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See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog A month or so ago I had a woman come to me for hormone replacement and one of the symptoms that bothered her the most was Lichen sclerosis on her vulva, the area around her vagina. The symptoms are itching, burning, intolerance to putting creams and gels on the area, pain on intercourse, and the skin is fragile and breaks open and bleeds with intercourse. My patient did not come to me to treat this problem, because she had been told by many other doctors that it was not going to get better. Lichen sclerosis (LS) is an autoimmune disease that affects the vulva and vagina. I know from reading the research and my 20 years of experience that our treatment with T pellets has decreased the symptoms and sometimes reversed many different autoimmune diseases, however I had not had a patient with lichen sclerosis before so I told her that I was hopeful that her lichen sclerosis would resolve with Testosterone and estradiol pellets. After 3.5 months when she returned to the office she was grinning and said that she no longer had the LS…her gynecologist said it was a coincidence, because she had not been trained with the use of testosterone for treatment of post-menopausal symptoms, and autoimmune disease. I had another surprise when I treated a patient who had become agoraphobic when her doctor had told her she couldn’t have any more post-menopausal hormones, even though she had had her ovaries removed 10 years before and before her hormones she had multiple severe symptoms of estradiol and testosterone deficiency. The ERT had resolved her problems but now they all came back more severely…she became depressed and anxious and afraid of leaving her house. Her son is an Internal Medicine doctor and he called to ask for my help with his mother. He had tried everything he knew of medically and nothing worked. Agoraphobia is thought to be a psychiatric condition, but in this patient’s case it was merely a chemical reaction caused by a lack of estradiol and testosterone. After 4 months of E+T pellets she was planning a trip to New Zealand and her agoraphobia was just a memory! I had no idea that that condition could be due to menopause and lack of E2 and T. In the end it was clear that hormonal deprivation can cause agoraphobia and replacement can treat it! I have prescribed T and E2 pellets to treat a different group of diseases, autoimmune diseases, like Lupus, Rheumatoid arthritis, Sarcoidosis, and Grave’s disease of the thyroid. The testosterone pellets are very effective at modulating the immune system and normalizing it, which decreases the severity and symptoms of these diseases. Even though I know that every person with an autoimmune disease that I have treated with T pellets, has gotten much better the specialists who take care of them won’t admit that it was testosterone pellets that improved their patient’s quality of life. There is plenty of research on the use of testosterone for autoimmune diseases, but it is not in the journals that Rheumatologists read. The research is in the Journal of Metabolism and Endocrinology. Worse yet, These doctors have learned that “hormones” worsen autoimmune diseases, however the information they are quoting really only refers to oral estrogen replacement and not non-oral testosterone. This scares their patients from even seeking help for their hormone symptoms, and prevents them from improving their autoimmune diseases with a safer treatment, T and E pellets. Here are some examples of my patients who have had autoimmune (AI) diseases and have come to me for E and T pellet replacement. Women with autoimmune diseases improve drastically with testosterone pellets! Not only do their symptoms of low testosterone and menopause resolve, but their symptoms of their autoimmune diseases improve! The old belief that hormones make AI diseases worse springs from the fact that oral estrogen (Premarin) that turns into estrone can decrease a woman’s free T and make her autoimmune symptoms worsen. However. Educated hormone specialists like Dr. Sullivan and me, know how to prevent this and in fact make the symptoms of AI improve. Here is the key to AI success: We give our patients with AI diseases a lower dose of estradiol in their E2 pellet, and a higher than average dose of T in their testosterone pellets, and we watch our patients get better! The Rheumatologists can’t stop patting themselves on the back for the improvement in their patients after I treat them and tell their patients that the hormones should be stopped! Patients are smart and they know why their symptoms disappeared! They chuckle at the arrogance of their rheumatologist. The Rheumatologists just look ridiculous when they claim a patient’s progress as from their own treatment, when it was really the addition of Estradiol and Testosterone pellets that improved their symptoms. Some autoimmune diseases are progressive and very hard to treat in any way. I was quite surprised when T and E2 pellets halted the progression of lupus blindness and the progression of MS (Multiple Sclerosis)! It is remarkable and a “surprise result” that I was not told about in my training. One Rheumatologist, who is an acquaintance, told me that he stopped sending patients to me for hormones because they never went back to him! I count that as success. There are many other diseases and symptoms that no one associates with Testosterone Deficiency or low Estradiol, that resolve or improve with the re-establishment of hormone balance. These include: · Stress urinary incontinence · Irritable Bladder · Recurrent Bladder infections · Interstitial Cystitis · Anemia · Painful intercourse · Arthritis · Irritability associated with Menopause · Hormonal Migraines We will discuss these other Unintended Benefits of T and E2 Pellets in Women in our next Healthcast and Blog. Stay tuned!