I firmly believe that the drug companies are behind this spreading of mistruths about BHRT, so women will take whatever these companied have produced or are planning to produce and on which they will make tons of $. Somewhat like bad mouthing Ivermectin and then producing something very similar and acting like it’s the new best Civid drug. I have taken BHRT since 2000, topical estrogen and progesterone, then added oral progesterone for sleep, and finally topical testosterone. I have tons of energy, look much younger than my 73 years and wholeheartedly recommend this approach to dealing with menopause and beyond. I don’t want to be like my mother who never took hormones. She lived to be 99 1/2 but had dementia for the last 10 years of her life.
so just because somebody’s doing hormones doesn’t mean they do them in a way that might be optimal for that patient although all of this is very controversial, but I’m aware that some of the people that you mentioned practice quite differently than we discussed in our group here so just FYI but thank you so much for your input. Well appreciated
I spoke with Dr. R yesterday about this very topic. I still hear many conventional docs touting FDA approved as best, and anything that is not FDA approved as unsafe. This too is 100% false as you well know, yet it’s being talked about. I know NAMS is holding its meeting this week, and I’ll be curious to hear what is said about compounded HRT. I’ve heard a lot of NAMS providers “dis” compounded BHRT saying that they are unregulated, without any basis, which sadly perpetuates these false rumors about HRT.
The University of Arizona study on 4000 insurance cases showed bioidentical steroids reduced risk of Alzheimer's dx if used for about 6 years, by 79%. The new 7 Million NIH study shows efficacy of natural steroids. There is a lot of science. I run around the country and world, able to as i am on BHRT, sharing this science. Thanks for all you do Jill and when you write and share with us here it is well appreciated. Stay tuned I am relaunching my podcast..... hugs.... dlb
I loved that study when you shared it ~ another look at a huge number of women who experienced reduced risk just by optimizing their hormones. I was re-reading Estrogen Matters and I was struck by page 33 where Dr. Bluming and Carol Tavris discuss the fact that women were touting HRT at the time of the WHI, and Dr. Roussouw and some of the other PIs had an agenda with the WHI to "change thinking about hormones." He actually said that "The bandwagon in support of HRT is clearly rolling" and that "It's time to put the brakes on that bandwagon."
Women seem to be waking up once again and these docs who have little no to knowledge about hormones seem to be pushing back, much like the docs and PIs in the WHI. It's worrisome, so I agree, we have to keep shouting it from the rooftops as much as we can.
Thanks for all that you do. You are the reason that I went into this specialty~ Safe Hormones Smart Woman changed everything for me, and inspired something inside of me that won't turn off. ;) xo Jill
This is completely nuts! I have to say, I recently read the highly-recommended book Estrogen Matters and while it was a great read, he also parroted some very incorrect information about bio-identical hormones--even to the extent of calling out Dr. Brownstein by name! So even though he does a great job at dispelling the myths about hormone replacement in general, he has also been "taken in" by prevailing mythology regarding anything not controlled by the FDA.
I interviewed him for Safe Hormones. He is a CA oncologist who was one of the docs that first help change the hugely disfiguring bc surgeries by prooving that conservative care saved many a woman's life just as well, and now he is battling hormones and even for bc patients. I think he was on the board of the company making Premarin for many years and perhaps he feels he can only do so many battles and getting estrogen accepted, especially for high risk women, may be his focus. But I get ya. Totally. dlb
Dr B, I recently requested a discussion about HRT w my D.O. Gynecologist. After listening to why I was interested in possibly trying Estr/prog/testos she launched into that I was far to old to begin (I’m a very young healthy 71) and that “very bad things” like stroke, heart attack and cancer would happen, so she could not prescribe. End of conversation.
Am I too old? I realize I’m late to the party lol, she did write a script for estradiol gel which now I question whether safe to use without progesterone. I’d asked about testosterone for a libido boost which was met with a “deal with it” remark. I was half way expecting a DO to be more on top of the newer studies but she definitely was relying on the WHI tale.
Did I miss the party or should I continue to look?
You can start hormone replacement at any age even in your 90s but you just have to have a doctor that knows what they’re doing that’s why I’m running all over the country trying to help with the other doctor trying to help train more and more practitioners! Good luck with it all!
Thank you! After following you for a long time I was pretty sure you would say any age. I totally understand that this is a highly specialized area of treatment because it’s been such a mass indoctrination by allopathic medicine. I appreciate your work helping women live their best life. You are an outstanding role model.
