Seeking input from the women on this forum

I'm posting this on behalf of my partner. She's almost 43, fit and in good health, and right now the only peptides she uses are BPC-157 and KPV.

Her goal is to keep her hormones where they are for as long as she can, and to get ahead of the changes that are going to come. Her gynecologist was quite firm in advising her to begin estrogen.

I'd guess some women here may be in a comparable spot and might be willing to describe what they've been through.

Kisspeptin has also come up, though I'm not sure where it fits or what part it would play here.

Which form of estrogen did your doctor advise — a patch, a pill, or vaginal cream? I’m 46 and I use vaginal estrogen (estradiol) 2 to 3 times per week.

Her gynecologist prescribed estrogen in tablet form, with instructions to take it for a 30-day course and then come back for a follow-up visit. Overall, though, it has turned out to be quite an expensive undertaking—one that has produced no changes in her general well-being, apart from making her period arrive more punctually. She has now finished 4 cycles.

Hmm. Could it be that she hasn't noticed any changes simply because her goal is to keep things as they are and stay ahead of the curve? Or is she actually dealing with peri symptoms? I'm not sure how she feels about India meds, but the India Mart thread lists vendors that carry estrogen options. That could save a fair amount of money.

Yes, the active ingredient she has been using is estradiol valerate, the same one. However, because of the considerable potential risks, she is looking to discontinue it. At the start it also brought on headaches and vomiting for her, and there are serious warnings about using this substance long term. So she asked me to explore possible alternatives on here—particularly peptide-based options.

Ideally the gyn is ordering a full panel of labs so you can see what her levels truly are at this point. Simply adding estrogen without understanding all the physical factors isn't a great plan.

My own regimen uses an organic, lotion-based delivery of estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone (each separate). I put it on twice daily. (The company is Brite, though my doctor manages everything.) Finding my optimal levels required several months of adjustments, bloodwork, and a few 24 hour urine tests.

Wishing you both the best of luck! It's commendable that you're beginning now to safeguard her long-term health and happiness... bioidentical replacement made a long, long difference for mine.

I don't have the background to give you any advice on this. All I can say is that it's kind of you to look into this for her and to be so supportive. I hope the two of you find the answers you're after.

I've got a women's health supplement recipe that I mix up for a handful of female friends. Since I lack the right anatomy and hormones, I can't vouch for how well it works myself — but they keep coming back for refills, so I assume they're happy with it. The point of the ingredients isn't to raise hormone levels; it's to help the body put the hormones already present to better use. Send me a DM if you'd like, and I'll pass the recipe along.

Schwossy said:

Her gynecologist prescribed estrogen in tablet form, with instructions to take it for a 30-day course and then come back for a follow-up visit. Overall, though, it has turned out to be quite an expensive undertaking—one that has produced no changes in her general well-being, apart from making her period arrive more punctually. She has now finished 4 cycles.

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If she has the option, I'd suggest an estrogen patch rather than the oral form. In my family, a number of women have experienced strokes or blood clots following oral estrogen use over the years.

Ever since the black box label was removed (at long last!), HRT use in the US has tripled. I'm on HRT myself and only wish it had been available to me years earlier. I went through every sort of OTC supplement out there, but the results were like men trying to raise testosterone with OTC supplements — barely any effect. At 43, HRT is on the early side, so unless she's dealing with severe perimenopause symptoms (hot flashes, brain fog, insomnia, etc.), it may be premature. Once she's in peri, though, she ought to look into the benefits and judge for herself whether they're worth it. According to recent research, HRT helps guard against heart attacks, hair loss, bone loss, joint deterioration and collagen loss, and cuts molecular aging by 6%. I'm still angry that I was refused HRT for 8 years after finishing menopause.

Unfortunately, in Thailand, a lot of private-practice doctors and hospitals mostly see you as someone they can make money from; their focus often lands more on maximizing their own profits than on your well-being. Because of the side effects and the genuinely substantial risks that come with long-term estrogen use, she wants to quit it entirely. As I said in my first post, my research points to Kisspeptin-10, CJC-1295, and Ipamorelin as possibly offering some benefits. Still, rather than ordering anything blindly, we hoped to collect some information drawn from other people's experiences.

A lot of people in the US who can't easily afford treatment begin by paying the steep fees charged by local doctors, and after their protocol is stabilized they order a big shipment from India.

Perhaps you'd prefer to launch a research project that opens with this statement.

As The Menopause Society officially states, for healthy women under 60 or within 10 years of menopause onset, hormone replacement therapy is both safe and highly effective.

The serious hormone replacement therapy dangers that were publicized from the older 2003 Women's Health Initiative (WHI) studies don't apply to modern bioidentical options. Those dangers came from older, non human formulations.

When bioidentical estrogen is given transdermally (through a patch, gel, or even a sq injection) together with oral micronized progesterone, the estrogen never passes through the liver. The key is keeping the estrogen away from the oral route, which sends oral estrogen straight to the liver. Medical data confirms that this modern approach raises neither blood clot nor stroke risk, and the absolute risk of other complications stays extremely rare (less than 1 in 1,000 women per year).

To be 100% clear: if you take horse estrogen, press it into a pill, swallow it, and give it to an older demographic, then you bring on exactly the blood clot and health risks identified in the 2003 WHI study. Please, don't give humans horse estrogen pills when modern, human-identical options exist.