Dr. Erika | Bioidentical Hormone Expert

Dr. Erika speaking at NYC 92nd St. Y

THERE IS Hope for Women's Health and Bioidentical Hormones After ALL

Today is a big day for us!

For us physicians who serve women no longer accepting status quo, physicians with the desire and knowledge to keep patients healthy and young, with the goal of always being cutting edge and safe in the information and treatments we deliver. Physicians who follow the science and the scientific evidence when treating patients with bioidentical hormones, physicians who dedicate their lives to the wellbeing of the patients we treat.

Today is a big day for us women! For the first time the mainstream media is acknowledging that women are suffering unnecessarily and that hormone imbalance is an overwhelming handicap that needs attention, legitimate treatments and can no longer be swept under the rug.

It took someone like Oprah Winfrey, who is obviously suffering from inadequately treated thyroid problems, menopausal hormone loss and its attendant weight gain and other unbearable symptoms to blast the hinges off the door to bioidentical hormone therapy.

Acknowledgement is always the precursor to enlightenment.

Maybe one day soon Oprah might even consider bioidenticals an important ingredient in her commitment to achieving true wellness.

For now, let's just celebrate the fact that bioidentical hormones are "coming out", and are finally being considered as viable treatments for feeling lousy. No longer are we hearing that "bioidenticals are just a marketing term". Now that is progress!

The next step involves training the doctors.

We must educate the medical community about the existence of bioidenticals, provide them with the scientific data and the studies about them. Teach them the difference between how bioidenticals and non-identical hormone molecules work in the human body. Inform them that bioidenticals are FDA approved and available at your local drugstore. Explain to them the role and usefulness of compounding. Help them understand that they must know and get involved with who compounds the hormones they prescribe.

Finally, balanced and honest studies must be undertaken on a large scale and in full view that compare the efficacy and safety of bioidenticals to their non-identical counterparts. The era of creating confusion and muddying the waters of hormone therapies has reached its end.

Teaching doctors the truth about hormones must start in medical schools and continue throughout their clinical careers. Women's health is indelibly connected to the knowledge and understanding of hormones and therapies associated with them. We can no longer treat women and their health as second class citizens.

While physicians like myself focus on opening the doors of knowledge to the medical community-(WebMD News Story and read my most recent article in the Medical Clinics for physicians) you, the patient must become vigilant about the care you receive, the treatment you accept from both conventional and alternative practitioners.

My hope is that you will now begin to demand that your doctors listen to you.

When you say you have hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, weight gain, depression, loss of sex drive, brain fog and everything else you know is hormonally connected, do not take a pat on the back,birth control pills,antidepressants or "you're just getting old honey" as answers. Do not allow anyone to scare you!

Do not hide the fact that you are taking or want to take bioidenticals from your Ob-Gyn, Internist or Endocrinologist. They need to learn about them now!

It's high time all doctors start representing your interests and become members of your team. When you no longer accept being taken for granted, will your OB/GYNs and Endocrinologists become true providers of health.

This is a new day and we must all celebrate. It's the day we took back our healthcare!

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Related topics :

1. Estrogen and Natural Hormone Therapy.

2. Hormones and Women 20-29.

3. Hormones and Women 30-39.

4. Hormones and Women 40-59+.

5. Progesterone Cream.

BHRT World Summit

Bio-Identical Hormones, derived from vegetable sources, are identical to the hormones our bodies produce. When the hormones in our bodies are in balance, men and women look great and feel wonderful. Low hormone levels are thought to be the root cause of most illnesses.

On November 10, 2008, Dr. Erika will discuss "Menopause - Graceful and in Good Health," during an exclusive one-hour video interview. Dr. Erika, along with nine other world-renowned experts in Bio-Identical Hormones who usually present only to doctors, will join forces for the first time to show you how to breeze through Menopause safely with Bio-Identical Hormones and natural treatments.

They'll discuss the virtues of hormones as a tool to improve and to even cure diabetes, and also reveal how they help men regain muscle and sexual function.

Learn which hormones can help you get rid of cloudy brain fog, improve memory and diminish digestive problems. Cutting-edge research on natural treatments that work for osteoporosis, wound healing and energy medicine will also be discussed.

This is an excellent opportunity to learn from the experts. Did you know that there are more testosterone receptors in the heart than in any other organ and that using testosterone can help many heart patients? Most people don't. These doctors will translate all the medical gobbledygook that's been thrown at you and help you to understand why your body feels like it belongs to somebody else, while giving you the tools to help yourself feel good for a change.

