Hormones affect our health more than we realize, and when we go through hormone change, it impacts our lives in ways we can’t predict. From our energy levels, to our libido, to our weight, hormones are responsible for more of our health than we may realize. One of the major changes hormones can make surprises our patients—how much hormones change our skin.
At Exhibit Medical Aesthetics, we offer hormone replacement therapy in Denville to help you regain and maintain a balance of hormones within your body. Here, we’ll explain how hormones affect your skin and how our unique hormone and skin treatments can help you feel comfortable and confident once again.
Understanding Hormones
Hormones are chemical messengers your body naturally produces to coordinate many different functions. Multiple organs, glands, and tissues produce hormones, and together, these organs make up the endocrine system. Your hormone producing system includes:
- Hypothalamus (brain)
- Pineal glad (brain)
- Pituitary gland (brain)
- Thyroid gland (throat)
- Adrenal glands (kidneys)
- Pancreas (stomach)
- Ovaries/testes (genitals)
What Hormones We Make
Our bodies make a variety of different hormones, each one dictating a specific function. Some are sex hormones that are responsible for helping your reproductive organs function as they should, some are responsible for maintaining your mental health, and others are responsible for maintaining or losing weight. No matter what they are responsible for, your hormones impact all aspects of your health—including your skin. Here are the major hormones your body makes that influence your health.
Estrogen
As the female sex hormone, Estrogen is procured mostly by the ovaries (or testes in men), but fatty tissue and the adrenal glands also produce a small amount. Estrogen affects the keratinocytes, fibroblasts, melanocytes, hair follicles, and sebaceous glands. Decreased levels of estrogen cause your body to lower its natural production of collagen and elastin proteins, reducing your skin’s ability to heal and stretch back into place. This means you more quickly develop wrinkles, fine lines, and sagging skin.
Estrogen levels fluctuate as you age, dropping significantly during menopause. This can cause formerly gradual changes to suddenly worsen and become more noticeable. With hormone replacement therapy, we can help you balance your levels of estrogen to make this transition period easier on your skin.
Progesterone
This hormone, produced in both men and women, supports reproductive health. While women produce it in higher levels to support menstruation and pregnancy, it also helps men produce sperm and maintain balanced levels of other hormones.
During menopause, progesterone levels drop significantly, typically affecting reproductive health. Early scientific studies have shown that it affects skin, showing that a topical cream using 2% progesterone improved skin elasticity and reduced the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines.
With hormone replacement therapy in Denville, we supplement your body’s progesterone. This can help improve your skin and other aspects of your health that progesterone affects, like sexual health.
Androgens (Testosterone)
Testosterone occurs naturally in both men and women, but men produce it in higher levels. The testes create testosterone in men, and the ovaries and adrenal gland produce a smaller amount of the hormone in women. This sex hormone causes boys to develop male features when they go through puberty, like deepening the voice, growing facial hair, and dropping the testes. For both men and women, this hormone controls libido (sex drive), bone growth, and muscle growth.
While women go through menopause, men go through a similar period around the same time in life called andropause. During andropause, the production of testosterone in men decreases dramatically, causing issues with libido and sexual performance.
Testosterone drops also affect both men and women by decreasing the density and elasticity of their skin. However, with the proper amount of testosterone delivered through hormone replacement therapy in Denville, you can improve skin elasticity and restore the volume lost to decreased skin density.
Cortisol
Our bodies produce cortisol, also known as the “stress hormone,” when we experience any amount of stress or anxiety. The adrenal glads produce cortisol, and they constantly monitor your stress levels to produce the proper amount of cortisol.
When we have healthy levels of cortisol, it regulates how our bodies use glucose for energy, decreases inflammation, improves blood pressure, and controls your sleep-wake cycle. When you experience sudden stress, cortisol also activates your fight-or-flight response and gives you a quick boost of energy to help you stay safe.
