Estrogen Vs. Progesterone: Which Bioidentical Hormone is Right for You?

Many of our patients experience the benefits of receiving customized bioidentical hormone replacement therapy at our Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Metairie, and Slidell clinics. These personalized injections can help reverse the effects of aging by helping your body recover functions that have been lost to decreased levels of hormones over time.

These symptoms are common in older patients, but by no means are they something that you just have to accept and live with for the rest of your life. Patients receiving our hormone therapy treatment often have more energy, lose weight, and have an increase in their sex drive as a result of the therapy, among other benefits. Two of the bioidentical hormones that we often include in our customized injections are progesterone and estrogen.

There is a lot of confusion as to the difference between these two hormones and why you might need one but not the other, and if they are hormones for only women. Let’s clear up some of that confusion so you have a better understanding about why our team might make a recommendation for one or both in your bioidentical hormone injections.

Estrogen is typically considered to be a “female hormone,” but in reality, men have this hormone in their body naturally, too. A man’s level of estrogen increases as his testosterone levels decrease as he ages, so men typically do not need to increase their estrogen hormone levels and are much more likely to want to decrease them.

Women, however, have the opposite problem. Estrogen levels in a woman are highest during her procreating years and by the time she goes through menopause, her estrogen levels could plummet to as little as 10% of what they used to be. While this could be seen as a natural part of aging, the symptoms that these decreased levels of estrogen create can be devastating. Women with low estrogen levels can experience:

And many other debilitating symptoms. With bioidentical hormones, our clinic can increase the woman’s estrogen levels, reversing many of the symptoms that she’s experiencing and in some cases eliminating them altogether. It can feel like you are rewinding the clock as you feel as good as you did 10, 15 or even 20 years ago.

Both men and women could be in need of progesterone hormone therapy. For men, progesterone is necessary for the creation of testosterone, so for those men who are experiencing the symptoms of low testosterone, a progesterone therapy regimen is important to start raising those levels back up.

Progesterone is a little different for women. Progesterone therapy isn’t something that most women will require on its own; they will likely only need it in conjunction with their estrogen therapy and only when the woman still has her ovaries. That’s because progesterone is the hormone that’s responsible for counteracting the effects of estrogen on the ovaries. If left unchecked, estrogen can cause the lining of the reproductive system to grow unchecked as it’s stimulated by the estrogen. That can lead to serious issues such as cancer.

If you are a woman who has not had a hysterectomy, you’ll likely need a combination of estrogen and progesterone bioidentical hormones. If you are a man, you probably won’t need either (depending on your circumstances) and will more likely require testosterone therapy. In any case, our team is here to help you determine what combination is right for you. We’ll sit down with you to discuss your symptoms and your goals and then send some of your blood off to our labs for testing. Based on those results, we’ll be able to create a customized bioidentical hormone injection that can help you feel and look younger while reversing many of the signs of aging.

Interested in trying our bioidentical hormones for yourself or want to learn more? Get in touch with us by giving us a call or contacting our Baton Rouge clinic through our website. We’ll set you up with an appointment to speak with our experienced and highly-trained team so you can learn more about your options and what we can do for you. Get started on the right anti-aging treatment for the needs of your body today!

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