Episode #5: Understanding the WHY of Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) for Life from Perimenopause, Menopause and Beyond

Lyn Hogrefe walks through how bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is a lifelong strategy for aging in a healthy way. 

Topics
~ perimenopause
~ menopause
~ at what age do we need to start BHRT?
~ the extent of most doctors' hormone education
~ myths & misconceptions about estrogen
~ the health benefits of bioidentical hormone replacement
~ "Bioidentical Hormones 101" by Jeffery Dach, MD
~ getting started with The Happy Hormone Cottage by attending a "Hormones 101 with Lyn" free Group Zoom
~ DUTCH Testing: dried urine testing of comprehensive hormones
~ how we look at the thyroid differently than most practitioners
~ how to live your best life naturally

***Although our HHC has a telemedicine license to easily service clients in Ohio and Florida, we can also work with clients who live out of state as long as they come and visit us in person annually. Our goal in publishing this podcast nationally is for the educational value contained within. Education is key!***

Transcript

Pam: [00:00:00] Welcome to Happy Hormone Cottage Podcast. Happy Hormone Cottage is all about helping women and men. Learn the truth about hormone imbalance and how you can get your body back to feeling and working like normal again. My name is Pam Gross and today we are going to talk about the change in life, that dreaded word menopause.

Like most women, I didn't really understand what menopause is, what it means to your body and how it affects your mental outlook and your overall health. We all need to be educated on the subject. And we all need information so that we can make informed decisions. We need to make good decisions regarding our health.

We, today, are going to focus on the education and listening to what our bodies are telling us. Who better to have this conversation with than the warrior of women's wellness, Lyn Hogrefe. [00:01:00] Lyn is the founder and executive director of Happy Hormone Cottage. Welcome Lyn. 

Lyn: Thank you. I'm happy to be here. I always love our podcast time together.

Pam: And today we are doing it in zoom. Most of the time we do them live, but it is raining. It is a very rainy day where we are today. So 

Lyn: I'm happy. I'm just happy to be with you in my own little safe space. Yeah, and zoom is great 

Pam: when I know as a former teacher, I know how important education is to you and I know it's a central component to your business and I know that you have created free zoom sessions called hormones.

101 with Lyn so women can come together. And they can learn more about hormone imbalance and they can become empowered to make good decisions regarding their health. In the opener, I stated that I didn't really understand the depths of menopause. And if you think about it, when we spend a lot of time [00:02:00] on puberty and reproduction and all of those kinds of things, but we don't spend an enormous amount of time talking about later in life.

And I think that is why number one. There's a lot of confusion in regards to it. We don't really quite know what's happening. I think it's also why there's so much hesitation in regards to when you know, instinctively that something's not working right, because your body is telling you that. Yeah, absolutely.

And we need to listen to it. Yes, we do. Yes. But I think the problem though, sometimes is that. We don't know where to go. We don't know what we're supposed to ask. We don't really, it's just not, it's not a subject matter that a lot of people like to talk about, which I'm, I can attest to that. And it's funny too, because like I said, I, there was a lot about menopause in itself that I didn't really understand because if you think about it we all.[00:03:00] 

Know that, yes, we get it to be a certain age, we're going to have some hot flashes. Once the hot flashes are over and we move out of our childbearing years, and all of this other fun is in the background, we think that everything's going to go back to normal. And the truth is that it doesn't, just doesn't.

When, as I said, women are very reluctant and they're very hesitant to talk about menopause. They're very reluctant to talk about hormone replacement therapy. So hopefully we can change that. Yeah, I 

Lyn: hope so. That's 

Pam: the goal. Let's talk to the woman who is experiencing all these midlife changes. They're not feeling that great about themselves and they're showing symptoms that indicate that their body is changing and that they may be experiencing the beginnings of hormone deficiency.

When, can you explain what is happening with the beginnings of menopause? So [00:04:00] you can have perimenopause and then you can have post menopause. So can you explain in a nutshell what each one of those is and then what some of the symptoms 

Lyn: are? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The life stages of women that are aging beyond 35.

