Want to send us a message? Menopause is a phase in a woman s life that brings about hormonal changes with potential effects on various aspects of health. These changes can impact skin tone, muscle mass, fat distribution, libido, mood swings, cholesterol levels, and the risk of heart disease. However, the historical narrative surrounding Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) has created misconceptions and fear, largely influenced by the miscommunication of the findings from the WHI study in 2002, which reported an increased risk of breast cancer among HRT users. This misrepresentation has persisted, limiting women s access to potentially beneficial treatment options. It is important to be cautious of false narratives propagated through social media and celebrities, seeking reliable information sources instead. Consulting healthcare professionals specializing in menopause, such as endocrinologists, is crucial when considering relief options. Additionally, careful research should be conducted before using vitamins and supplements marketed for menopause management. Hormone therapy is not a quick fix, requiring patience and informed guidance from knowledgeable healthcare providers. By navigating menopause with the right information and support, women can improve their overall well-being.ALL OUR LINKS: https://SwingLinks.club SOURCES:Check SwingerUniversity.com for all the links and sources. Support the showWant More?👀 Watch on YouTube: YouTube ShowFull video versions and interactive live episodes!Bonus episodes, exclusive content, and 🌶️Extras: https://www.patreon.com/SwingerUniversity 🛳️🎉Looking for lifestyle events in your area? T4P is the go-to directory for clubs, parties, and resort events. Browse now at Ticket4Play.com Custom SU T-shirts and gear: Our Amazon StoreSwingerLinks.com - live schedule, special offers*, and our 🌶️links!Our Website - Leave us a message, articles, and sexy products3 Ways to get your question on our show:RECORD it on our website at: https://swingeruniversity.com/contact/EMAIL a recorded voice note to: [email protected]: (916) 538-0482 and leave a voicemail.* We get a commission if you decide to purchase through our links, at no cost to you.
Transcript
We have to talk about something we've been genuinely excited about for months, and our patrons actually got a preview of this already. Jamaica! Yes, we are going back, and actually, we have a great offer for you guys. Yeah, it's Swingcation. It's October 11th through the 18th at Hedonism 2. And if you don't know what Swingcation is, it's pretty easy. Swinger plus kink plus vacation. It's a hosted group with real structure, workshops, lectures, real conversations with experts who are passionate about bringing and bridging that gap between the swinger world and the kink world.
And we're not just going as attendees. We're going as featured presenters, which is exciting. We'll be leading sessions. So if you come, we actually get to hang out with you. Which brings up something we should mention. When you use our code, yes, we got a code, you're not just getting a discount. You're getting the signature swing experience, which means $100 off per person, up to $200 per room, but it also means that we make time for you. An exclusive breakfast, lunch, cocktail hour, or one-hour and one time with us directly, plus more surprise benefits.
Here's something that's really unique. You could actually contribute by hosting a discussion or running a Skillshare. I know it's scary, but if you have something that you want to contribute, that's a big part of why this event is so special. Everyone there has something to bring to the table. All right, details. If you book before April 25th, you save $400. Plus, they gave us that special code that gets you an additional $200, and the special code is SWINGERU-VIP. So book through TicketForPlay.com forward slash Swinky. That's T-I-C-K-E-T, the number four, play.com forward slash S-W-I-N-K-Y.
And use our code at checkout. And you guys, if you have any questions about the event, the resort, or what to expect, just reach out. I mean, we're here for you. We're happy to help. So once again, TicketForPlay.com forward slash Swinky, the code SWINGERU-VIP. We really want to see you there. Welcome to Swinger University. I'm Ed. And I'm Phoebe. Have you ever wondered if hormone replacement therapy or bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is right for you? Phoebe had to really dig to find information.
She started with her primary care provider, went to her OBGYN, and then to an endocrinologist. She read books, listened to podcasts, interviewed at least 10 doctors, and talked to all of her women friends. While I have put in hundreds of hours, yes, hundreds, into my research, however, I'm not an expert. Because to be an expert, you need 10,000 hours. And I have not come close to 10,000 hours, but I'm on my way there. So please know this episode is information I've organized for you through my filter and my cumulative experiences.
There seems to be two camps of perspectives when when dealing with menopause and helping women with those symptoms. You have doctors prescribing for relief symptoms, hot flashes, night sweats, things like that. And you have doctors prescribing for long-term health benefits, quality of life, better libido, etc. So we are going to break all that down in this episode. In addition to this episode, we've also put together two blog posts for this. How do you know if testosterone therapy is right for you and hormone replacement therapy for men? If you like our show, tell a friend about it.
