Your free testosterone numbers should be at a level that corresponds to the levels you had when you were younger.
Dr. Maupin regularly receives questions from her patients and from their physicians about bioidentical hormone replacement.
Many physicians are not up to date and don’t understand what is going on with bioidentical hormone replacement. They are not up to date because they have been in practice a long time and they have not been able to re format their thinking and have not internalized the new information that is available. So, they tend to resist progress and rely on the old standards for making medical decisions for their patients.
These old standards focus on a disease approach to medicine that is heavily reliant on “norms” obtained from blood tests. These “norms” are average range scores that are believed to fit almost everyone. You can get a cholesterol number that will tell you where you stand compared to “normal” people. But there are problems with this in terms of range and accuracy. The doctor tries to get your blood work to be a reflection of these norms and they honestly believe that is the safest thing to do to improve and maintain your health.
Dr. Maupin and other anti-age doctors practice a new approach to medicine. This new approach is symptom-based management and providing a return to young healthy normal numbers on your lab sheets. The goal is to restore your hormone balances to those you had when you were younger and healthier. Her belief and experience are that you will feel better, live longer, and be healthier.
An example of how this works is your free testosterone. Dr. Maupin knows that this is the only number that matters in terms of symptom alleviation. Total testosterone is what is usually measured in a blood test. What other doctors are not factoring in is the reality that only free testosterone is available for use in the body to do the things testosterone does. So, her goal is to raise your free testosterone numbers to a workable level that corresponds to the levels you had when you were younger.
Doctors who have not kept up to date in their reading and training do not know this and become concerned when they see your scores on the lab sheet. Dr. Maupin’s experience is that many of these doctors become concerned and recommend their patients stop seeing her and stop letting her put these bioidentical hormones back in their bodies. They often make dire predictions that frighten her patients.
As a result, she often has to write a letter to her patients and to their physicians, explaining what she is doing and why and that this methodology is an example of individualized medicine that produces good health and symptom alleviation in her patients.
This is an ongoing fight among medical professionals that will definitely impact your health and your outcomes. Please become an informed consumer when it comes to your health. Do not be frightened by misinformation and out of date medical practices. You can obtain and read The Secret Female Hormone, and Got Testosterone? The two books written by Dr. Maupin and Brett Newcomb to explain everything you need to know to make decisions about your hormone balance and why it matters. You can get them from Amazon or from Dr. Maupin’s office.
This Health cast was written and presented by Dr. Kathy Maupin, M.D., Bio-identical Hormone Replacement Expert and Author, with Brett Newcomb, MA., LPC., Family Counselor, Presenter and Author. www.BioBalanceHealth.com.