I mean, I don't like the word menopause. Actually, it's just it has such a bad connotation associated with it. I like to go back. I like to consider this as an aging issue. Look at the broader paint with a broader brush. If you have broader perspective, I really look right about mid thirties, women are Finished having children for the most part of their kind of in the end piece of the childbearing years, because at the age of 35, our ovaries actually begin to age.

By the time you're in your early 40s, typically perimenopause begins to rear its ugly head, and therein lies the change that starts slowly over time. And then what I've noticed in women is that we are very strong women. We're just, we're so strong. We put ourselves on our list at the very end at the bottom of the list.

We're last on our list. And so we keep thinking it's going to go away. We keep thinking, Oh, this is just a bad day. I'm getting to be moody and [00:05:00] irritable. I'm having a few aches and pains. I might've just had a hot flash. I'm so tired. I've got thinner hair. I've got no libido. My sleep was a little bit bad last night.

I'm feeling overly stressed. And we just think it's going to get better. We just, it's going to get better. Right. And yet every year continues to move on and the days continue to pass. And these things really don't often get better that they often begin to get worse. And the reason is because the hormone imbalance begins right around age 35.

And it's actually called an aging issue. And if you think back 150 years ago, Women would be dead by the time they're in their fifties and sixties. We just didn't live that long. And so today, with all the advances in technology and scientific evidence and medicine and all that, and drug companies and medications, we're living to be a lot older and hormones are really big deal.

And here's the biggest thing I want to mention, and maybe if listeners could write this down at. It would be helpful. Hormone health isn't really taught in medical school. I'll say it again. Hormone health isn't really taught in medical school. Doctors have said to me for 13 years, [00:06:00] Lyn, stop it. I've had four hours of hormone education in medical school.

Pam, four hours. God love them. And They don't know what they don't know. And they're lovely people. They want to help us. They're amazing, but they don't know what they don't know. And so when they don't know what they don't know, and we don't know what kind of questions to ask, and then there's this overriding fear of it.

Because back in the day, hormone therapy that used to be used actually could, there was a cancer risk associated with it. And so now you've got all that fear and confusion, and what do you do? And our beloved practitioners don't know the answers to it. We're left out to dry. So when I began my college in 2009, I just went through my whole hormone issues.

And then at the end of my teaching career, I taught inner city sixth grade for 30 years. I love teaching. In 2007, I thought, why not me? Why don't I, why not me? Why don't I open a place for women to come, a safe space for women to come? and talk about the changes they're feeling. Peri menopause, menopause, a safe place to land to be heard and validated and [00:07:00] educated and empowered about their bodies.

So in 2009, I opened up this little place called the Happy Hormone Cottage, and I've done just that for 13 years. I really consider it playing it forward. When I can help a woman understand her body, she can help her friends and her family, and just call us out. And it's just been the greatest experience of my life to see women, the light bulb go off and say, Uh huh.

I'm not crazy. There is something biologically wrong with me and I can be helped and that's just been just an amazing journey to be able to help women starting with the educational 

Pam: piece. Yeah, and that's key. It's funny. You said that you didn't like the word menopause. I've actually heard it referred to as puberty in reverse.

Yeah. I'm like, I kind of liked, I thought. It made sense to me, so I think that's what I see. There you go. You can use that instead. The other thing you mentioned too was. And I think this is part of the reason why there's such hesitation with women is because they inherently recognize that something's not right and [00:08:00] that something is clearly different.

The first thing or the first place that you would go to even ask a question would be to your OB GYN or to your primary doctor or whatever. And there's that assumption, like you said, they don't study that in medical school. I was reading at one point in time and I had heard someone else talk about the same subject in terms of the doctors really, they don't study it.

And she even said, she said, the truth is, she said, you're your best advocate. So you go out, you're doing your research, you're looking into it and all the different things that you're learning about all of that. She said, you can take all of that that you've learned in a day or two. And she said, you now have, you now actually know probably more than.

Your regular doctor or your practitioner, you're dead on the fact that they don't study it. And I think that's an important point that needs to be made is that for women who are now realizing that [00:09:00] They need that extra step. They need something else. I think that they have to accept the fact that they're going to have to do it.

That you're going to have to find the right resources. You can't just go and ask your friend or ask your doctor. It's not, it's really not going to work that way. So we've determined what the symptoms are, what all of that is. We think of the whole changing of life thing as something that's in our fifties and our sixties.