Every new subscriber helps boost our show and draw in new listeners. We love getting questions from our audience and you can leave us a voicemail at 916-538-0482 or contacting us at swingeruniversity.com. Tell us your name, age, and where you live or you can be anonymous. If you're a super fan of our show, consider supporting us on Patreon. As a member, you'll have access to exclusive content that's even hotter than what we share on this podcast. So come join our naughty community. We promise you won't regret it. And speaking of patrons, we have 14 new subscribers in June.
This is our biggest support we've ever had, and we really, really thank you. Thank you. We must be doing something right. We are trying our darndest, for sure. Darnedest. I will tell you, this episode has been coming for about well over a year. Yes, about two and a half years. Well, certainly you've been doing your research for that long. But talking about producing the episode, we were going to kick it off in November. Like right after we got off the cruise, we'd even talked to some people on the cruise about the episode. And everything keeps shifting around.
We keep finding new information that kind of contradicts the previous information and starts the bowl rolling again with more research. Right. And my research started very small about the size of a cherry. Let's use fruit as an analogy. And then it grew to the size of a grapefruit and then all of a sudden it exploded to the size of a watermelon. And then I realized I had so much information that there's no way I could organize all of the information for everybody and not bore them to death. Right. It's a book. I mean, it really is a book. It could be an entire volume of books.
So now I've tried to shrink it back down to about the size of an orange. And it's still a lot more information than I feel like, you know, people need. But then I feel like you really need it because it's all really, really good And there are probably, I don't know, 15, 17 websites and references that I've provided for people to do your own research. So the goal is of this podcast is I'm giving you resources and I'm giving you the information that I collected to help guide you in the direction that might be right for you. Right.
Because I can't address everybody's medical issues and their unique body performance with hormones, which is a whole other topic. Right. I had to simplify it kind of back down to the orange level. Yeah, I mean, if you consider it, every single person's chemistry, biology, physiology is different. And trying to, even for a doctor, prescribe one solution for every body, literally body, not possible.
Which is why they call it the practice of medicine, because while doctors are educated and they have scientific studies, scientific studies are constantly being reviewed, studies are being redone, and not everything fits everybody, right're practicing what fits the average person and right i'm not the average person and what works for most does not typically work for me i discovered so let's launch into this most of us uh women in the lifestyle although they are in menopause although there's a there are a growing community of younger women in the lifestyle now and i'm i'm super happy about that and thankfully you don't have menopause issues now or perimenopause issues but you know these are the flashes emotional changes brain fog dryness weight can't sleep, you're sweaty, your sex hurts because you're dry.
And then you have vaginal pH issues, which do change when you're perimenopausal and menopausal. Usually your pH is 5.5 and it can lower to 3.8 or 4.5. And the reason I bring this up is because this gets to be a little more important when you're swinging and having multiple partners. Right. Introducing other types of bacteria from other partners. Different safety levels of different partners depending on where they play and who they play with. And you're introducing other new factors as well. Condom use, which is irritating, can be drying.
Different lubes that you didn't normally use, which can be irritating and drying. So there's all these different factors that tend to mess up your nice vaginal health just because you're perimenopausal or in menopause. So along with all of those perimenopause and menopause symptoms, the practice of hormone replacement therapy is really trying to alleviate a lot of those symptoms. They'll also help with some of these other things like skin tone, muscle building, fat, libido, depression, mood. Even cholesterol can be affected by hormones, heart disease, bone density.
So some of those long-term benefits that you were talking about with hormone replacement therapy are addressed with these, which is that long-term kind of getting back to where you were when you were producing hormones naturally on your own. Right. And a lot of doctors are selling this sort of fountain of youth. You have to be a little bit careful. HRT has had a negative stigma attached to it because of some studies that were done in the early 2000s. Statistics lie. People blow statistics up and misinterpret them all the time, which is why statistics are really hard to read and interpret.
Because of the way that those statistics were interpreted by the media it shifted the way that hormone replacement therapy was interpreted by the public and doctors and the media and it's only just now starting to be clarified figured out right a lot of people know the the ugly word primarin right horse urine right right and this actually this this hormone replacement therapy is still prescribed today a lot of people don't know that and and it and it was good and it is still good, for hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal symptoms.
It was off the market in 2002 because of some of these false claims and misinterpretation of some of the premature data that was released when the study wasn't even finished right so things really kind of got jacked up for women and what i found was that it's really the only natural estrogen and it's still being prescribed to one million people and it's still marketed as safe as long as it's used with progestin. Now, most people don't use it long term.