Register for the BHRT World Summit 2 and learn how you can look and feel like you did 30 years ago when your body was full of hormones. This is medicine in its purest sense, based on medical research and years of clinical findings.

Click here to register: http://www.bhrt1.com/drerika

Coming tomorrow: Don't miss DrErika as she headlines the Internet World Summit on Bioidentical Hormones

How can understanding your hormones change your life for the better?

Learn why your hormones dictate how your body feels and how you act: PMS, bloating, weight problems, infertility, sex drive, sleep issues, depression, anxiety, menopause.

The Biodentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)World Summit will take you to the truth and science of bioidentical hormones.

The line-up of experts participating in this event will help you get a firm understanding of the connection between you and your hormones and firmly place you in charge of your health.

I will be answering crucial questions about young women's hormonal imbalances - PMS, irregular periods,birth control pills, infertility and PCOs.  Other experts will clarify menopause, breast cancer, osteoporosis, thyroid and more.

The BHRT World Summit brings together leading doctors, pharmacists, and other luminaries to help you become the expert in your life and choose the safest and smartest solutions for your hormone problems.

Please spread the knowledge and link with everyone you know and think will benefit from more knowledge and support. Tune in to the BHRT World Summit, May 14-29,2008. It will change your life for the better!

For more information click on: http://www.BHRT1.com/default.asp?idAff=252 .

DrErika Headlines the Online World Bioidentical Hormone Summit

Please join me and some of the world's most respected doctors for a unique online audio summit on Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT).

I will be speaking about young women's hormonal imbalances - PMS, irregular periods, and PCOS. Other doctors will address menopause, breast cancer, osteoporosis, thyroid problems and much more. The World BHRT Summit will bring together not only top MDs but also pharmacists, lab and nutritional supplement experts to share unique insights on the healthy way to get your hormones in balance.

Please share this information and link with all the people you know and tune in to the BHRT World Summit, May 14-29,2008.

For more information click on: http://www.BHRT1.com/default.asp?idAff=252 .

All the best,

DrErika

The WSJ Turns a Corner and Finds Biodentical Hormones That Have Always Been There

Congratulations to the Wall Street Journal for coming to grips with a simple fact: Not all HRT products are the same.

Until now synthetics, horse urine derivatives, bioidenticals and over-the-counter "naturals" have been lumped together as dangerous by a media too lazy to do its homework and who slavishly turns to the same old special interest representatives for its information.

The confusion was encouraged by Wyeth and its mouthpieces (medical groups sponsored with monies donated by Wyeth like NAMS, ACOG, AMWA, The Endocrine Society and others) after Wyeth's products, Premarin and Prempro, were found dangerous to our health by the WHI study of the NIH almost six years ago. As terrified women and their confused doctors turned away from synthetics (Provera) and pregnant mare's urine estrogens (Premarin), Wyeth continued to prevent bioidenticals from gaining competitive traction in the marketplace and maintained its dangerous drugs in the leadership position. Who wants to lose the $2 billion cash cow that was the promise of Premarin before 2002?

Hundreds of millions were spent by Wyeth's marketing to further confuse the doctors and the public by smearing hormones all together and keeping solid scientific data away from the mainstream medical community. Wyeth even persuaded the FDA, which is supposed to be looking after the public's interest, to erroneously state that all HRT products pose the same risks regardless of differences in chemical formula and that bioidenticals are a "marketing term" not to be used by public or medical practitioners. The FDA is so ignorant of the facts, it is now cracking down on the compounding pharmacies that make some bioidenticals and is also trying to ban a key bioidentical estrogen, estriol which is not only safe but has been used extensively in Europe for decades. It even helps women with multiple sclerosis.

This disgraceful state of ignorance may be about to change.

The Journal reported (March 11, 2008) that a growing number of doctors and patients are getting wise to Wyeth's half-truths and are turning to "newer" alternatives.

It's the first time I've seen the mainstream media acknowledge bioidenticals as more than just "marketing terms" and give them the recognition they deserve, but even this article contains glaring omissions and half-truths. The sad part is that it refers to bioidenticals as "newer" when in fact they have been around since before Premarin. Estradiol from women's urine has been used in menopausal women in the early 1900s as found in many scientific and literary sources.

The Wall Street Journal quotes a Wyeth spokesman who claims that Premarin (approved by the FDA in 1942) and Prempro "have long records of safety and effectiveness" when, in fact, their dangers have been reported repeatedly and extensively since the 1970s in conventional medical literature. What would one expect a Wyeth spokesperson to say, the truth?

