Hormone pellets offer menopause symptom relief – WZVN-TV

"I was just hot all the time," 48-year-old Shannon Scott said about hot flashes she suffered for years. "When I would wake up in the middle of night I would be soaking wet around my neck and I would have to change in the middle of the night."

She's a receptionist for Dr. Marlene Moulton, the listening doctor who specializes in treating menopause symptoms.

Such symptoms include the following:

"It's not a psychiatric problem. It's a mood problem driven by hormone instability," ______ said.

When Scott heard the doctor talk about hormone pellets in the office, she wanted to give it a try.

"Within three days I felt like...mental clarity came back," Scott said. "The hot flashes were easy enough within a few days and now I don't have them at all."

Moulton said pellets are a more natural form of hormone therapy. She uses bio-identical tiny pellets, inserted under the skin, made from soy and yams.

"It takes the place of trying to use the annoying vaginal gel or the creams or the topical patch 36 it lasts for 3 months," she said. "You cant take it out so we have to make sure that is right for the patient."

She said she makes sure it's right by coming up with a hormone dosage plan through blood tests. And while the hormones testosterone and estrogen she uses are FDA approved, putting them in the form of a pellet is not.

That concerns Dr. Jane Daniel.

"The FDA has its drawbacks. It has its limitations but it does keep us safe," she said.

Daniel prescribes hormone replacement therapy of estrogen and progesterone.

"Women come in and they're very desperate to get treated because they don't feel like themselves and they don't like the way they feel," she said.

She does not typically prescribe testosterone, unlike Moulton.

Daniel said testosterone is mainly for labido muscle mass not other menopause symptoms and there are side effects like excessive hair growth.

Scott said that was a minimal side effect for her.

"I did have a few little areas on facial hair that may have come back a little stronger, but over-the-counter product and it's gone," she said. "So no I did not turn into a mustache person that I thought I would."

Scott said she's happy she gave the pellets a chance.

"No hot flashes anymore," she said, "and my husband likes me again. I'm not mean."

Still, Daniel isn't quite sold.

"I would not discourage a woman from exploring the pellets if that works for her, but it's not for everyone and I think there are better alternatives," she said.

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Hormone pellets offer menopause symptom relief - WZVN-TV