The Truth About Estradiol Patches (And Why You Might Need One)

If you're a woman over 45 struggling with hot flashes, weight gain, or mood swings, it might be a sign your body is missing something crucial. Today we're uncovering why estradiol patches can be life changing and how caring for your hormones is actually a way to honor God's design for your body. By the way, my name is Dr. Tabitha, your Christian physician. I'm a triple board certified doctor. And I am telling you the truth today because I have been there. I know what it feels like to need my estradiol patch. Let's get into it. Women over 45 keep coming to me in my medical practice and asking me, why am I struggling? Why can't I lose the weight? Now I'm gaining it. Why am I so tired? I have no energy and now I'm even sweating at night, waking up hot. All these hot flashes, night sweats, all the things. Isn't that for menopausal women? Women who are done having their periods? Unfortunately not. Here's the truth. I started going through all of those changes when I was about 45, and most women do as well. So menop is technically one year without a period. And that's usually around the age of 51. But for years leading up to that, your estrogen production is like a roller coaster. Some days you're producing a lot or too much. Some days you're not producing any. And when you're not producing estrogen, it feels terrible. The drop in estrogen that we experience, usually around age 45, has an impact on our overall health. We have estrogen receptors in our whole body. That means when we make estrogen from our ovaries, it goes through our bloodstream and it talks to the cells all throughout our body. It talks to our liver and our gallbladder and our skin and our eyes and our bones and our brain. You name it, estrogen is involved. Our body has amazing innate intelligence, and we just understand about this much of it. Just the tip of the iceberg. But I promise you, estradiol is involved in everything. It means that when our estrogen starts, starts to drop, the function of our heart changes. Sometimes we have to work harder to pump our blood through our body because our arteries lose their elasticity and their pliability. With that lack of estrogen, our blood pressure increases so that we can pump that blood through those harder arteries. And we see increase in prediabetes and insulin resistance. We see more anxiety and depression because we don't have the protection of estrogen in our brain anymore. Your bones start to thin Way before you are fully menopausal. And the saddest part is conventional medicine. And the insurance companies will not cover a bone density scan until the age of 65, when you already have osteoporosis, most likely. So they're just looking for that diagnosis to give you that medication. Let's be proactive. Let's start thinking about these things way before they happen. But here's where things get even more interesting. There's a solution that's both simple and effective. Estradiol patches. Before I get into the pros and cons of these patches, if you're ready to restore balance to your hormones and feel like yourself again, I've created a simple guide to help. Estradiol patches can be life saving. I know from personal experience. I found myself so depressed that I just wanted to sit on the couch. I no longer wanted to see my patients run my business. I didn't want to talk to my husband. I was down for the count. I realized, oh, my gosh, I think my estrogen has fallen. And I had the benefit of being a hormone expert. So I finally figured this out, but it took three days. And so I got an estrogen patch and I put it on. Within hours, I felt like myself again. That moment was so eye openening for me because I had been trained that hormone changes happen slowly and subtly. But this was overnight. I went from feeling fine and normal to being on the couch and super depressed the next day. And ever since then, the way I have practiced medicine and taken care of my patients has changed. I listen to them when they tell me they struggling and they just don't feel like themselves anymore. It is so important that you have a provider who listens to you and believes what you're saying. And. And we might be able to help. We're licensed in over half the country, so we can see you at Dr. Tabitha. But here's the deal. I love estrogen patches because they give you a consistent amount of estrogen in your bloodstream, whereas creams. You put the cream on, you absorb it, it goes in the bloodstream, and then it dissolves. Over time, you're getting this high effect happening, whereas with a patch, you're getting the consistent dose all of the time. Even more importantly, the patch bypasses your liver. There's something called the first pass effect. When you take a pill, you swallow it, it goes into your stomach, and you absorb it through your bloodstream. It first goes through the liver. And so when you take estrogen as a pill, even though it's estradiol which is the bioidentical form of estrogen, you actually change a lot of that into estrone in your gut from your bacteria than in your liver through that first pass effect. So what does that mean? It increases your risk of blood clot and stroke. It's safer if you use estrogen transdermally, meaning through the skin. And it's most effective as a patch because you get the continuous dosing. Sometimes I get pushed back with doing bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Women say menopause is a natural thing. God created our bodies to go through this transition. We should not need hormone replacement therapy. I have a few responses to that. First and foremost, hormone replacement therapy has been going on for over a century. And I would say that God gave us a brain, and he gave us the ability to be resourceful and to utilize what we have to create the best lives for ourselves. When our ovaries are not making the hormones that they're supposed to make, we replace them so that we can feel good and function. And here's the deal. We are living in a society that our bodies have never seen as a civilization. You know, if you read your Bible, you know that there are barren women who ended up carrying pregnancies, women way beyond their menopausal years, getting pregnant and having babies, because our bodies didn't get bombarded with all of the things they do in this day and age. So I truly believe that to function in the world that we have created, this toxic world, we need to push back. We need to combat that with bioidentical hormones and the same chemicals that our body would make and just give it what it needs. It's part of just taking care of yourself. So we have studied the blue zones. The blue zones are areas of the world that have the most people over the age of 100 that are still healthy. They're still walking, they're still cooking their food and doing their activities of daily living. And what we have learned from studying these blue zones is that daily lifestyle choices matter. These people walk up and down hills. They chop their vegetables, they carry their groceries up and down those hills, sometimes sit on the floor and not even in a chair. And that action of getting up from the floor to a standing position tells you what your lifespan is going to be. So here's the deal. The way that we are living in this day and age, especially in the United States, is not conducive to healthy hormone levels. We are seeing a huge onslaught of premature menopause and infertility. Our hormones are being affected by the way that we are living. We are sedentary. I know personally I sit at a desk for almost eight hours a day and that affects my hormones. I have a very stressful job. I have teenagers. That is stressful. And so it's really important. If you want to have healthy hormones and have them in a balanced state, you have to make different choices all throughout your day. Every day that starts with with eating clean whole foods. Setting boundaries around your work and life schedule. Saying no to people no is a complete sentence. You don't have to explain it. Giving yourself time to move your body every single day in a way that supports your nervous system and supports your metabolism. Wake up with the sun. Get that sunlight hitting your retinas within the first 10 minutes of waking up. That will support a healthy circadian rhythm for you to regulate your day. I would recommend evaluate your lifestyle and see what little changes you can make that is going to support healthy hormone levels more than anything. Now that you know how estradiol patches can help, let's talk about another powerful tool for hormone balance. Fasting. Click here to watch my next video on how biblical fasting can transform your body and mind.