Meanwhile, the efficacy of bioidenticals has been well documented by studies dating as far back as the 1950s. All this has been ignored by the media and its pundits and none of it has made it on to the FDA's radar or that of the doctors in private practice or academic institutions where studies sponsored by big drug companies are conducted and information is disseminated through big pharma channels of distribution. The agency remains stubbornly resistant to doing anything that might jeopardize the status quo. Instead, it resorts to reports of academia's constant rehashing of the results of the WHI to see if it can come up with a less gloomy verdict on the Wyeth's money-making hormone impostors that cause cancer, strokes and heart attacks, regardless of how old the patient.

Never, it seems, has it occurred to the FDA to order a comprehensive and unbiased study on bioidenticals which are fast growing in popularity regardless of how many caring doctors and needy patients have asked for these studies.

Maybe a little read across the Atlantic might have helped the FDA and our academic centers see what the French are doing with the E3N or Epic studies on bioidenticals. Their data on tens of thousands of women strongly supports the use of bioidenticals. They can't all be just using bioidenticals as a marketing ploy.

Meanwhile the case for bioidenticals is being undermined by lightweights and dangerous hucksters like actress Suzanne Somers and her sidekick T.S. Wiley. They are the best thing that could happen to Wyeth. Their lack of credibility and dangerous practice of medicine without a license have kept bioidenticals on the fringe and raised more doubts about compounding than maybe necessary. Conventional and scientifically-minded doctors are not sold on having Suzanne Somers or T.S. Wiley as leaders in the educational processes associated with treatment of women with hormone issues.

Unfortunately their showboating has given fuel to many in the mainstream and Wyeth-sponsored camps to believe that only fringe doctors work with bioidenticals, This could not be further from the truth. Bioidentical hormones, as noted in the WSJ article are commercially available, meaning FDA approved, and the same active hormones found in the commercial formulations are those used by compounding pharmacies in the personalized products prescribed by many leaders in the field of women's health.

The time has come to take care of women and stop putting profit and lies ahead of good medical care. Don't let anyone dissuade you from using bioidenticals!

Just make sure you work with a conventional physician who has extensive experience with bioidenticals and has himself/herself been trained by a conventional integrative medicine physician.

The proof is in the pudding. Just ask the women who work with physicians who know how to use bioidenticals. Ask the patients of Drs. Randolph, Holtorf, Brownstein, Wright, Hotze, Murray, Drisko, Stangel, Weiss, and many, many more. Then, make sure you find one of these physicians or one trained by them or one who follows their philosophy of treating the whole patient, listening to the patient and serving the patient. I bet you will feel better, no longer feel victimized, intimidated and even get treated like a human being in the process. Do not abandon hope and do not betray your own voice.

Why is suicide rate increasing in middle aged men and women?

Suicide is on the increase among middle-aged Americans - up nearly 20 per cent from 1999 to 2004.

The rate is even higher for women. For those aged 45 to 55, the rate leapt 31 per cent.
The New York Times describes it as "a surprising and baffling public health mystery." (February 19, 2008), but there are two clear and unmistakably explanations for this disturbing trend.

First: The huge increase in the use and abuse of prescription drugs - from anti-depressants, pain killers to Ambien to Viagra. We are bombarded with TV commercials extolling their dubious benefits, urging us to ask our doctors for prescriptions and leaving us with the impression that these powerful medications will solve all our problems. They won't. In fact, they create new problems which require additional medications, depressed and foggy thinking and diminishing quality of life. So we reap the reward of the pharmaceutical industry's greed.

Second: The sudden drop in the use of hormone replacement therapy in the wake of the Women's Health Initiative in 2002. The threat of heart attack, stroke and cancer scared many women and their doctors away from products like Wyeth's Premarin and Prempro. Rightful choice. But did anyone look at the effects sudden drop of hormones causes in women in mid-life?

The Government and big pharma abandoned these women - never explaining that hormones are crucial to their health and wellbeing - and never helping them seek out safe and effective alternatives to supplement and replace the hormones their bodies made naturally when they were younger.

Instead women suffering symptoms of menopause are presented with brutal options: Keep taking the synthetic products which have been shown to cause deadly side-effects, go on anti-depressants - or go cold turkey. What happened to bioidentical hormones, conventional methods used all over Europe for decades with high degree of success and safety? They are being vilified and victimized by the politics of money.
And we are surprised and baffled by this tragic outcome?

What we don't need is another 5 years of research to figure out what is really going on. We already have 6 years of wasted time behind us in the matter of hormones for women.

What we do need is the truth and doctors must take their role as helpers and healers seriously and honestly!