Most doctors prescribe this for three to five years in that perimenopause or menopause really has a symptom relief for hot flashes and things like that. They don't like to prescribe it long term. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's used as an oral estrogen and not as an estradiol. There is a difference. So, there's a lot of different factors and that's really important to keep track of. Estrogen is different than estradiol. In fact, there are two other types of estrogen. But hormones get complicated. Hormones get really complicated and how they work with all the other parts of your body.
By the way, there is a new drug on the market as of this year that's called veozah v-e-o-z-a-h it's a gabapentin repurposed as this new drug and it's was originally used for pain relief and seizures they're finding is it sits on the brain receptors telling the body that it's not really hot and it's not really cold oh interesting it stops the body from responding the body thinks it's it senses this drop in hormones in the evening as part of your natural you know circadian rhythm cycle and your body thinks something's wrong and it seeks to adapt by increasing your temperature and therefore you're getting these flashes of hot and sweat so it tells your brain no no no you're fine please don't do that nice so very nice so i was just recently at my ob-gyn and she said people are flying in for this prescription i have no idea how much it costs right now because I haven't had her send that to the pharmacy.
But hopefully it's affordable enough for people to take it and get a good night's sleep. Right. What other options do you have for this type of relief? And, you know, hopefully you're going to your OBGYN or an endocrinologist. Endocrinologists are a little bit better, but they're rare to find. There aren't very many that have gone to school and are practicing. And if you do find one, probably takes a good five to six months to get an appointment, which was my case. I would say finding the right doctor is key, doing your research, and finding out which methods are going to be right for you.
And I'm going to go into the pellets, the creams, the injectables, all that type of hormone replacement therapy.
If you want to go with that type of replacement instead of just the medicine to stop the hot flash that's different big natural saw an opportunity when there's this huge gap when people weren't using primarin and there was this big scare that oh my god it causes cancer so women were suffering for years trying to find something and big natural said oh we have something as an alternative which is bioidentical hormones okay well what's that well it's actually been around since the 90s and they didn't really come out um as as a as a product until you know right after this primarin scare, right?
They're not actually identical. The starting compound is found in plants and animals, but they are still chemically altered and they are a different isotope to your body. So, please don't let people tell you they are identical to your own hormones. They are not identical. In fact, primarin is probably the more closer identical hormone to your body, which is very interesting. Back to the estradiol. It is made by your ovaries.
It can be synthesized from yams it's a semi-synthesis but it is not identical it is plant-based but is it 100 safe no so when someone tells you that it's all natural it must be good for you right it doesn't necessarily mean that your body processes it the same way or deals with it the same way. And there's all kinds of natural things that if you ingest it will kill you. Because it's been altered, right? It's not an actual yam. It's been altered to be assimilated by your body. estradiol and progesterone are two of the more common uses for hormone replacement therapy.
A lot of doctors will use testosterone as well, and we're going to do an episode and a blog on that. Right now, we're going to focus on the estradiol and progesterone. Estradiol can come in many forms. You can have an oral method, which is a pill or a lozenge. The oral pill or lozenge will pass through your intestines, your liver, and then into your bloodstream where it gets diluted. So you typically need higher doses of estradiol in order to have the same effect.
One of the negative things about the pill or oral version of estradiol is that it can trigger the liver to make estreon, which is a weaker form of estrogen, not estriol. And it creates more proteins and can be known to cause more blood clotting. It also increases the SHBG made by your liver, which binds more testosterone.
So it's a little less effective or active in your body and can create a negative effect on your libido so i encourage you to do your research i do have some good friends that use the oral version they say they don't have any issues i haven't got into great depth and detailed on their test results and what exactly you know their medical history is but they seem to like it and and that's a risk factor that you'll have to decide for yourself i've decided personally i don't want to take it i want to do something different estradiol can lower your cholesterol but it can tend to raise your triglycerides.
So you may want to be cautious of that. And this is the oral form of estradiol. It has some inconsistency where your levels are up and down based on your digestive process. And it tends to impact your mood levels differently because you might be sensitive to fluctuations. It could have some inflammatory reactions and increased cardiovascular disease. So I've heard more negative things from oral estradiol than positive. But, you know, that is what I have found.
And you can do your own research on the rest gels sprays and emulsions you can apply those daily you apply them typically to your arms some say yes some say never i'm more frequently hear people say you apply it to your your hip and buttock region even the outer thigh that is the preferred method the downside is that you can't wash it off you can't apply moisturizer or sunscreen right over the top of it until it takes that hour to absorb and you can't have sex with your partner because it's it's on your skin it can transfer so you do you need to wait so it's a little i don't know it seemed too messy for me and very specific pellets seem to be the up-and-coming easy way to go about delivering estradiol and testosterone it looks like about a cooked grain of rice.