One more we question- I’m guessing if I can’t find a smart doc in town, this can maybe be done via telemedicine with appropriate labs and good discussion.
I’ve been on BHRT for many years and every time I hear it’s under threat again it sets off my anxiety! It’s so frustrating to have to constantly have this uncertainty looming especially when so much false formation is circulating about BHRT. I’m also in the Austin- area. I was a patient of Dr Edgerton’s for years and also saw Dr Oubre. Wasn’t happy with either. I’m not familiar with the others but good to know some names. I currently use Wiseman for some things and am mostly very happy there. After going through HRT providers for almost 20 years in this area it’s a challenge for sure but slowly getting better.
Thanks Dr. Berkson for this article. I am in your area, actually Round Rock Tx. Do you have any doctors in the Austin area, that you know to be good hormone doctors? I have been to 3 different ones now, and I am not convinced any of them have much experience with BHRT. Do you see patients?
THis is the issue, experience. But Selma at Wiseman Family Practice on River Rd and I heard Dr. Melissa Miller is good but I don't know her but promising. Both are $150 a month and may include even hormones not positive. dlb
I live in Austin and am extremely experienced in this area. As a certified sexuality counselor I regularly recommend a list of highly qualified local doctors to my clients for this very thing.
Try Dr.'s Haest, Oubre, or Edgerton, all in Austin. Also try nurse practitioner Samantha Thiry. (I hear good things about Dr. Wiseman's office too.) You may also want to visit or call the pharmacists at People's Pharmacy (a fantastic local compounding pharmacy chain) and ask for their list of recommended hormone expert physicians.
For one more research studies are needed on BHRT to determine the benefits and risks.
My gynecologist is the one that recommended them to me in my early 60s many years after a complete hysterectomy. My understanding is that people who have hysterectomies at an early age are more prone to Alzheimer’s. Not sure if BHRT can help prevent this if started many years after the surgery was done. It seems there is a disparity between what women go through and what men don’t have to go through. If men had to have a yearly screening of radiation to detect cancer there would be more of an uproar. Women had hysterectomies like it was getting a tooth pulled. If something similar happened to men there would be a lot more questions as to why. It seems to me there is a bias towards women’s and I’m not sure why this is acceptable.
that is the wrong lingo. we have many many studies. That's BS and that's what the docs all parrot. It was a Mayo Clinic study that showed if you had lost your ovaries at 45 or younger you had a statiscally rather higher chance of having a sudden fatal MI. Unless put on hormone therapies. BHRT can help at any age but certain ages have mored bennies or need to be used more slowly and carefully. Expertise is everything. Most docs now in practice have NOT been than taught menopause medicine or hormones. That gerontologists think there is nothing to do for demential screams of how they do not read the literature. Honestly most of the time patients ask docs about hormones, they get the wrong answers as these well intentioned docs who were told taught these answers and they have no time nor incliniation nor are encouraged to keep reading literature other than the the big pharma supported associations send them. I am too old to not call a spade a spade. guess that comes with being on this planet this long. It is really really challenging for docs to get quality hormone education and for patients to find these docs. best to you and thanks for writing. dlb
DR. Bergson, I commented before on a hormone post and was not very clear at all and you called me on it, so let me attempt it again. I use bioidentical cream of estrogen and testosterone, via functional medicine doctor, and the expense is too much for me at the moment. Can I get the same effect of administration by using the estrogen patch via my gynecologist per my insurance at no cost? The testosterone must cease bc my blood tests registers too much testosterone. Is this better posed? I believe in Bioidenticals and want to continue but my expenses are a little overwhelming at the moment as I contribute to my mother with advanced Alzheimer's, which scares the crap out of me. I DO NOT WANT THIS EXPERIENCE!!!
Estradiol patches are okay and distribute estrogen evenly but they lack estriol. T replacement is more a "how you feel" since the reference ranges aren't ideal. But you can only do what you can do but you can "try" to take some DHEA which is a parent moleucles and makes some T. go to the Boston School of Medicine web site and they have a great discussion on TR and DHEA. dlb
I firmly believe that the drug companies are behind this spreading of mistruths about BHRT, so women will take whatever these companied have produced or are planning to produce and on which they will make tons of $. Somewhat like bad mouthing Ivermectin and then producing something very similar and acting like it’s the new best Civid drug. I have taken BHRT since 2000, topical estrogen and progesterone, then added oral progesterone for sleep, and finally topical testosterone. I have tons of energy, look much younger than my 73 years and wholeheartedly recommend this approach to dealing with menopause and beyond. I don’t want to be like my mother who never took hormones. She lived to be 99 1/2 but had dementia for the last 10 years of her life.
