Particularly among aging women, hormone replacement therapy is a fairly common term to hear. Your own doctor may have suggested this treatment to you if you're approaching menopausal age, facing a potential hysterectomy, or otherwise struggling with the symptoms of insufficient hormone production. Unfortunately, there's a lot of misinformation out there about hormone replacement therapy, and it's led many to resist the idea of this treatment. The truth is that hormone replacement therapy can be highly beneficial in many cases. In fact, here's a look at a few things that you should know as you're making your decision.

It Doesn't Matter Why You're Having Menopausal Symptoms

You might have heard that hormone replacement therapy is only effective for those struggling with menopausal symptoms due to naturally-occurring menopause. Some believe that, if they are entering menopause because of a hysterectomy or other medical intervention, hormone replacement therapy isn't going to be beneficial. 

The fact is that hormone reductions don't care why they're happening, and neither does the replacement therapy. If you're struggling with low hormone production because of menopausal symptoms, no matter why you have those symptoms, hormone replacement therapy may be able to help ease your discomfort.

Hormone Replacement Therapy Is Still Beneficial After Menopause

Another common misconception about hormone replacement therapy is that it's not necessary once you are post-menopausal. You might think that replacement therapy is only beneficial when you are approaching menopause and actively going through those changes. After all, that's when you're going to struggle with active symptoms. 

Yes, hormone replacement therapy can make a big difference for many people during that period of active changes. However, that doesn't mean that you no longer can benefit from it once that's over. In fact, hormone imbalance and low hormone production typically persist after menopause because the body no longer feels that those hormones are as necessary. With hormone replacement therapy, you can reduce the fatigue, brain fog, and bone loss risks of your post-menopausal years.

Hormone Replacement Therapy Can Help With Weight Struggles

Your doctor has probably already stressed to you the importance of weight management and maintaining a healthy weight throughout menopause, but you've probably also heard from others that weight gain is just a factor of getting older and there's nothing you can do about it. That's not really true. For many people, weight gain in their later years is a direct result of hormonal changes due to menopause. As hormone production shifts, weight gain becomes more of a struggle.

Hormone replacement therapy can help you with this. When you opt for hormone replacement therapy, you'll maintain more consistent hormone levels that will help you to maintain your metabolism and your body weight. This will reduce the strain of weight gain and the difficulty of weight loss in your post-menopausal period.

There Are Options For Hormone Replacement Therapy

For those who have never had to deal with hormone replacement, another common point of confusion lies with the options. Many people mistakenly believe that if you've tried one hormone replacement therapy, you've tried them all. That's not true. There are a variety of different options for hormone replacement therapy and, if you try one that doesn't work the way that you hoped, you can try another one. 

Some hormone replacement therapies rely on synthetic hormones, while others rely on bioidentical hormones which are created directly from living organisms. Each person's body reacts differently with different types of hormone replacements, so you may need to try a few options before you find the right balance. Your doctor can help you explore the different solutions that are available.

These are some of the many things that every patient should understand about hormone replacement therapy before menopause or a menopause-inducing medical situation. Talk with your doctor today to see which option might be best for you.