More information on Estriol

Dear All,

More information on estriol is being revealed.
Please take a minute and read this link:

www.projectfans.com

All the best,

DrErika

PCOS - Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

The scariest part about PCOS is the diagnosis. Too many young women with their mothers come to see me scared out of their wits by doctors who tell them their daughters, once glibly diagnosed with PCOS will in time become diabetic, infertile and possibly even victims of cancer. In my experience PCOS is a typical example of how a disease label translates into unfounded and dangerous levels of stigma and fear. Over the past ten years I have seen too many young women cavalierly diagnosed with PCOS, scaring them and their mothers into a state of panic without providing them with healthy solutions and hope.

The good news is that there is plenty of hope and knowledge and the young woman at the receiving end of this diagnosis need never identify themselves with the label PCOS!

What is PCOS?

Polycystic ovary syndrome is a hormonal disorder caused by an imbalance in the pituitary-hypothalamic-ovarian system that is defined by a constellation of some or all of the symptoms of:

- irregular menstrual cycles,
- stopping of ovulation,
- testosterone excess,
- weight gain,
- acne,
- hair thinning on the head
- increased facial, arm and leg hair
- Insulin resistance
- sugar cravings

The diagnosis of PCOS has become the "diagnosis du jour" for conventional medicine at a loss for reasons why our teens may have irregular periods, become overweight, suffer with acne and become too hairy. Practically every pelvic ultrasound performed on a young woman with irregular periods and any of the above symptoms (and most have at least one) that shows cysts on the ovary becomes a quick excuse to throw in the PCOS label.

This situation creates a slew of possibly unnecessary treatment and testing choices for too many teens and their parents leading them to embark on a course of action that may not be helpful at all.

I don't want to be glib when addressing symptoms of weight gain, acne, hair issues. They are all valid and worrisome symptoms that have become too prevalent in our teens. I want to eliminate the stigma and put the whole issue of PCOS into perspective for both moms and young women because I find that fear and intimidation make terrible partners if you want to get and stay healthy.

Here is a quick checklist of what to do and what you need to know when dealing with the "potential" or definitive" diagnosis of PCOS:

-Not all PCOS is the same. Since every person is different, PCOS is just a diagnosis and while in some cases, the whole constellation of symptoms associated with the syndrome is apparent, in most cases it is not. Make sure you take a realistic and honest look at what is really bothering your daughters. Don't let the doctors tell you what the symptoms are. Look, listen and speak with your daughter.

-Since we are all alive, the only sure thing is that things will change. In the case of PCOS that means that if you have cysts on your ovaries today, they may very well be gone by tomorrow or next month without any help from the doctor. Most cysts are a normal part of the female cycle and they grow when we ovulate and go away a few days or weeks later. Having the ultrasound done in mid cycle (if you know your cycle) does usually show cysts which are just part of ovulation. Most cysts do not require a knee-jerk reaction; they are not cancer or in danger of bursting and causing terrible trouble.

-Before accepting a diagnosis of PCOS as fact, have follow-up ultrasounds and also follow the recommendations I make here for a few months.

-Conventional medicine treats people diagnosed with diseases with medications. I am a conventional physician and have treated many patients with the recommended medications over the course of my early years in practice. I can assuredly tell you the medications recommended for PCOS are dangerous and of no proven help to the individual symptoms or the overall problem. And worst of all, there are no long term studies to show any beneficial effects or proven safety for their use over the long haul.

-The medications used are:

o Birth control pills to regulate the irregular periods,
o Glucophage, an anti diabetic drug used on adults with insulin resistance and also frequently used off label for weight loss, a
o Various hair growth and removal medications
o Cholesterol lowering drugs.
o Their side-effects include but are not limited to:

-blood clots,
-liver function impairment,
-strokes,
-cancer
-infertility.

Scientific speculation about the massive increase in the PCOS diagnostic label includes genetics as a predisposing factor, while diet and lifestyle seem to take second place while common sense and my experience tells us they are the culprits.
The increase in the diagnosis of PCOS appears indelibly connected to our teens' and twenty-something's' poor eating habits, specifically foods filled with hormones and chemicals, sedentary living habits, and increasing stress levels.

To me, the most likely hypothesis is that the diagnosis is more frequent with the conventional frenzy for more testing, more diagnosing and more medications to treat variations on normal.

If common sense and desire to keep the patient healthy and empowered comes first, the treatment for "potential" or "possible" PCOS must be much simpler and far less dangerous. Making conscious choices about way of life, honestly deciding if conventional medical treatments are the best way to go or diet, exercise, lifestyle and stress management are more desirable are all individual decisions that start at home in the family setting and get transferred onto our young women.

