Hormone Therapies Compounded for You
At Stanley Pharmacy Compounding Center, we use the latest equipment and techniques to prepare therapies for your exact hormone levels.
What Is Hormone Therapy?
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) balances certain hormones (usually estrogen and progesterone) for women in menopause. Millions of women experience this hormonal imbalance, but HRT can replenish the lowered levels and can help relieve menopausal symptoms.
Before starting your HRT, we will assess your hormone levels, and evaluate your signs and symptoms. If you need hormone replacement, this information will tell us exactly what you need replaced and how much of it you need for your best possible therapeutic outcome.
What are Natural Hormones?
Natural hormones are just what the name suggests: hormones that your body naturally produces. As many women approach menopause, their ovaries produce less estrogen. Over time and during menopause, this imbalance can cause hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, urinary tract infections, and emotional changes, such as depression and irritability.
Estrogen replacement, however, can help relieve these symptoms while also promoting bone health. Progesterone replacement can also help relieve fatigue and irregular periods. Although HRT can involve other hormones, it is estrogen and progesterone together that most often provide symptom relief and improved health for women.
Hormone Testing
Blood Spot Testing
Often called the future of blood testing, this method requires whole capillary blood from a nearly painless finger prick. It does not involve needles, and it does not require your blood sample to be put in a tube.
Instead, the blood spots dry on a collection card, which gives us highly accurate results of your hormone levels. It also costs less and allows for more stable shipping and storage capabilities.
This method also lets us test the levels of many different hormones. Along with testing for estrogen or progesterone, we can test for:
- thyroxine (T4), free
- triiodothyronine (T3), free
- thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)
- thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPO)
- testosterone, total
- sex hormone binding hlobulin (SHBG)
- prostate-specific antigen (PSA)
- insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1)
- estradiol (E2)
Saliva Testing
Saliva testing is a convenient, inexpensive, and accurate way to test steroid hormones. The levels of steroid hormones in your saliva correlate strongly with the amount of hormone in the blood that is active, or bioavailable.
This method of testing can be done anywhere, anytime. Moreover, hormones in saliva are highly stable and can be stored at room temperature for up to a week without affecting the accuracy of the result.
Saliva testing also lets us test for many saliva profiles, including:
- estradiol
- progesterone
- testosterone
- dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
- cortisol