Information About Hormone Replacement Therapy

When a woman's ovaries stop producing estrogen, the symptoms of menopause begin. Anyone who has experienced them knows that hot flashes are the most common, followed by night sweats, vaginal dryness and the occasional urge to road rage.

It used to be that a woman experiencing menopause discomforts could visit her family physician and get the little happy pills that would make everything better; no, not prozac, but Premarin or Prempro. For over 50 years these were the drugs of choice for menopausal woman. Decades later we have learned just how dangerous these products are and women are looking for safer ways to deal with the symptoms of menopause.

Drugs such as Premarin, made from the urine of a pregnant mare, have been shown to reduce a woman's chance of osteoporosis and Alzheimer's disease. In fact, Columbia University researchers found that, by taking estrogen for 10 years after menopause, a woman's risk of Alzheimer's disease was reduced by 30 to 40 percent .

Then, in the 1970's estrogen replacement therapies became linked to a rise in both endometrial and uterine cancer. The Food and Drug Administration cut the recommended dosage down to one fourth of what it had previously recommended.

Twenty years later, the Women's Health Initiative was formed and charged with researching the safety and effectiveness of HRT. The studies had some disturbing findings: women who took synthetic hormone replacement products were far more prone to heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer than women who did not take HRT drugs. Immediately, the research was halted and women all over the world stopped taking their hormone medication.

Since that time women have tried to find alternatives to synthetic HRT to alleviate their menopausal symptoms. Some women have chosen to do nothing and just live with the hot flashes, etc. Others have decided to try a more natural approach: bioidentical hormone replacements.

Femhrt is the brand name for a drug that contains both estrogen and progesterone, derived from soy, and is used as hormone replacement therapy for women. Physicians prescribe this drug to treat the symptoms of menopause.

Although most side effects of femhrt are mild, such as bloating and breast tenderness, there can be more serious side effects.

Stroke

Any changes in vision or speech can be the sign of a stroke. A severe headache might be another symptom

Blood Clots

Sharp pains in the chest and shortness of breath could be symptomatic of a blood clot in the lungs. Cramping or pain in the calves or the feet may signal blood clots in the legs.

Heart Attack

Heart attacks are another serious side effect of femhrt. Heart attack warning signs include chest pain and discomfort in the arms, neck or jaw.

Allergic Reactions

Unexplained skin discomfort such as hives, itching, and swelling could be a sign of an allergic reaction, another serious side effect of femhrt.

Warning

Femhrt can cause birth defects so women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant shouldn't take this drug.

Some hormone replacement products have, as their basis, the urine from pregnant mares. I don't know about you, but I am not about to take anybody's pee, let alone a horse's. What the hell do horses have to do with people? Hey, do ya think maybe the fact that horses and humans aren't genetically alike is the reason why these pills are killing so many women? Duh.

What's it like to be one of these mares? Maybe, the next time you pop your premarin pill you will think about this. From PETA:

"For most of their 11-month pregnancies, these horses are confined to stalls so small that they cannot turn around or take more than one step in any direction. The animals must wear rubber urine-collection bags at all times, which causes chafing and lesions, and their drinking water is limited so that their urine will yield more concentrated estrogen. Once the foals are born, the horses are reimpregnated; this cycle continues for about 12 years."

I am a menopausal woman and I will never, ever, ever take any Wyeth medication.

Bioidentical hormones are FDA approved and regulated, plant-derived substances, that are identical in chemical structure to the body's natural estrogen.

Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, or BHRT, is recommended to relieve the symptoms of menopause.  The difference between synthetic hormones and those in BHRT, is that the latter therapies are natural and they contain hormones that are custom-compounded for each woman by a compounding pharmacist, at the instruction of a physician.