Dr.Erika's Treatment for PCOS
Here is the treatment I provide to my patients with a high level of success and NO negative side-effects:

1. Diet: Hormone healthy foods: i.e.- fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans, lean cuts of meat, fish and whole grains. No junk foods (no saturated fats, no trans fats, no processed foods, no soda, NO sugar substitutes, no or certainly limited amounts of alcohol) Check out and follow the DrErika's Hormone Friendly Diet e-book!.

2. Exercise: A minimum of 30 minutes a day, 3-5 days a week as individually appropriate. Starting slowly and build up kindly and gently to a serious level of activity. It will strengthen the young woman and help her build significant self-confidence along with help with weight and improvement in the balance of hormones

3. The age appropriate Essential Elements for Women - Teen Supplements as per www.drerika.com on a daily basis. The supplement packets contain support for energy production at the cellular level, fat burning L-carnitine, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant help and hormone support.

4. Natural Progesterone. Since many of the symptoms are caused by hormonal imbalances prevalent in teens adding progesterone gently helps the young woman's hormonal balance and often eliminates most of the problems. For my patients I use Pro-Cream Formula every evening in three week cycles for up to six months.

5. Thyroid function evaluation and treatment. In my experience I find that often thyroid function is overlooked as a possible ingredient for the problems because the blood tests used to diagnose low thyroid don't really reflect the true status of the thyroid and thyroid is not considered a part of PCOS. I believe it should be and find that treatment with appropriate thyroid medication often brings about significant improvement in the overall picture.

Try this regimen along with caring, support that stirs clear of intimidation, fear and doom and gloom of a potential problem that may never really exist.

Bioidentical Hormones are not snake oil: They are available commercially at your local drugstore with a prescription from your regular MD

As confusion over the existence and efficacy of bioidentical hormones continues in the media and literature, I think a primer on commercially available bioidenticals is in order.

Those who want to keep doctors and women in the dark would like you to believe bioidenticals are only available through compounding pharmacies who are not supervised by the FDA but do use FDA approved products.

So the big pharma uses the media and their communications to physicians to try to demolish the credibility of compounders. The result is that most mainstream doctors are confused and fearful and unwilling to learn more about compounding; they believe the big pharma story. Thus emerged the false belief that biodienticals are snake oil and not to be trusted.

I am not writing today about the virtues of compounding but it is important for you to know that the first and still most effective way to get medication individually tailored is through compounding. Compounding preceded pharmaceutical production of drugs by hundreds of years.

Whether compounded hormones or commercially-available hormones are best for you personally is a decision to be made between you and your doctor. But before that conversation can take place, physicians must stop acting like the lapdogs of big pharma and shift their allegiance to their patients.

Until that happens, you must take full responsibility for the knowledge and types of bioidentical hormone preparations available on the market today.

Bioidentical hormones are commercially available and have been on the mass market from as early as the 1940s. They are FDA approved and were on the market before non-identicals/synthetics (Premarin, Prempro and Provera) made their appearance.

Pharmaceutical companies manufacture and sell bioidentical hormones but you'd never know it from the media. A concerted effort to hide the difference between bioidentical hormones, which are identical to the human hormones estrogen and progesterone and non-human identical hormones, has been intentionally created to cause the present state of confusion and fear permeating the mainstream medical community. This confusion takes the focus off Premarin, Prempro and Provera which have been proven dangerous for more than 20 years. The medical literature is chuck-full of data to that effect.

(I will start posting on the www.drerika.com site listings of the scientific articles in support of the safety and efficacy of bioidenticals and the dangers of non-human identicals in the next few weeks to help both women and their doctors better understand the truth)

Commercial FDA-approved bioidenticals come in a variety of forms - gels, patches and pills, and they are marketed by the pharmaceutical giants Bayer, Parke Davis, Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb and Pharmacia UpJohn.

At last count there were at least a dozen available:

- Alora: FDA approved 1996 - Watson Labs
- Climara: FDA approved 1994 - Bayer
- FemPatch: FDA approved 1997 - Parke Davis
- Vivelle-Dot: FDA approved 1994 - Novartis
- Estraderm: FDA approved 1986 - Novartis
- Esclim: FDA approved 1998 - Women's First Healthcare
- Estrace: FDA approved 1993 -Bristol Myers Squibb
- Estring: FDA approved 1996 - Pharmacia UpJohn
- Premetrium: FDA approved 1998 - Solvay
- Androgel: FDA approved 2000 - Unimed Pharmaceuticals
- Crinone: FDA approved 1997 - Columbia Labs

When you go to your doctor take this Blog with you and show him/ her the names of the bioidenticals and the drug companies that make them!