And you have said in the past on previous shows, you like the generation and people who are in the 35 and the 40 range. So. Walk us through and explain number 1, explain why you say that and also explain the difference in the needs based on the age, because that's the other thing. I think that a lot of people don't know is that.

If you can correct your hormone imbalance and obviously 35 and [00:10:00] 40 year olds who can do that will help you prevent diseases and things later on in life. It's 

Lyn: all about being proactive. My husband, Jeff, was a compounding pharmacist and functional medicine guy has said for years, if I could give every 35 year old woman progesterone, she'd never suffer a day in her life.

Because at age 35, the ovaries begin to age, they begin to make less progesterone. And that's our first line of defense in helping women with sleep and depression and anxiety and mood and aches and pains and sugar cravings, which affects the weight. If we could give every woman at the age of 35 this little dab of progesterone, then They wouldn't suffer like women who don't do that do.

And then, I've always said, this should be my bumper sticker, that if you do nothing to feel better today, it's the best day you're ever going to have. You're not going to feel better tomorrow, or next week, or next year. I've had women come in for a consultation at the age of, let's say, 40, and thank me for my time and say, that's great, thanks so much.

And they'll come back two years later, they're [00:11:00] even more miserable, suffering even more, and say, okay, I'm ready to sign up now. I'm really ready to take. My body's health in my own hand. So it's really important that you are proactive. And I think what people don't know, because it again, it isn't well known is that our hormones do really important jobs.

You know, it really bothers me. The most is when I hear women in the grocery store, for example, or wherever I am and their postmenopausal saying. I'm done with metals. I'm done with hormones. I'm so excited and I want to bite my tongue so hard and say to them, but this is when you need hormones the most.

Hormones do all these important jobs. They protect the brain from dementia, the heart from heart disease. They build new bones. And when you're 55, 60, 70 years old, you need that protection. It's prevention of disease is what it is. And because this is really known, it isn't taught in medical school. And we're not really ready for this truth.

It's my truth. Hopefully it's your truth as well, that we've got to take care of our own hormone journey, live our best quality of life. Until the end of our life. So it's not just for symptom control. You could bandaid it and take an estrogen patch. I use a [00:12:00] patch and get rid of the brain fog. But if you don't fill receptors for the rest of your life, you're not going to have your best health.

And that's our perspective at my happy hormone cottage, your best health for the rest of your life, because you deserve 

Pam: it. It's interesting too, because we're talking about. A woman who has recognized that obviously something's out of balance, but they're still hesitant. And part of I think that hesitancy is a misunderstanding.

And I, and you hit upon that about at the grocery store. Yay. I'm done with all the hormones. You need the hormones. And I think the moment that you You talk about women in particular is obviously we need estrogen. More importantly, we also need testosterone. A lot of times I think when you say that to a woman, they get all freaked out and they're like, Oh my God, I don't want to be some hairy dude or whatever.

And that's not what it is at all. And you hit upon the fact that not only to get rid of your symptoms and to feel better, but you also can [00:13:00] prevent these chronic diseases. And I know that the top three for women. On a long term basis, you've got osteoporosis, you've got heart issues, and you have Alzheimer's and all of those things are helped by getting your hormone, your hormones back into balance.

And I think that's super important for people to understand that it's not just taking care of the symptoms that you have right now. And feeling better and sleeping better and all of those things, but it's also a longer term benefit that you 

Lyn: get. Yeah, and something I haven't said before, but I think it's important is that I don't know very many women, maybe you're in the same situation, Pam.

I don't know any woman who's older, who doesn't worry about the weight around their middle. And so I have not said this before, and I've been negligent. Women who are postmenopausal need estrogen, and if they don't... to use it through hormone therapy, their bodies will make it in fat cells, and there is that weight around the middle.

So even if you do nothing with hormones, and I'm not going to do hormones because of whatever [00:14:00] reason I believe, which is your right to do that, your body has to have it to survive, it'll make estrogen in the fat cells, and you're going to gain that weight around the middle, the love handles, the belly fat.

