Best Hormone Replacement Therapy for Menopause

Hormone replacement therapy is a treatment to relieve menopausal symptoms that arise from a decrease in reproductive hormones in women. Menopause occurs when the menstrual cycle in a woman stops.

Complaints that can occur due to changes in this hormone are:

• Irregular menstrual cycles
• Feel hot (hot flashes) and often sweat
• Dry vagina
• Heart beat
• More frequent urination
• Hard to sleep
• Anxious
• Unstable emotions
• Depression.

Decreasing this hormone can also cause changes in pH and the composition of normal flora in the vagina, so women are more prone to urinary tract infections. In addition, this change affects bone density so that women are more prone to osteoporosis which is at risk of causing fractures.

The severity of menopausal symptoms felt by each woman is different. Some women only experience mild menopausal symptoms and do not interfere with daily activities, but in some cases, menopausal symptoms are felt to be quite severe and disturbing. To relieve these symptoms, women who experience menopause can get additional reproductive hormones from outside the body so that the menopausal symptoms that they feel can be reduced.

In addition to relieving symptoms due to menopause, hormone replacement therapy is also thought to reduce the risk of developing colon cancer, but this needs further research.

Although the benefits of hormone replacement therapy are quite extensive for women of menopausal age, this method also has the risk of causing certain diseases. Some diseases that can increase risk arise in women who undergo hormone replacement therapy are stroke, deep vein thrombosis, and breast or uterine cancer.

Types of hormone replacement therapy

The hormone to be given is synthetic estrogen, with or without the progesterone hormone. Estrogen will act to relieve the symptoms of menopause that are felt. While progesterone serves to prevent the risk of uterine cancer.

Hormone replacement therapy can be in the form of local therapy to relieve symptoms in the vagina, or systemic which can overcome other symptoms, because the hormone used will circulate throughout the body. Local therapy is carried out using hormones in the form of creams for the vagina, while systemic therapy is done in the form of tablets, gels, or injections.

Therapy will be planned as short as possible so that side effects from therapy can be avoided. Hormone replacement therapy can be used in women who have started experiencing menopausal symptoms, which is around the age of 50-59 years. If menopause occurs earlier, for example 40 years, hormone replacement therapy may be given provided that there is never a history of breast cancer.

Warning for hormone replacement therapy

Hormone replacement therapy should not be done by women who have conditions, such as:

• Has a history of breast cancer or uterine cancer
• High triglycerides
• Porphyria
• Miom
• Endometriosis
• Deep vein thrombosis
• Suffering from severe liver disease.

Menopause and pregnancy have the same symptoms, which are not menstruating. Meanwhile, this hormone replacement therapy should not be given to pregnant women because they have a risk of fetal abnormalities (category X). The doctor can confirm it first through a pregnancy test, that the patient is not pregnant, before advising the patient to use hormone replacement therapy.

This hormone replacement therapy is also known to cause side effects, such as:

• Bloated
• Nausea
• Headache
• Changes in mood (mood) and emotions
• Vaginal bleeding
• Swelling or hardening of the breast.

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