Dr Susan Hardwick-Smith

We're not allowed to use anything except the male product divided by ton.

God forbid we use anything that's a personalized dose, like one of these, that's bad.

And of course, pellets are even worse, but truly it's the same hormone.

So the way we deliver it into our system really doesn't much matter so long as we follow it and we're careful and judicious and start with a reasonable dose.

And then listen to the patient, which is ultimately much more important than what the blood test says.

That's right.

Yeah, so that's a whole nother thing.

When I was in traditional medicine, this is truly the way most doctors practice in this country.

It probably is the same there.

I was so busy that I had a nurse practitioner and I said, just scan down the labs and tell me the ones that are abnormal.

I wasn't looking at every line by line.

I didn't understand that the reference range that labs use is just simply saying this is what most people have.

It's not in any way saying this is optimal.

So a woman who's 50, as you know, if she has an estradiol of zero, that's going to be in the normal column or a testosterone of almost zero.

It's in the normal column.

What they mean by normal is common, not optimal.

So if we're looking at labs, and I totally agree with you, we want to look at the number, not the reference range, and develop an idea of what's optimal.

Now, there's a lot of disagreement about what optimal levels are, but it's one of the pieces of the pictures.

How do you feel?

Everybody feels, well, almost everybody does not feel well when her estradiol and testosterone are zero.