Skip to main content

9 Symptoms That May Be Corrected With Bioidentical Hormone Therapy

RELATED TOPICS:
a middle age couple posing for a picture

At Serenity Health Care Center in Waukesha, WI, we offer several medical treatments to address a number of medical conditions, including chronic illness, erectile dysfunction, adrenal and chronic fatigue, Lyme disease, obesity-related illness and more. Today, we’re talking about one of our most popular services: bioidentical hormone therapy.

9 Symptoms That Can Be Corrected With Bioidentical Hormone Therapy

1. Weight Gain

One of the most universal signs of imbalanced hormones is weight gain. Weight gain occurs as you age because, while your diet hasn’t changed in years, your body simply doesn’t need as much fuel to operate and maintain its weight. However, the appropriate solution to weight gain isn’t to start eating less. It’s to bring your hormone levels back in balance to restore your metabolism.

If you are experiencing unexplained weight gain, we strongly encourage you to come in for an initial consultation and have your serum hormone levels tested. If you let your weight gain go unchecked, you will increase your risk of numerous medical conditions associated with excess fat, including: 

  • Type II diabetes
  • Heart attack
  • Stroke
  • Pancreatic cancer
  • Renal failure
  • Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease 

2. Low Bone Density

Another incredibly common sign that your body isn’t producing enough sex hormones is low bone density. Testosterone tells osteoblasts to make more trabecular bone and supports osteocytes in the prevention of trabecular bone loss. When either your osteoblasts or osteocytes are too few in number, brittle bones and other bone disorders can occur. When both are too few in number, it is only a matter of time before your bones become weakened significantly.

It is of the utmost importance that you test your bone density and serum hormone levels if you have a family history of osteoporosis or osteopenia. Having a member of your immediate family suffer from one of these bone disorders puts you in a much higher risk category of developing the condition yourself. Unfortunately, muscle weakness, loss of muscle mass, and balance issues caused by low hormones increase your risk of falling and fracturing a bone.

3. Major Depressive Disorder

When you think of the signs of aging, you may not think about your mental health. However, sex hormones play a critical role in keeping your mood stable. In fact, testosterone is so important for your mental health that a low level of serum testosterone can result in major depressive disorder.

Major depressive disorder affects everyone differently. Some people become so apathetic about life that they don’t have the motivation to cook and eat, either losing weight through extended periods of fasting or gaining weight due to eating prepared high-caloric density foods. Furthermore, depression can cause such side effects as fatigue, making exercise nearly impossible. If you have recently noticed signs of depression, come in to get your hormone levels checked.

4. Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Another mood disorder that may crop up due to imbalance hormone levels is a generalized anxiety disorder. This mood disorder nearly always causes abdominal fat gain because stress increases the level of cortisol, aptly also known as the stress hormone.

Cortisol is responsible for several functions, including instructing your body to store visceral fat (the most dangerous kind of fat there is), increasing your body’s production of ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and decreasing your body’s production of leptin (the satiety hormone). All of this is a recipe for a drastically increased risk of heart disease and similar medical conditions.

5. Excessive Nighttime Urination

There are many things you should be doing for your health. One of the most important things for overall health is adequate sleep. Unfortunately, women going through menopause and men going through andropause often struggle to get an adequate night of rest regularly.

There are many symptoms of imbalanced hormones that can make adequate rest challenging. Among these are excessive nighttime urination, insomnia, hot flashes, and night sweats. All of these can be treated with an appropriate hormone replacement program. This way, you do not have to sacrifice adequate hydration for the opportunity to sleep through the night.

6. Cognitive Decline 

Cognitive decline is one of the scariest signs of imbalanced sex hormones because it can also be a sign of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other serious medical conditions. However, if you don’t have a family history of such disorders, your first call should be to a hormone expert.

Cognitive decline due to imbalanced sex hormones affects everyone differently. However, the most common sign of cognitive decline is forgetting where you put important objects. For example, you may forget where you put your car keys. Similarly, you may put your wallet in the freezer and leave your frozen burrito in your desk drawer. Other common signs that you are experiencing cognitive decline include: 

  • Forgetting important dates
  • Forgetting words you use commonly
  • Losing your train of thought
  • Struggling to hold a conversation 
  • Difficulty forming new memories

7. Mood Swings

If you suffer from a major depressive disorder or generalized anxiety disorder, your feelings will probably remain constant throughout the day. For example, you may feel fleetingly excited for an event, but for the most part, you feel apathetic, sad, hopeless, or helpless. Similarly, if you suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, you may feel anything from on edge to anxious throughout the day with very few moments of reprieve.

The primary exception to this general rule is that generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, can cause mood swings. What we mean by this is one potential result of living with GAD is mental and emotional exhaustion. It feels virtually impossible to fight through life when you are constantly on edge. This mental and emotional exhaustion can lead to you snapping occasionally, becoming irritable or angry over something small. Bioidentical hormone replacement can help with that.  

8. Loss of Muscle Mass

Yet another symptom of imbalanced hormones that can be treated by bioidentical hormone therapy is the loss of muscle mass. There are several reasons why it is crucial to maintain your muscle mass or build more muscle. The most compelling argument for maintaining your muscle mass is mass loss leads to strength loss. Strength loss can lead to falls and bone fractures.

Another extremely compelling argument for maintaining your muscle mass is that muscle is roughly three times more metabolically active than white fat. In other words, a pound of muscle will burn approximately three times more calories than a pound of fat when your body is at rest. This makes it easier to maintain weight without changing your diet too much as your overall metabolism slows with age.

9. Hair Loss

The final symptom of imbalanced sex hormones that we’d like to address today is hair loss. One of the most common causes of hair loss is imbalanced hormones. If you notice more hair than usual in your hairbrush or hair tie, you may suffer from imbalanced hormones and benefit from bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

Learn More About the Benefits of Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy Today

If you are experiencing any of the aforementioned symptoms of imbalanced hormone levels, you can benefit greatly from bioidentical hormone therapy. However, the symptoms discussed today are only a portion of the symptoms that can be relieved with this therapy. To learn more about the benefits of treatment, contact our hormone experts at Serenity Health Care Center in Waukesha, WI now to schedule an appointment.

Ready To Get Started?

Reach out to Serenity Health Care Center by completing the form below.