Hormone Therapy Changed my Life

about the pros and cons and everything in between. So be sure to stay tuned for that. All right, Without further ado, let's get into this week's episode of Cheeky's and Chill. First things first, I'm not a doctor. I'm just sharing my experience with hormone therapy. If this is something you think you'd benefit from, you should absolutely consult with your doctor to see if it's right for you. All I can say is hormone therapy has been a game changer for me, and so I wanted to come

on here and share my journey with you guys. That's it. It's important to note that there are different kinds of hormones and different types of treatments. Some women use hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings, and others like me, use it for well. I went in for weight loss, to be honest, but also because I felt very tired. I was feeling so exhausted,

I was achy. It was just the weirdest thing. It almost felt like I was in menopause, but without the hot flashes. So that's why I went in. And I was just frustrated, you guys, because I wasn't able to lose weight, and I was like, I'm on this keto diet, I am working out very hard and I'm not losing as much weight as i'd like. So when I went in, sure enough, they drew my blood and yep, there it was. I had a hormone imbalance. And also one of the

reasons that I went was because my mom. I don't know if I've ever shared this with you guys, but my mother the last few months of her life, was also on hormone therapy and that's how she lost a lot of weight. Mind you, she was also doing this like very vigorous, crazy ass diet, which I don't know which one it is, but I know that the hormone

therapy helped her so much. So anyways, she went into the doctor and they drew her blood, and her doctor told her that she had the hormones of an eighty something year old woman, and mind you, she was forty something. So it runs in our family. And not only did I find out that I had very high estrogen and very low testosterrone, but my thyroid was at a whack. That's something else that runs in my family. But I didn't get it into like a few years ago, like

in my early thirties. You guys. So it's important, in my opinion that you guys see your doctor and take this very seriously. Some of the signs of having a hormone imbalance is hair loss, fatigue, difficulty with losing weight, your your body aches, especially like your knees and your feet and things like that. Those are all signs and that's all the stuff that I was going through. So when I started it, it just it has changed my life, you guys, Like I just felt instantly better. Like I

was doing the little drops. It gave me drops. There's creams up toostosterone and like little drops. I would just put it in my innert wrist and rub it every morning and it would just give me energy and it would give me strength. And not only that, but even like my sex drive, you guys changed completely. Like the doctor told me, Okay, how do you feel, are you like ready to like get it on, and you know,

are you moist down there? I'm like, well, yeah, I'm pretty moist, Like I'm pretty yeah, and we're good down there. He's like, okay, cool. I was like, well, I'm young, it's not like you know, I'm dry. But it was just kind of like okay, well yeah, it's not like I'm all like, yeah, ready, you know. So he's like, oh okay, it's because a good thing is that it's not like, you know, you're not too bad because you're not dry. You know, your your juices are still flowing.

But once you start this hormone therapy, you're gonna just be more excited about it. And I'm like, okay, perfect, And I was more excited about it about sex sea time, you know. So anyways, that's another sign you guys, especially for women even men, even like men start losing to soostrone at a certain age. And again, like with everything in our food, you guys, even the air that we breathe, sometimes it just really like gets us out of balance.

So it's important that you get it checked out. It's all just blood work, and they will tell you where you're at. And dudes too, Like sometimes dudes get to a point where it's like damn, and go to the gym and my muscles aren't growing as fast as I'd like, or you know, my penis is happy but not that happy, and those are signs of maybe you need a little bit more to stosstroone. So it's nothing bad. It's nothing

like to be embarrassed about. I think a lot of women, especially feel like, oh shit, like if I it's gonna make me less of a woman if I do this, or if I admit that I have a hormone imbalance, and I'm like, no, it's changed my life. It's helped me lose weight. My hair is growing more now, I have a lot more energy. When I work out, I'm lifting a little bit heavier. Now I feel good, like my muscle mass, like my legs are looking good again. That's another thing. My cellulate, you guys, was out of

fucking control. Like I was like, what is happening? I work out so much, and it was because I had so much damn estrogen. Granted, you know cellulite, it's hereditary. I even see it on very thin girls. You know that if you just if it runs in your family, you can't get around it.

lose weight? Like, yes, it has a lot to do, especially when it comes to like the weight loss part of it. You have to make a lifestyle change, you guys, Like you have to know, Okay, Monday through Friday, I'm going to eat as healthy as I possibly can, and on the weekends I'm going to indulge. I'm going I'm not going to deprive myself. All of that has and place apart, you know, working out, sweating every day, you guys, as much as you can twenty thirty minutes a day.

