Is Hormone Replacement Therapy Right for You?

By Paula Spencer Scott WebMD Feature

Treatments for menopause symptoms have come and gone. Once, hormone therapy was the second most prescribed drug in the U.S. Then in 2002, a major study found problems and doctors backed off prescribing it. Now you hear a lot about both hormonal and nonhormonal treatments for menopause, including bioidentical hormones. What's right for you?

Hormone therapy involves taking estrogen plus, in most cases progestin. Progestin helps lower the risk of getting endometrial cancer from taking estrogen. Women without a uterus usually get just estrogen.

Too Young for Menopause

When she was 26, Lara Dietz learned she had breast cancer -- a shock to this mother of two very young children. Then came the second blow. When treatment began, so did premature menopause. "I was having hot flashes," she says. "I felt like I was 55 years old." When menopause occurs between ages 45 to 55, it is considered "natural." When it occurs before age 40 -- regardless the cause -- it is called premature menopause. The ovaries no longer produce an egg each month, so monthly menstrual cycles...

Read the Too Young for Menopause article > >

Hormones are given in different ways and for different reasons:

Nonhormonal treatments include herbs, foods, drugs, and behavior or lifestyle changes. There's one FDA-approved nonhormonal medication for hot flashes, an antidepressant.

To decide which course is best for you, think about these questions:

Menopause is a natural passage all women go through. Hormone therapy can't improve your overall health or protect your heart or brain, as doctors once thought. Still, many women choose treatments to lessen menopause symptoms that bother them.

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Is Hormone Replacement Therapy Right for You?