Exactly and most of these shouting out loud nay sayers are still premenopausal. soon they will know what we are talking about first hand. dlb
well said amen sister! dlb
Well, not all those doctors recommend Biest
And some of them recommend oral estrogen
so just because somebody’s doing hormones doesn’t mean they do them in a way that might be optimal for that patient although all of this is very controversial, but I’m aware that some of the people that you mentioned practice quite differently than we discussed in our group here so just FYI but thank you so much for your input. Well appreciated
I spoke with Dr. R yesterday about this very topic. I still hear many conventional docs touting FDA approved as best, and anything that is not FDA approved as unsafe. This too is 100% false as you well know, yet it’s being talked about. I know NAMS is holding its meeting this week, and I’ll be curious to hear what is said about compounded HRT. I’ve heard a lot of NAMS providers “dis” compounded BHRT saying that they are unregulated, without any basis, which sadly perpetuates these false rumors about HRT.
The University of Arizona study on 4000 insurance cases showed bioidentical steroids reduced risk of Alzheimer's dx if used for about 6 years, by 79%. The new 7 Million NIH study shows efficacy of natural steroids. There is a lot of science. I run around the country and world, able to as i am on BHRT, sharing this science. Thanks for all you do Jill and when you write and share with us here it is well appreciated. Stay tuned I am relaunching my podcast..... hugs.... dlb
I loved that study when you shared it ~ another look at a huge number of women who experienced reduced risk just by optimizing their hormones. I was re-reading Estrogen Matters and I was struck by page 33 where Dr. Bluming and Carol Tavris discuss the fact that women were touting HRT at the time of the WHI, and Dr. Roussouw and some of the other PIs had an agenda with the WHI to "change thinking about hormones." He actually said that "The bandwagon in support of HRT is clearly rolling" and that "It's time to put the brakes on that bandwagon."
Women seem to be waking up once again and these docs who have little no to knowledge about hormones seem to be pushing back, much like the docs and PIs in the WHI. It's worrisome, so I agree, we have to keep shouting it from the rooftops as much as we can.
Thanks for all that you do. You are the reason that I went into this specialty~ Safe Hormones Smart Woman changed everything for me, and inspired something inside of me that won't turn off. ;) xo Jill
That means all the world to me as i am off, yet again, to leave my cozy home, and travel to help pass it forward. well appreciated - dlb.
This is completely nuts! I have to say, I recently read the highly-recommended book Estrogen Matters and while it was a great read, he also parroted some very incorrect information about bio-identical hormones--even to the extent of calling out Dr. Brownstein by name! So even though he does a great job at dispelling the myths about hormone replacement in general, he has also been "taken in" by prevailing mythology regarding anything not controlled by the FDA.
I interviewed him for Safe Hormones. He is a CA oncologist who was one of the docs that first help change the hugely disfiguring bc surgeries by prooving that conservative care saved many a woman's life just as well, and now he is battling hormones and even for bc patients. I think he was on the board of the company making Premarin for many years and perhaps he feels he can only do so many battles and getting estrogen accepted, especially for high risk women, may be his focus. But I get ya. Totally. dlb
Overall I thought it was a fantastic book. After all, we all have biases! I'm asking my NP's to read the book next as it had so many pearls.
Dr B, I recently requested a discussion about HRT w my D.O. Gynecologist. After listening to why I was interested in possibly trying Estr/prog/testos she launched into that I was far to old to begin (I’m a very young healthy 71) and that “very bad things” like stroke, heart attack and cancer would happen, so she could not prescribe. End of conversation.
Am I too old? I realize I’m late to the party lol, she did write a script for estradiol gel which now I question whether safe to use without progesterone. I’d asked about testosterone for a libido boost which was met with a “deal with it” remark. I was half way expecting a DO to be more on top of the newer studies but she definitely was relying on the WHI tale.
Did I miss the party or should I continue to look?
You can start hormone replacement at any age even in your 90s but you just have to have a doctor that knows what they’re doing that’s why I’m running all over the country trying to help with the other doctor trying to help train more and more practitioners! Good luck with it all!
Thank you! After following you for a long time I was pretty sure you would say any age. I totally understand that this is a highly specialized area of treatment because it’s been such a mass indoctrination by allopathic medicine. I appreciate your work helping women live their best life. You are an outstanding role model.