If you can't do every day, to be at the gym, do twice a week, do three times a week, whatever it is you can do, but get those toxins out of your body. So, yes, all of that has a lot to do with weight loss, absolutely, nutrition and working out. But also I was doing all of that, you guys. I had a trainer. I would train five times a week, and shit was just not happening for me. And it had to do with my hormone. So this is why I'm telling you, maybe that's why you're not feeling motivated

to go to the gym. You just feel so exhausted, and it's probably because you're a low into stostroone. So in my experience, I just kind of felt it in my heart of hearts, like I had remembered my mom mentioning her hormone imbalance, so I thought, well, maybe that's what's happening with me, like maybe I need to get

that checked out. So it was like a six cent sort of thing, and I just went for it, and I just googled, and I found this doctor and he you can't go to like your primary doctor and then they can tell you, Okay, i'm gonna recommend you this specialist, but it does have to be a hormone specialist, someone that does this day in and day out. And that's

what I did. I googled and I found two. I actually was through a zoom a zoom meeting, a zoom appointment, and then I went in person because I'm more of like a in person type of person, So I did interview too doctors and the one that i'm with now, I'm very happy with and he's an irvine and he's great.

and my ovaries, and I'm like, oh my god. But he also told me, oh my god, this is another thing. Before I forget, He's like, you're producing so much estrogen that that's probably why you're getting so many cysts and your ovaries, and it's your ovaries really saying like hello, like you are ready to be a mother, but also it's the estrogen that's going on in your body that you should be more fertile. But because you have these cysts,

it's not helping you get pregnant. That's another thing you guys, oh my god. Now if I'm ready to get pregnant, then I would have to lay off the disosterone. So it's all important to be informed completely with your doctor where you're at in your life. If you're done having kids, you got to let him know that. If you want to have kids, you got to let them know that. If it's just for weight loss, you got to let them know that, like be completely honest. Like when I

started hormone therapy, I was like, no, I'm good. I just want to get myself leveled out. I want to get myself balanced. I'm not trying to have kids right now, which is why I think he gave me like the dose that he gave me a disosterone. But now if I want to start having a baby towards the end of the year, then he's going to have to like really completely take me off or lower it. That's something

that I have to figure out with him. But it was very very clear about how common this is you guys, And it's not that something's wrong with us, although kind of because it's like, Okay, what's happening. It has a lot to do with our food, you guys, A lot to do with our food nowadays our food is injected with preservatives and additives and crazy things and hormones. This is why I'm always one to like especially my poultry,

my meat, my chicken, all that. I try to get it organic, grass fed, all that stuff, just because a lot of chicken, especially you guys, is injected with hormones to make them grow faster, because it's all like in demand, especially chicken. So for a long time I stayed away from chicken. My doctor also told me to stay away from soy because a lot of it is GMO, which means genetically modified organism, and that's why it's like all this like gluten free and you know, non GMO. I

personally follow that because it really messed me up. You can have meat, but like be try to do a little bit more clean and organic if you can, and vegetarian if possible. Not telling you to be completely vegetarian, but it is best to add more fruits and veggies so that you're not in taking so much hormone, especially like at restaurants and stuff like that. You know, if you can cook at home, cook at home, like these are all things that he suggests. Didn't of course with

my lifestyle. It's a little hard, but with the hormones and everything, like, I feel like it hasn't really affected me, even like when I'm out traveling, like it hasn't really affected me as much. So make sure you ask all the questions when you go see your doctor and tell them where you're atting your life, if you're done having kids and all that stuff. You know, it is very important to know that when going into to see your