Which, why wouldn't you just go ahead and use estrogen from a provider like maybe my facility that knows what they're doing? They've been given a test and diagnosis and you're getting the proper dosing of the hormones you need and a strategy. You're gonna have to get estrogen no matter what. Do you want it in belly fat?

Do you want the right way throughout all of this so they can do the jobs that 

Pam: they do? Yeah, but it is interesting that there seems to be such hesitation in regards to or misunderstanding in regards to just some of the natural things that are in our body. And that as we grow older, that we lose that.

And so I think number one, since we're talking about people who are hesitant about what and how do I. Move forward. The first thing you have to do is do your research in regards and understand how that works because again, it's not taught and it's not something we really talk [00:15:00] about unless you're at some party and you had a couple glasses of wine.

And then all of a sudden you will have a conversation. Then I 

Lyn: do want to caution our listeners to that just because you type into your browser hormone. That doesn't mean you're going to get it. The kind of philosophy that we endorse at facilities like mine, you might just get standard of care, big pharma rhetoric.

So you really need to go to a website like mine, happy hormone college.com, that has vetted studies and vetted articles and vetted books that share our truth about hormone balance for the ages and not just controlling symptoms with drug therapy. You need to know where to look for this. And so a really great book that I love to refer to is called Bioidentical Hormones 1 0 1.

It's Bioidentical Hormones oh one by Dr. Jeffrey Dash. Diaz and Dash, D A C H. And that's what the acronym BHRT stands for, Biotical Hormone Replacement Therapy. So, Biotical Hormones 101 by Dr. Jeffrey Dash, D A C H. Right away on page 89 and 90, he discusses the 10 myths of BHRT that are perpetuated by big pharma and the media to keep...

The water is muddy and confused [00:16:00] and the fear rampant. So if you can do it reading like this book, which is not written in doctor talk, but women talk, so it's fairly easy to read. You can talk that you can read about your adrenal glands and thyroid and hormones sort of have the fear lifted and you can feel more comfortable with what you're learning and breathe a sigh of relief that you know what.

This is something that I could consider because I'm getting educated 

Pam: on it. I think that's great. And I'll mention that again near the end, because I think it is important at the end of the day, you are going to be your most important advocate, but happy hormone college and win is also going to be your partner and your advocate.

And that's super important when you're fine, when you're trying to find the right fit. We've got the first step, obviously, is that, hey, my body's telling me something's wrong and I'm going to listen to it. And so now you're doing a little bit of research to understand the biology of your body and doing all of those kind of things.

So once you feel like that you have, you're starting to think, okay, maybe this [00:17:00] is something that I need to do. Lyn, tell me then, what are the next steps that people need to take? 

Lyn: I'll just speak from my perspective is that I think it's really important to Go to a trusted practitioner or a facility like mine, come into one of my Happy Hormones 101 with Lyn Zoom sessions that you can speak with other women in a small group and get information and validation that what you're feeling is okay, and it is part of the aging process, and it's not something to be afraid of, and other women are in the same boat.

And then we, what we do is we educate them on what they can do. We really talk about proper diagnostic testing. Your doctor might do a little bit of blood work and give you a number. And I've always thought, dead yet, you're going to be in range somewhere.

So you are not dead yet. So we don't really appreciate blood work as much as we do other types of testing. What we prefer is the diagnostic Dutch test. And if you can picture the word Dutch in your mind, it's D U T C H and it stands for dry urine testing for comprehensive hormones, the Dutch test. And when you do that test [00:18:00] to take test, you simply urinate on these little filter papers.

It's very easy and user friendly, let them dry, send them away to the lab in Oregon. And we actually pay for the postage to do that UPS 2 day air. And then it comes back into, you. into the lab, into our facility with a 15 page diagnosis of what's going on with your body in regards to cortisol, a really important hormone and estrogen and progesterone, testosterone, pregnenolone, DHEA, really big words like methylation pathways and metabolites and organic acids and this information that our nurse practitioners, we've got four of them who do this.

And sit down with you for a nice, intense hour appointment, explain to you what they're seeing is going on with the hormones in your body, the pathway they're traveling, what are they doing, what can we work with, what do you need more of, instead of just giving you a blood draw or doing no testing and offering you an estrogen patch or estrogen pill or a progesterone capsule, maybe.

