 months by onc and also closely followed by gyn, I think it'll be ok in my situation... everyone has to decide what's best for them though. Good luck, menopause on top of cancer really sucks!

    update
    Don't want to get my hopes up but the past 2 days hot flashes have seemed to decreased - finally had the best 5 hours of sleep last night! Still a little anxious about all this but starting to feel better than I've felt in 4 months. Hopefully I can put cancer and menopause on back burner till check ups late October :)