What is Hormone Management?
Hormones are chemical messengers that regulate many daily bodily functions, including blood sugar, blood pressure, growth, fertility, sex drive, metabolism, sleep, digestion, and immune function
A hormonal imbalance can cause mood swings, anxiety, weight gain, and sleep disturbances and has been associated with cardiovascular disease. Some hormonal imbalances are temporary, while others are chronic. Hormone management is used to treat these symptoms.
Balancing hormones can be vital to feeling optimal as they play a pivotal role in our health and wellness and can have a major impact on mood and anxiety. Our brain can typically adjust to high or low hormones, but this becomes an issue when your hormones begin to change frequently.
If you are experiencing symptoms that are interfering with your sleeping and eating, impairing your concentration, memory, and ability to work, or having significant effects on your relationships, it may be time to seek help.
Our Approach
The doctors at Lake Oswego can help balance your hormones with diet changes, botanical medicine, or bio-identical hormone management (see more about treatment below).
We use blood, saliva, and urine lab testing to create a full picture of how your hormones are being metabolized to create treatment programs that help you feel better, faster.
Hormone Imbalance Symptoms and Treatment
Symptoms you may be experiencing—and associated treatments—include:
PMS: There are a variety of treatments to improve cramping, breakouts, tender breasts, mood swings, and heavy cycles which include nutrition changes, nutraceuticals, prescriptions, or local injections.
Menopausal Symptoms: Symptoms can include hot flashes and night sweats, trouble sleeping, weight gain, brain fog, fatigue, vaginal dryness, pain with intercourse, low libido, decreased muscle mass, and hair loss. High-quality botanica formulas, bio-identical hormones, and nutrition guidance can make a significant difference quickly. Women often feel better within 5-10 days. Thorough lab testing is very important, and we find it is often not performed.
Low Testosterone, Andropause, and Low T: Men go through hormone changes as well. We see men in their 30s who have significantly low testosterone levels. Optimizing testosterone often results in weight loss, improved energy, mental clarity, better drive and motivation, and better strength. This can be done with herbs and testosterone injections. Why is testosterone low in younger men now? There are many chemicals in the environment that affect our hormone levels. We can work to improve your internal levels while adding external sources of testosterone. Again, thorough lab testing is important, and we offer that at our clinic.
Thyroid: See Autoimmune and Thyroid Treatments page.
Low Cortisol and Hormone Metabolism: We offer comprehensive testing, including a DUTCH hormone panel to help evaluate your endocrine system thoroughly. (the DUTCH panel is a group of validated tests that provide a complete evaluation of sex and adrenal hormones, including metabolites). Is your weight off? Are you overly fatigued in the morning? Ask about testing options.
Keep Your Hormones in Balance
If you’re experiencing mood swings, anxiety, weight gain, or other symptoms, they might be due to hormone imbalance. Let Lake Oswego Health Center help you bring your hormones—and life—back in balance.