hormone specialist. So going back to the whole low into stosterone thing, there are women that are high into stosterone and very low in estrogen, which means that's sometimes why you know, some women grow more facial hair than others, or they have like a stronger body odor. Those are signs of like imbalanced hormones. So that's why it's important to go just check it out. And I just googled, you guys. I googled, and I was like, I need to find a hormone specialist, and there are plenty, you

just have to research in your area. And my doctor he's out here in Irvine and he's amazing. So gave me to stosterroone drops. Because you're supposed to lift weights so that your muscle grows so that you have less fat. So I was working out really hard and I just felt like I just was not retaining my muscle mass, which in turn, I wasn't burning a lot of fat, you guys, So that I had to do with. I

was low into stostroone and estrogen. Also, there's a lot of estrogen in SOI, which is another reason why my doctor said stay away from SOY because when you're producing too much estrogen, you hold on to a lot of fat. Especially that's for women, you know, to like take care of the baby, like to nourish the baby, you know what I mean. So it's like your mind in a way feels like you're pregnant, so you got to hold

onto that. Anyways, I had a lot of estrogen and I was holding onto my fat like no other you guys. But I do suggest highly suggest women and gentlemen get it checked out. It's not that expensive and it's definitely a great investment and completely worth it. Alrighty guys, So sitting here with me is doctor Erica Montes. She's a board certified opgyn based in Arizona, and she's also the creator of the bilingual health blog The Modern Mucher Doctor Montess. Thank you so much for being on.

could be menopausal. But you can, like you just said, like you could start as early as how old.

as forty can be experiencing these symptoms. So it is important, like you said, I need to go get evaluated, Go get your hormones check, because it definitely can can change your quality of life and we want women who now that we know, are living longer. We kind of go through this like forty to fifty year old change and we still possibly have twenty or thirty more years of life left, so we definitely want to make sure that we can have a good quality of life.

chemicals and possibly hormones as well, can affect right. And then also we kind of tend to have also more of like a sedentary lifestyle where people are becoming morabese, and that's also leading to hormone and balances. So I

think it's kind of like our society in general. But then, like I mentioned before, women are living longer, they're wanting to lead similar lifestyles to what they had in their earlier decades, and then that also contributes to women seeking out care and wanting to not feel the way that they're feeling, Yeah, for sure.

So hormones are so important, and not only our female hormones or our sex hormones, but also hormones such as the thyroid and things like that. So when you are going to get evaluated for these symptoms, you also want to make sure that they're checking other hormones such as thyroid, which can sometimes overlap in symptoms.

system regardless of what you can, unfortunately do. So most of the time, I would say this is going to be a lifetime medication.

Now there's other hormones that are in a different class called bioidentical hormones, and those essentially, for the most part, I would say more than ninety percent ninety five percent are not covered by insurance.

the genital area. Estrogen and progesterone therapy go hand in hand if a woman still has a uterus, But if you don't have a uterus, you can use what we call unopposed estrogen where we don't have to give you progesterone necessarily because you don't have a uterus that could start having thickening of the endometrium or the uterine lining.

And then some women use the vaginal estrogen therapy just for what we call genital ural syndrome amenopause, which essentially is like vaginal dryness, painful intercourse, those types of things. So you can be using all three or you can use a combination of those.

is FDA approved for testosterone therapy for women. But essentially what happens is is when you we know that, and especially now that I'm focusing more on hormones in my new practice, you know, I do tend to see that as women kind of go into that menopausal realm, those that testosterone level goes down and sometimes some of the symptoms that I mentioned before, they actually can be due

to a lack or a deficiency and testosterone. So with endometriosis, it's it's kind of different because we want to avoid estrogen because we know that estrogen feeds intometriosis, and that's kind of like something that we want to avoid if we can. But progesterone can be a treatment for endometriosis, So you have to kind of do have a fine balance between what you're giving these patients, especially when they're kind of having those menopause symptoms.