It can be inserted into your lower hip and buttock region. And the only downside is you have to wait about three days to exercise because you got to wait for that incision to heal. You can't get in the hot tub. It's covered with a patch and a waterproof patch.
And the benefit is it has a slow time release so you get more of that even uh dispensing of you know the product estradiol or testosterone in into your body progesterone however is a pill and that is pretty much the common i don't know of any other way to prescribe progesterone it seems like that it's a pill and that's the way it's done it it will be necessary to take that if you're on estradiol because it affects the lining of the uterus and you don't want to bleed while on estradiol. So it balances out, keeping your lining from shedding.
Now, I will say some doctors in Europe will prescribe a more natural balance of estradiol and progesterone to females so that they have a cycle in menopause so that it mimics more the natural cycle of the women there are camps that say yay there are camps that say nay so you may want to choose what's best for you okay can we talk about october for a second oh my god yeah i've been waiting for this we were invited to be guest speakers for two engagements on a six-star crystal cruise ship with 310 lifestyle couples and it sails from montreal to boston during the peak foliage season i'm super excited and honestly i'm really nervous yeah it's kind of a version of like a swinger ted talk that we're gonna have to do oh my god i know and more importantly if you know the brand it's llv luxury lifestyle vacations you may have seen them and they're sexy playmakers with their fun red hats.
This ship, the Crystal Symphony, is classy. Butler service for every single room, Michelin rated restaurants, full spa, clothing optional, sensual playrooms, like everything, theme nights and international DJ. So it's luxury and nudity oh man this is going to be great the bottom line is we want you there with us it's 310 couples and like all their vacations they book up fast they really do their vacations are extremely popular so please come with And in order to find it, all you have to do is go to our swingerlinks.com and look for the LLV Sensual Voyage. We hope you'll join us.
One of the things that I remember from the pellets, and this is pretty important if you want to consider delivery methods, is it's a surgical procedure. They cut you open with a scalpel, and they shove a steel tube into your body and push, like a syringe, those pellets into you. It's actually, it looked like a very long, it was a...
It's like a syringe those pellets into you it's actually it looked like a very long it was a it's like a steel straw yeah it was like a spoon almost a long spoon like a two inch long narrow spoon yeah if you've ever looked at a hypodermic needle really close up like under a microscope it's a straw cut off at an angle and that's kind of what they're doing is basically pushing a very large needle into you and then pushing the pellet out through the tube into your your butt i had it done with my testosterone pellet and it hurts it's very invasive yeah it's it's invasive and then they do use a butterfly suit uh not a suture they don't actually suture you up but they tape you closed again tape sutures yeah and it it takes a while for it to heal i mean you did mention that you couldn't exercise but for men it's more invasive and it takes longer to heal right because the pellets are bigger and there's more of them for testosterone so so your incision's bigger too it's a literally a pain in the ass yes and you also end up with a really nice set of scars as you progress so yes the more often you do it every four months you will have a new scar to add to your collection, which is super fun.
And there was a woman I talked to that had done it for 10 years now, and she has little hard spots, scars. Oh, yeah. So when you touch her ass. She's got little bumps. She has bumps everywhere. You don't see them, but you can feel them. Yeah. And she jokes because she says she's running out of places to put incisions. Sounds lovely. I remember it and don't have fond memories of it. Right. A delivery, another delivery mechanism is actually daily injections. So you have a small vial of fluid and you draw out that fluid to the volume that they prescribe to you.
You use a little alcohol wipe, swab your, your part where you inject, um, and stick, uh, basically a hypodermic needle, like an insulin needle, into your butt and inject the hormone. Right. You can do it with estradiol and testosterone. Right. And you can do it daily. I'm not sure if you would want to do it every other day, but you might be able to.
for me the key is to have a more level balance of of hormones in my body that's going to mimic my my my normal body's response it makes sense it keeps your mood more balanced you're not having these high peaks and low lows right to me it just makes sense so if you're okay with injecting yourself daily and you're not afraid of needles that could also be a good way to go i will say it's hard to find a lot of local providers do not offer this right i found a few that offer it online and part of the reason is it's covered by insurance mostly usually and so they're not making any money off of it.
And that's... Interesting. Interesting. Yes. But it's also, the downside is it's not very convenient. Although, meaning you have to do it daily. You have to carry it with you on vacations and any kind of activity that you're going to. So, I mean, obviously, if you're going to a pool party, you've already done it in the morning.
