Understanding Your Hormone Imbalance

A hormone is a chemical that delivers messages throughout your body through your bloodstream. They are sent to various tissues and organs in your body with signals that tell them what to do. Your hormones are a fundamental part of your body that help regulate your blood pressure, sex drive, and even your appetite. Endocrine glands such as the pituitary, pineal, thymus, thyroid, adrenal, and pancreas, produce the hormones in your body. Additional hormones are produced for men through their testes and for women through their ovaries.

When your glands are not producing the right levels of hormones it can lead to diseases, mood changes, low sex drive, and many other things.

Importance of Hormones

Your hormones are something that you continually need to monitor. While they might be balanced one week, the next they could be horribly off. Hormone levels have to be watched to ensure you are maintaining the right levels. If one of our hormones increases too much, your body can release a different hormone to try and restore the balance for your mental or physical functions. For example, your adrenal glands release the hormone adrenaline when you do stressful things or experience fear to prepare your body to use more oxygen and energy during those times. Every time you eat, your pancreas produces a hormone called insulin which helps to regulate your blood sugar. At night, the pineal gland is working to produce melatonin which helps you to sleep through the night.

A hormone imbalance can occur at any age, even in your lower 20’s, but it is most commonly experienced by people in their 30’s-50’s. If you start to notice signs, you should explore hormone replacement therapy to help you balance out your symptoms.

Signs to Look For

Because there are so many hormones and individuals’ symptoms can vary, there are many signs to look for when trying to find out if you have a hormone imbalance. Symptoms will vary between men and women depending on the type of imbalance they are experiencing.

Women who have an imbalance of hormones may suffer from:
-Weight gain
-Fatigue
-Hot flashes
-Night sweats
-Acne
-Decline in bone density

Men who have an imbalance will tend to notice:
-Decrease in sex drive
-Thinning hair
-Weight gain
-Muscle loss
-Fatigue
-Depression

What to Do

When it comes to your hormones you can modify your diet and activity level to help to regulate them on a daily basis.

• Different foods can help to provide nutrients your body needs. Try to eat more fruits and vegetables as well as whole grains, nuts, seeds, and lean proteins.
• Eliminate highly processed foods like chips, candy, cookies, white sugar, and white flour.
• Incorporate more exercise into your routine: light walking, yoga, lifting, whatever you can commit to.

Many women, and men, also investigate bioidentical hormone replacement therapy for help with balancing out their hormones. Bioidentical hormones are identical to the hormones which are produced naturally in your body. They are so identical that your body cannot distinguish the difference. They have an identical molecular structure to the hormones that your body produces, making them safe and indistinguishable from your real hormones.

At The Riegel Center we can help you find out which hormones are not balanced and then provide hormone replacement therapy. After an initial virtual consult with Dr. Riegel will send you to get your blood drawn to determine your existing hormone levels. Once The Riegel Center has received your results, we will design a fully individualized treatment plan. We will perform regular check-ins and adjust your hormones as needed to make sure we are meeting your body’s needs. With virtual appointments available, it’s as easy as ever to start your hormone replacement therapy with The Riegel Center.

For more information, schedule a virtual consultation with us today.