Meyer Clinic understands that the perimenopause and menopause can be a very difficult period to go through, with a wide range of symptoms. They are specialists at finding balance for patients during this period and beyond and know that a whole 360 approach is needed, with discussions on hormones, nutrition, and wellness checks at this time.
For some women the road through the menopause is much simpler, than for others. Some may require HRT; most will require good advice on diet and exercise and the importance of bone health to ensure a healthy later life. Not all women need or are able to have HRT, but still need support through the menopause. Having advice on nutrition, exercise and the correct supplementation and ongoing investigations can have a tremendous positive impact on living a full life without HRT.
Choosing HRT involves careful history taking, and open communication. It is often valuable to look at blood chemistry, especially for oestrogen and testosterone levels, and apart from the standard blood testing, the DUTCH dried urine test is also very useful for functional information.
Meyer Clinic gives guidance on how much HRT to use, with every treatment assessed on personal merit. Prescribing BHRT or bio-identical hormone replacement therapy to be exact for a person, is not possible, however it is possible, with consultation and adjustment of dosage to find an optimal dosage of HRT.
BHRT is ideal, as these hormones are identical to the body’s own chemical structure of hormones. When these hormones are plant derived, they are often further synthesised in the laboratory to deliver the end product. But HRT does not always need to be bio-identical, and in some cases hormones that mimic the body’s chemical structure but are not exactly the same are more suitable for a patient, for example certain progestogens.
Meyer Clinic prefers to prescribe HRT that can be replicated by your GP and is FDA approved. However, in some cases, women do need to consider other options of combining their hormones and then HRT can be compounded.
There are excellent compounding pharmacies in the UK who are highly regulated, and evidence based. The option of having this approach as an alternative is good to have, although not advised as a first line treatment. We use Specialist Pharmacy and Roseway Labs as our compounding pharmacies, when needed. Compounded hormones are mostly prescribed in the form of pessaries, suppositories, and lozenges, and can be helpful where women are sensitive to certain binders in medication or where women prefer to have more bespoke treatment that suits their lifestyle and needs better.
At Meyer Clinic we offer Personalised Nutrition with Award Winning Dominique Ludwig, an acclaimed Kings College London Nutritionist MSc., and registered Nutritional Therapist who is also BANT, CNHC and AFMCP accredited. With over 30 years working in the field of nutrition and 20 years as a Nutritional Therapist, Dominique is a leading expert in this field with a client list to match.
Body Composition Analysis is essential to have a complete picture of your body’s composition, health and weight, as traditional methods of assessing health, such as BMI testing, are less detailed and therefore can be misleading. InBody is the world’s leading body composition analyser which is used not only by top athletes around the world but in many countries for medical research.