But if you're going um to so i mean obviously if you're going to a pool party you've already done it in the morning but if you're going backpacking for example like we do you had to find a special case right to carry it it is an insulin case which is fine um thank goodness it doesn't need to be refrigerated not for testosterone but i don't know for estradiol yet. That's true. We haven't gotten into that investigation. This could be an inconvenience factor. I would encourage you to have patience because this is not a quick fix.
The lower the dose of hormone therapy, the longer it takes to take effect in the body. So patience is key. And it's typically four to eight weeks before you start to notice changes. And with lower doses, sometimes it takes even longer. Another piece I'll throw in with patience, and this speaks more to not the immediate effects of how long it'll take to kick in, but getting the dosage right has been a struggle for you for years. You've been to several providers. You've talked to all the doctors.
I mean, our whole intro kind of covered the long road that you've been on, just trying to figure out what the right dose is for all of these different hormones. So don't go into it with the expectation that they're going to get it right the first time. It's going to take some trial and error. It's also going to take some testing. So they're going to take blood tests and figure out where your levels are periodically after it's been in your system for a while, especially with pellets. It's a slow release. You got to wait a little while.
You're not going to find out right away if you got it right or wrong. And then they're going to have to adjust your dose and then they're going to have to test you again. Right. It takes a long time. It does take a long time. And that you mentioned the testing with the pellet.
If they've given you the wrong dosage you have to wait three or four months right if it's too high you're suffering you're suffering if it's too low they could supplement it with a cream or something different or an oral medication to kind of right balance it but then it's complicated because the delivery method means that it gets absorbed differently and your body processes it differently. So when you go back for the next pellet with the higher dose, that may not be the right dose either because the cream was absorbed at a different rate and it was probably a different level of dosage.
Right, and this is why it gets so complicated and so frustrating. So you really have to ask yourself, what is the price you're willing to pay for the type of relief that you're looking for? Are you just looking for hot flash relief, night sweat relief, or are you looking for longevity and the promise of that and if you are it's going to take some trial and error right get the right dosage for you most doctors will only order tests a few times a year i have them order it every single time i go in because they're guessing and I don't want them to guess. So, I'm willing to pay.
It's only like 80, 90 bucks for each test. It's not like 250. I'm willing to pay that to get exact test results to figure out where I need to be.
And even then, it's still a frustrating guessing process yeah yeah but it's closer you've decided i want this i want better muscle tone i want better sleep i want to live longer i don't want osteoporosis i don't want any of these other bad things i want more energy and i want what they're promising me they the social media doctors my friends whatever they're saying oh my god i can get testosterone and be hornier so who do you go to right uh be careful because what's happened is that pretty much any licensed doctor can prescribe you bioidentical hormones it could be an anesthesiologist who doesn't want to be an anesthesiologist anymore.
It could be a general practitioner. Some nurse practitioners can do so, especially in states that have those types of requirements. And they're promising some of the same things that Primarin did, prevention of cardiovascular vascular diseaseoporosis, reducing breast cancer, reducing blood clots, all that stuff I mentioned before. Here's the problem.
Sometimes the doctors are getting most of their information from the entity that's selling them the product so they decide oh i want to change my my business model i don't want to be an anesthesiologist anymore i want to get onto this bioidentical hormone replacement bandwagon you know money maker kind of kind of thing. So they go, they take a class from XYZ, you know, pellet manufacturer or cream manufacturer, and they give them a class, they pay for a class and they take their training and then they set up shop and all of a sudden they get the product at their place and boom, off they go.
Well, they're given some pretty standard levels of care and they're not really educating themselves on all the different facets that come with each individual's needs, even though they say they will. And this is really comes from my experience of having talked with 10 doctors and been a patient of four different doctors. So I'm telling you this just to kind of be aware of some of the information that you may hear in social media, on different podcasts. Take the information and critically analyze it for you. It is a lot of information. It's not going to be easy. It will be unique to you.
Menopause is a significant phase in a woman's life that can present various challenges. While seeking treatment options, it's essential to consult knowledgeable healthcare professionals and providers and be cautious of misleading information. By gaining a better understanding of menopause, its symptoms, and available treatment options, you can navigate this transitional phase more effectively and improve your overall well-being. Oh, one last thing before you go.
If this episode helped you in any way the single best thing you can do to support the show is leaving a rating and review it takes 60 seconds and helps new people find us when they're searching for relationship education and we've made it easy Visit swingeruniversity.com forward slash review. All the instructions are there. Thank you for being part of this community. We'll see you again soon.