When your body has too much cortisol, it increases your skin’s oil production, which leads to increased acne. Too much cortisol also creates inflammation, causing issues with redness and puffiness. Excess inflammation breaks down collagen and elastin, which causes wrinkles, fine lines, and sagging skin.
Some people also experience cortisol insufficiency: those with Addison’s disease or with hypopituitarism. Addison’s disease occurs when your immune system attacks your adrenal glands, preventing them from producing cortisol. In hypopituitarism, you have an underactive pituitary gland. Both can lead to excessive pigmentation, especially with scars and skin folds.
With hormone replacement therapy in Denville, you can improve your cortisol levels and restore your body’s hormonal balance.
The Thyroid Hormones
The thyroid produces its own hormones, called Thyroxine (T4) and Triiodothyronine (T3). These hormones manage many bodily functions, including weight, energy levels, internal temperature, nails, hair, and metabolism. Producing too little of these hormones (hypothyroidism) can cause cold, dry, and coarse skin. Producing too much of these hormones (hyperthyroidism) creates warm, oily, and thinning skin.
We can improve your symptoms using hormone replacement therapy in Denville. With this treatment, we customize the amount of each hormone, helping you restore your unique balance to improve your skin health.
Our team can include human growth hormone in your hormone replacement therapy in Denville to help address these common skin concerns that people face during menopause and andropause.
The Hormone Replacement Therapy Process
Our HRT treatments don’t include all the hormones listed above, but they do include the ones that fluctuate dramatically during menopause and male menopause (andropause). We customize hormone therapy for every patient at Exhibit Medical Aesthetics, but you can expect these general steps when you visit our team to restore balance to your body.
Consultation
To get started, you schedule a consultation with one of our expert providers. Before this appointment, we ask you to complete lab work, which informs your provider about your individual hormone levels.
During your consultation, your provider goes over your results with you and talks about your options for which hormones to include and how to administer them. We can prescribe patches, creams, gels, injections, and pills/capsules, so we go over your specific lifestyle and decide together which option works best for you.
Treatment
Once you and your provider feel confident in your treatment plan, they will prescribe your hormone therapy. You will follow specific provided instructions that vary depending on how you decide to receive your hormones. Your provider will also schedule regular tests to check your hormone levels.
If you experience any uncomfortable symptoms, you can talk with your provider, and they can adjust your dosage to optimize your hormone levels while maintaining your comfort. While you may stay on hormone therapy for a year or 2, it does not offer a permanent solution to your hormone imbalance.
Results
Once you feel like your health and wellness is back in balance, your provider will slowly start lowering your dosage bit by bit. This creates a smoother transition out of menopause and andropause. If you begin lowering your dosage and feel your symptoms return, your provider can increase them again. Our team personalizes your timelines to your specific needs, but eventually, you will no longer need hormone replacement therapy in Denville to feel in control of your health.
Why Exhibit Medical Aesthetics?
At Exhibit Medical Aesthetics, we prioritize your care. Safety, efficacy, and comfort are the leading pillars of our practice, and we dedicate our time and energy to making sure our patients feel at home in our wellness clinic. We create personalized care plans that only include the treatments and services you need to feel like the best version of yourself. So why choose Medical Grade Aesthetics? Because we’ll become your home for beauty and wellness.
Find Your Home Away From Home
Finding a place to call “home” can be difficult, but finding that “home away from home”? Almost impossible. But at Exhibit Medical Aesthetics, we make finding that home away from home not just possible, but simple. And with our expert team, you can find a group of caring and supportive providers who are more than ready to help you feel comfortable in your body once again by restoring balance to your hormone levels.
You can easily book an appointment with one of our experienced and capable providers to create your personalized treatment plan. And if you don’t feel ready to commit to an appointment, you can use our complimentary treatment planning tool to explore your options for treatment based on your specific concerns. From our men’s services, to facials, to medical weight loss—no matter what your concern, we apply all our resources to help you feel your best every day.