One more we question- I’m guessing if I can’t find a smart doc in town, this can maybe be done via telemedicine with appropriate labs and good discussion.
I’ve been on BHRT for many years and every time I hear it’s under threat again it sets off my anxiety! It’s so frustrating to have to constantly have this uncertainty looming especially when so much false formation is circulating about BHRT. I’m also in the Austin- area. I was a patient of Dr Edgerton’s for years and also saw Dr Oubre. Wasn’t happy with either. I’m not familiar with the others but good to know some names. I currently use Wiseman for some things and am mostly very happy there. After going through HRT providers for almost 20 years in this area it’s a challenge for sure but slowly getting better.
Thanks Dr. Berkson for this article. I am in your area, actually Round Rock Tx. Do you have any doctors in the Austin area, that you know to be good hormone doctors? I have been to 3 different ones now, and I am not convinced any of them have much experience with BHRT. Do you see patients?
THis is the issue, experience. But Selma at Wiseman Family Practice on River Rd and I heard Dr. Melissa Miller is good but I don't know her but promising. Both are $150 a month and may include even hormones not positive. dlb
Thank you so much Dr Berkson! I have also heard of Selma at Wiseman .
I live in Austin and am extremely experienced in this area. As a certified sexuality counselor I regularly recommend a list of highly qualified local doctors to my clients for this very thing.
Try Dr.'s Haest, Oubre, or Edgerton, all in Austin. Also try nurse practitioner Samantha Thiry. (I hear good things about Dr. Wiseman's office too.) You may also want to visit or call the pharmacists at People's Pharmacy (a fantastic local compounding pharmacy chain) and ask for their list of recommended hormone expert physicians.
Thank you KC!
For one more research studies are needed on BHRT to determine the benefits and risks.
My gynecologist is the one that recommended them to me in my early 60s many years after a complete hysterectomy. My understanding is that people who have hysterectomies at an early age are more prone to Alzheimer’s. Not sure if BHRT can help prevent this if started many years after the surgery was done. It seems there is a disparity between what women go through and what men don’t have to go through. If men had to have a yearly screening of radiation to detect cancer there would be more of an uproar. Women had hysterectomies like it was getting a tooth pulled. If something similar happened to men there would be a lot more questions as to why. It seems to me there is a bias towards women’s and I’m not sure why this is acceptable.
https://nutritionstudies.org/alzheimers-disease-and-women/
that is the wrong lingo. we have many many studies. That's BS and that's what the docs all parrot. It was a Mayo Clinic study that showed if you had lost your ovaries at 45 or younger you had a statiscally rather higher chance of having a sudden fatal MI. Unless put on hormone therapies. BHRT can help at any age but certain ages have mored bennies or need to be used more slowly and carefully. Expertise is everything. Most docs now in practice have NOT been than taught menopause medicine or hormones. That gerontologists think there is nothing to do for demential screams of how they do not read the literature. Honestly most of the time patients ask docs about hormones, they get the wrong answers as these well intentioned docs who were told taught these answers and they have no time nor incliniation nor are encouraged to keep reading literature other than the the big pharma supported associations send them. I am too old to not call a spade a spade. guess that comes with being on this planet this long. It is really really challenging for docs to get quality hormone education and for patients to find these docs. best to you and thanks for writing. dlb
DR. Bergson, I commented before on a hormone post and was not very clear at all and you called me on it, so let me attempt it again. I use bioidentical cream of estrogen and testosterone, via functional medicine doctor, and the expense is too much for me at the moment. Can I get the same effect of administration by using the estrogen patch via my gynecologist per my insurance at no cost? The testosterone must cease bc my blood tests registers too much testosterone. Is this better posed? I believe in Bioidenticals and want to continue but my expenses are a little overwhelming at the moment as I contribute to my mother with advanced Alzheimer's, which scares the crap out of me. I DO NOT WANT THIS EXPERIENCE!!!
Estradiol patches are okay and distribute estrogen evenly but they lack estriol. T replacement is more a "how you feel" since the reference ranges aren't ideal. But you can only do what you can do but you can "try" to take some DHEA which is a parent moleucles and makes some T. go to the Boston School of Medicine web site and they have a great discussion on TR and DHEA. dlb
Did you know I lived in India for almost a year. And lived in Ashrams for many years with the Amazing Swami Satchitanada? om shanti devaki