Why HRT
Yesterday I had a rare chat with my cousin who lives on the other side of the continent and I was horrified to find out that she was in her second year of taking HRT. Why? I also found out she had never heard of the Womens’ Health Initiative study of 2002 or that the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.N.’s cancer research agency, had reclassified HRT from “possibly carcinogenic” to “carcinogenic” in 2005.
Hormone replacement therapy has been around for five decades and has become so accepted, it’s almost a rite of menopause passage. Women might automatically look to hormone replacement therapy instead of healthy means of reducing menopause symptoms without side effects common in hormone replacement therapy drugs.
Some women take an “It won’t happen to me” approach to the increased cancer and heart disease risks that go hand-in-hand with hormone replacement therapy. (Somewhat like those of us who continue to smoke cigarettes).
Others might not fully understand the broad implications of the shattering Womens’ Health Initiative study.
Yet others may not know that they can effectively relieve themselves of menopause symptoms without hormone replacement therapy.
In 2002 about six million women regularly used Prempro, a commonly prescribed hormone replacement therapy of a combined estrogen and progestin. Prempro – along with Femhrt, Ortho-Prefest, Premphase and other combined estrogen and progestin HRT – carry severe side effects that can be deadly for women.
All of us should remain educated about the harmful side effects of Prempro, Femhrt and other HRT and make choices accordingly.
Synthetic hormone replacement therapy provides relief of menopausal symptoms but the side effects of Prempro, Femhrt and other hormone replacement therapy drugs are not worth the risk – especially when viable and effective alternative exist.
Why take a chemical prescription for menopause side effects if it produces other and very harmful menopause side effects?
Why are doctors still prescribing HRT? Why are pharmacists still dispensing it?