you almost like don't see them. They're what we call they become a trophic is what we call them in like medical terms. So essentially what happens is is though when you get when you go through that change, you do need replacement obviously, if you don't have any severe contraindications, like you don't have a history of blood clouds, you don't have a history of liver disease, you don't have

a estrogen or progesterone, dominant cancer things like that. Then giving you back those hormones is definitely something that will help you during that time. The societies essentially say, you know, give the lowest dose for the shortest amount of time, and of course, obviously what does that mean, Like that's kind of like vague and it's different for every individual. Right,

most menopausal symptoms do last on average. They did a study and it's at about seven point four years, So if you need hormone therapy during that time, I think

that less than ten years is very safe. But one thing that I tell patients is there's a difference between the systemic hormones that we talked about, which is the estrogen and progesterone or testosterone, and then there's that other vaginal estrogen therapy, which I think honestly people need to be on that their whole life because that kind of helps with a lot of other different things, like I said, painful intercourse, vaginal dryness, It can decrease your risk of UTIs,

decrease your risk of vaginal infections. So you know, in a way, it doesn't mean that you're going to necessarily be on like systemic hormones the rest of your life. I mean, have I had paid to her in their eighties and they're like, you better not take away my hormones, doctor Montus, And I'm like, okay, lady, we're gonna keep them going. But because they you know, they don't want that. But vaginal estrogen therapy is something that probably could be

a lifetime hormone that you may need. Yes, I mean, once you stop them, you may feel some symptoms, and some of the symptoms can return, but by the time that the majority of the symptoms are gone, I think it's gonna you won't feel as bad.

on therapy. I see an increase in infections, an increase in like symptoms. There's even a condition called a trophic vaginitis where just because of the lack of estrogen you're having symptoms that you think are infections, but it's actually

just because you don't have estrogen. And so there's so many conditions and there's so many things, and unfortunately, you know, as Latinas and as our moms were older, like they didn't they would just think it was normal, like they didn't bring it up, or we didn't talk about like you know, the lotus or comes on like things like that. So I think I think overall it's one of those things where like now that we know what we need as we continue to age, and we are bringing it

out there to the forefront for our communities to know. Now, more people are going to start talking about it. More people are going to realize that it is necessary and we need to have this treatment.

own doctor my hormone therapy. Uh, doctor, like, is there is there a site like anything I gotta worry about?

through menopausa. And then in two thousand and two, this major landmark study came out that included twenty seven thousand postmenopausal women, and it shut hormone therapy down because what happened was is they basically saw they showed that there was adverse outcomes which included like an increase of cardiovascular disease, stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer, and all the doctors and all the patients were like, heck, no, we're not taking

hormones anymore. Unfortunately, what happened from that study is that two things happened. It basically caused an impact in the health and even in the economy, and for these women because they were getting so bad that their quality of life wasn't good and they actually couldn't work and there was all these things happening kind of like in that realm. And then also it essentially made these women like just scared right like, hey, we're not going to take hormones

because of this new study. And what they found though, is that after a few years they kind of analyzed the data and they said, you know what these patients that were in this study, yeah, twenty seven thousand, but the average age was actually sixty three. So remember we talked about the average age that we tend to see patients that are symptomatic or with these symptoms, it's like forty five to fifty five. So these patients were a good like almost ten years older than what we would

typically consider menopausal. So yes, what they found was that this study, because of the age of the women in the study, it was showing the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, the increased risk of breast cancer and blood clots. So it kind of changed the way that people thought of hormones.

I mean, yes, with anything that we give patients, of course there are risks, but I think if you take it with what are your risk factors, like an individualized approach, What are your risk factors, what's your family history, how good are you about getting your annual screenings? You know, all that plays a role or a factor in what

your risk can be for these hormones. And like I mentioned before, if you need them for a few years, like the systemic hormones, and then you ultimately are just on the vaginal estrogen therapy, you're still gonna do great. You're still gonna do fine. But what we do know is that hormone therapy overall, for women that initiate it, like either within ten years of menopause or less than

sixty decreases the risk of mortality of cardiovascular disease. It also decreased Its undeniable that it decreases the risk of osteoporosis or fractures. We don't want to give this therapy as a treatment for osteoporosis, but it can be a prevention. And then obviously it decreases all the menopause symptoms and improves quality of life.

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