[00:00:00.000] – Laurie Miller
I feel better now than I have ever felt in my life. And that is really saying a lot. My name is Laurie Miller, and I am a registered nurse and a certified personal trainer. I just wanted to make a video to speak directly to ladies who are considering hormone replacement therapy to teach you more about it and let you know basically my own personal story with it, what I’ve learned along the way, my thoughts on it, and encourage you to look into your own journey for it. Please always consult your own provider, either here at Viking or your primary care before you make any medical decisions concerning your treatment, because you do deserve direct attention and guidance with any medical decision you make. I started in my late 30s and my 40s, and then slowly just starting to not feel as good. I started gaining weight and had really low energy. I started having brain fog. I think as women, we are taught that these are just things that come with aging, and you just have to learn to deal with it. Ultimately, though, I got up to 205 pounds and I did not feel very good.
[00:01:18.550] – Laurie Miller
The main thing that finally did it for me is I really quit sleeping. I could not sleep for several months, and that drove me to really try to find some answers. As I was researching about insomnia, I figured out it was probably menopausal symptoms, and that had never dawned on me prior to that research. I thought menopause was something that was never going to happen to me. But that explained all the symptoms that I was having. I had always been able to lose weight when I wanted to, and I couldn’t anymore. My metabolism was tanked, and I was having hot flashes and night sweats. I couldn’t sleep. I had terrible low energy and fatigue. I had mood fluctuations from depression to anxiety. I decreased libido, and dryness, joint pain, dry skin. My hair was changing, like getting thinner. Digestive changes, just the whole gamut of things that we experience as women going through that period of time. And that period of change. Perimenopausal symptoms can start in your 30s. And so those have probably been slowly going on for quite a while, but it took them getting pretty severe for me to recognize it and do anything about it.
[00:02:36.020] – Laurie Miller
And I really wish I had figured that out long before I did, because I suffered quite a bit along the way unnecessarily. I was able then to pretty quickly find a provider here at Viking and get started on hormone replacement. I want to say it’s not a magic pill, but it is pretty close. That started a change in my trajectory, just the fact that I feel better and that I had went quite a while not feeling good and didn’t realize how far away from myself that I had gotten. And so I have experienced lots of changes from that. Number one, I’m sleeping. And if you’ve suffered insomnia, you know how miserable that is. Just that alone has been worth the price of admission for me just to sleep. I lost all the weight that I had gained, and actually even more than that, because I didn’t realize that testosterone really drives motivation. Now I feel motivated to get in the gym, and it helps you put on lean muscle mass. I’ve got results from the gym that I had never, ever gotten before. And so that really got me excited about it. That’s a big motivator because as women, I think a lot of us are constantly looking for body recomp, a little bit of fat loss and some muscle gain looking more toned.
[00:03:57.400] – Laurie Miller
And man, all these synchronized bio-identical therapies really set the stage for that to just go beautifully. I was getting results in the gym. My hair and skin and nails are better. No more night sweats and hot flashes at all. Libido is better. My energy level is sky high. I don’t have that fatigue anymore. My joints and muscles are not aching anymore other than after a good workout, which I don’t mind. And my mood, my mood is a million times better. And I don’t have the depression anymore and very little anxiety and just what’s normal for everyday life. So if you’re on the fence about hormone replacement therapy or you’re just looking into it, I just want to really encourage you to keep exploring that. Reach out to anybody at Viking, do a consultation, speak to a provider. We’re more than happy to talk to you about every bit of it, explain every bit of it. I’m going to do some videos upcoming on the safety issues because I know that was one of my number one concerns as a person in healthcare because I had heard so many things about safety stuff and come to find out, a lot of that was just had no basis in fact, at all.
[00:05:16.850] – Laurie Miller
So I’ll be doing more videos about that. And I just encourage you to really check into it and think about it and reach out to me if you want to ask questions in the comments or whatever, I’ll be glad to answer any questions that I can or direct you to resources that I have found along the way that can help you answer questions. And there’s a whole team now here at Viking. You’ve got nutritionists. We’re going to do exercise guidance with you. Hormone replacement therapy is not just a magic, and sprinkle you with fairy dust, and you suddenly have a perfect life. But it really sets the stage and changes. It changed my mental state and my physical capability as far as my energy motivation to dig into these other things that have made me feel so much better. I feel better now than I have ever felt in my life. And that is really saying a lot because I’m older now, and I’d expected to not feel as good you expect. But as good. But Sam always says, you have to get old, but you don’t have to feel old. So I just want to tell you that if you are interested, reach out to us, and we’ll be glad to talk to you more about it.
[00:06:29.600] – Laurie Miller
I hope you have a wonderful day. I hope I get to talk to you again soon. Take care. Bye.