Let's have a strategy. Once we know your [00:19:00] body, then, in our compounding lab that's on site in Centerville, Ohio, you can actually customize what's called physiological dosing. The right amount of the hormones you need for each body, so it's one size fits just you. One size fits just the other lady. It's not one size fits most.

One size fits just you. And that just makes sense because We're all different ages, sizes, shapes stage of life. It just makes sense. And then we can have, we have our patients come back in to visit our nurse practitioner. At three months and beyond to see how you're doing. Do you need to make any adjustments to dosing?

How are you feeling? And I'm just really proud of the way that we approach this whole piece of aging. And then you only have to really do the Dutch test every other year. Every year could be helpful for perimenopausal women, but It's really every other year and it ends up being so habitual. It's just like breathing.

You just use your hormone creams when you need to daily, either morning or evening, and it just helps relieve symptoms. And most importantly, refills receptors to prevent disease [00:20:00] for the rest of your life. It's just 

Pam: beautiful. Yeah. And I think what you've just described too, and this is also equally important for someone Decided that this is the path that they're going to take is to understand that you have to fit.

You have to find People in a clinic or as you said the happy hormone cottage that is focused on You because as you said, this is not one size fits all What kind of supplement or medicine? That I may take will not be the same as someone that like you who would take something maybe completely different and the point is, is that one size does not fit all it's important for people to pick if you're going to do the hormone therapy that you have to make sure that you have the right people.

And the right institutions behind you that understand that we're all [00:21:00] different. And I think that is definitely a very important point. You do blood work, but as you said, you do something much more that you think is much more intensive in terms of really diagnosing what, what's going on with your body.

What's the next step after that? Because you read all the time. First off, we're inundated with ads from all kinds of different clinics and all kinds of things. And a lot of times, if you pay attention to those, they're very one size fits all kind of thing. They either use a pellet or they use. A pill and again, I'm assuming that when people come to the happy hormone cottage and they go through this extensive background so that you can find out exactly what's the best fit for them.

I'm assuming that all those things are on the table with that. Somebody might use a gel. Somebody might use a pill. Walk me through that different 

Lyn: delivery systems. We don't believe in oral estrogen in our facilities. We believe that it [00:22:00] can cause blood clotting. So oral estrogen is off the table for us for the most part.

So we really prefer to use the creams we use. They're called HR tickers. And in fact, our estrogen cream, we'll talk about that for a moment. I think it's interesting is that if you go to your OBGYN and you mentioned the word brain fog or hot flash, they'll often offer you an estrogen patch. It's estradiol, which is bioidentical, which is perfect.

It's bioidentical. It's gotta be good for you, right? Yes, but it's very strong. So when we use our compounded hormone cream, the estrogen cream that's customized for each person, we use what's called bias by meaning two. They give a bicycle two tires. It's two types of estrogen. It's E two estradiol, and then it's 40% estrodiol, and then it's 60% Estriol.

E three also bioidentical. And the SDR L is what babies in the sleep in. It helps things like vaginal dryness. It helps prevent breast cancer. It's just an amazing hormone. So we actually have a 60 40 mix of estriol and estradiol in our HR tickers of estrogen. So our BioEstrogen Cream, we are very [00:23:00] proud of it.

It's just really helpful and refills receptors easily. That's just one example. We've done this now for 17 years. You gotta be good at it. So I also want to make a point, too, I'm a very visual learner. So if you can picture a triangle, three, of course, it's the three sides, we deal with the sex hormones at one, one point, cortisol on the other point, and thyroid is the third point.

And they really have to all be functioning really well to feel your best. And thyroid is a really interesting beast in that most doctors and endocrinologists just check the TSH. And maybe the T4, and that's how they diagnose any thyroid issue or not. I always use my little sixth grade teaching tool, my little hot Camaro here.

And if you have a thyroid issue, you often have four flat tires. And doctors will just check one tire, like the TSH or T4. You still have three flat tires. You're not going to go far on three flat tires, right? So we want to do a really great blood panel for thyroid. The lab will draw the blood. They'll bill insurance for the cost of it.

