Your Health Guide

HRT (short for Hormone Replacement Therapy) is a treatment used to increase estrogen levels in your body.

Women experience menopause when their ovaries cease producing estrogen – this will at first produce symptoms including headaches, hot flashes, fatigue, depression, night sweats and so on.

It is the symptoms which come after these which tend to cause more problems for women; these include painful intercourse, loss of libido, vaginal dryness and urinary problems including poor bladder control.

In the long term, the effects can include osteoporosis and an increase in the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The idea behind HRT is to replace the estrogen which has been lost from the body to reverse the effects of menopause. Of course, even HRT can’t prevent you from aging. It will have some effect in alleviating the symptoms of menopause though.

The replacement of this estrogen which has been lost will result in the alleviation of most of the menopause symptoms, allowing the woman to enjoy more or less the same quality of life as she did before menopause.

How hormone replacement therapy works to alleviate menopause symptoms:

Night sweats and hot flashes – HRT works very well to relieve these symptoms, sometimes improving them noticeably within a few days of beginning HRT treatments.

Difficulties with intercourse – The vagina is very sensitive to estrogen levels and will tend to become drier and more sensitive when estrogen levels fall, making intercourse a potentially painful experience. Estrogen creams may be used to remedy this – the creams are applied for a few weeks and repeated as necessary.

Headaches – It is not known exactly how it is that HRT helps to alleviate headaches. In fact, hormone therapy can worsen headaches in some women, while working well to alleviate them in others. If you are experiencing worse migraines or other headaches after beginning HRT therapy, then you should talk to your doctor about adjusting the dosage or trying out a different sort of hormone treatment until one is found which improves, rather than exacerbates your headaches.

Joint and muscle pain - HRT can help with menopause related joint pain, especially in the elbows, wrists, hands and shoulders.

Skin and hair – The skin becomes thinner after the age of 40 or so. This is due both to the natural effects of the aging process, as well as the lower levels of estrogen. HRT can help out with thinning of skin and hair seen during menopause, which is related to lower levels of estrogen. A lot of women report that the texture of their hair improves after beginning hormone replacement therapy.

So know you know what is HRT.