And then we'll do a 10 point panel to get a really great read on all parts of the thyroid. That's our arena, our wheelhouse. If [00:24:00] we can do those three things really well, our women can feel amazing and then they can really be the best versions of themselves that they 

Pam: need to be. It sounds to me like what you guys do at the Happy Hormone Cottage is that there's a lot of extensive screening that goes on there as well as individual finding the right fit for the particular individual.

We are actually going to do a podcast. With your husband, who is your pharmacist there at the Happy Hormone Cottage, we're actually going to do a podcast where he's going to actually tell us all about compounding products and those kind of things and the difference between synthetic and bioidentical and so yeah, we're all, we're going to continue the education focus.

So I just want to summarize everything that we talked about for the person who's going to hesitant about taking that next step. Number one, I think you have to understand what is happening to your body. [00:25:00] What exactly is menopause? I know we don't like that word or puberty in reverse. We'll use that one.

Understand what is actually happening to our body. And from there, then the next step would be to find a hormone specialist. You need to find someone who is, you're your best advocate, but you also need someone who is experienced and knowledgeable as well, who can also advocate on your behalf. And Lyn is definitely someone who, who can help you with that.

And then you get your screens, you get blood, you get your urine samples, whatever. The doctors decide is the best path forward in regards to that. And then obviously you get the results and then you figure out, okay, who golly gee, this is what my body's telling me. I'm assuming that kind of after that, we're going to decide number one, whether the hormone therapy is the best route, which in most cases it is going to be.

Lyn: It's in how the woman feels. It takes about three weeks to begin to feel [00:26:00] better because the cream has got to get into the body. about three weeks, you're going to notice a difference. And so you're going to feel the side of that. Cause you're going to feel better and it's working. If you don't feel better, then something's wrong.

We need to correct that, but you're going to feel better. And I think that's key. Or you're just going to feel better, like your old self again. And that's where the proof is in the pudding 

Pam: right there. I encourage everyone as you're listening to this. I hope that you follow our steps, because I think that if you do, number one, you will be on a path, obviously, to feeling better in your current condition, but more importantly, you will also head off a lot of the chronic, longer health effects that may occur as you get older.

I like 

Lyn: to say that women can live their best lives naturally, and isn't that kind of what we deserve, to live our best lives naturally? And I love that. So we want to help women live their best lives, get back to best health again, because we need healthy women in our country to keep on doing the things that they do that are so very important.

Pam: Yes, and you made that point in the very beginning. We are also living [00:27:00] longer lives. Because as you said, too, it used to be that women were basically, you were here basically to reproduce once that kind of occurred, then the rest of it was like, and we don't, there's a lot of life to be lived. After that time, so 

Lyn: we can continue on their journey and get and live their best lives naturally.

Lyn, 

Pam: I want to thank you again for everything you do for women. There is a reason why they call you the women's warrior of wellness, because you definitely do change lives, women's lives and men. We can't leave the men out because we focus, we focus a lot on women, obviously, but men also suffer through the whole changing of life.

And again, we actually are planning on doing a show that is going to be all about men. So we are going to talk about men. We'll give them equal access there to all of you out there who are experiencing these normal and natural kind of [00:28:00] changes in life, but you're hesitant to seek help. I want y'all to remember that we need to make decisions with facts and not fear, and that we have to be mindful of the end game.

I once heard someone say, make the rest of your life, the best of your life. I love that because as you Had just previously stated that we have a lot of life to live here. So you want to live the best one that you've got and let Happy Hormone Cottage and Lyn help you live your best life. So contact them at 513.

444 6343, or you can go to their website at happyhormonecottage. com. And we also want you to check out all the other podcasts that we've done because we've done all kinds of different shows that kind of explain different kinds of things. And I think you'll find. As you're doing your research, they're a great tool for you to, [00:29:00] for you to utilize.

So make sure you can find our podcast anywhere you, you download it. Anywhere you, you get your podcast, you could find our podcasts there. Also, as you're there, please follow us and please click that you like us. And if you go onto the website and you want to talk to Lyn more one on one, go. And take part in her free zoom sessions.

And it's hormones 101 with Lyn. Again, Lyn, thanks so much and have a great day. Thank you.