Autoimmune Disease is one of the Top 10 Causes of Death in Women.

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How replacing your testosterone can help treat autoimmune disease.

Autoimmune disease is one of the top 10 causes of death for women. The rate of growth of this group of diseases in women over the last 19 years is rapid.  I have come to realize since the first 5 years of practicing Bioidentical hormone pellet replacement with testosterone for women that the treatment we offer at BioBalance Health® both helps treat and prevent these devastating autoimmune diseases!  If you don’t know what this category of disease includes, it has many permutations, but the most common autoimmune diseases include Systemic Lupus, Rheumatoid arthritis, Scleroderma, MS, and Collagen Vascular diseases to name a few.  When I first began offering testosterone pellets to women, I noticed that those women who had autoimmune diseases improved, decreased their medication, or went into remission!  It was noticing this effect of Testosterone pellet replacement that caused me to delve into the research articles on Testosterone’s effect on autoimmune diseases. This was around 2005 and doctors and researchers had not begun to consider the advantage of testosterone for women at that time or realize how it affects so many diseases that women are at risk for.  When I researched this association between autoimmune diseases and testosterone, I found a lot of medical research that confirmed my observations that testosterone is a key player in the treatment of autoimmune diseases!

What are autoimmune diseases?

Autoimmune disease is simply a general label for 100 or more conditions that are caused by a confused immune system that attacks your own cells, instead of attacking bacteria and viruses.  It is like “friendly fire” from your immune system. In these diseases your immune response is “confused” and aims at self instead of viruses, bacteria and cancer cells.  Autoimmune conditions are increasing in number and currently the only treatments are called “biologics” which is a misnomer for “shutting down your immune system” which leaves patients at risk for cancer, deadly bacterial and viral infections.  These biologics decrease the body’s attack toward its own cells and tissues which makes the symptoms of autoimmune diseases better but at the same time it leaves your body defenseless against dangerous infections and cancer, which require a strong immune response to prevent disease, and kill the invading organisms. I have many patients with autoimmune diseases now on Bioidentical testosterone pellets who have regained the health of their immune system so it can redirect the attack toward dangerous diseases and away from their own tissues.  Here is an example of one of my patients who took Biologics for years before she started taking testosterone pellets, which cured all her symptoms of low T, and improved, or modulated the action of her own immune system, but it was too late.

Story: My favorite example of autoimmune diseases and the power of testosterone pellets is exemplified by one of my favorite patients.  This lovely woman was under 40 when I first met her, and she had young children and a lovely husband.  Sadly, she had gotten an aggressive autoimmune disease called Lupus after a viral infection.  Her body over-reacted to the virus and attacked her vision.  When she came to see me, she considered me her last resort to help her halt the progression of this disease, and to retain some of her sight.  She was already on biologics for some time, and she received monthly steroid injections in her eyes.  In spite of this she had lost the vision in one eye and was going blind in the other as well.  She had read /heard some of my blogs and information about how testosterone “modulates” the immune system and can help control or decrease the damage done by autoimmune disease.   When I first saw her, she was well versed in the benefits of Testosterone therapy in autoimmune disease treatment, and she knew that T stimulates the production of T killer and helper cells in those with poor immune systems and normalizes over-reactive immune systems. Both of which improve the lot of patients suffering from Autoimmune diseases.

I told her I had never treated the rare form of Lupus that she had with T pellets yet, but she had other symptoms of low T and had had a Total Hysterectomy and BSO and had no Testosterone blood level.  She wanted to try to both get her body back, her sex life with her husband back and to try to slow down the aggressiveness of her lupus blindness, so we began T pellets.

She never had to get another eye injection after her first testosterone pellets, and her condition improved drastically.  She lost the 30 lbs that she had gained after her total hysterectomy, and she got her sex life with her husband back!  Her Ophthalmologist thought it was his steroid shots that did the work and would not be dissuaded from his victory speech…but she knew what the successful treatment was!  It was due to her testosterone! Her Lupus halted its progression after her first treatment, and she could still see out of one eye!  Sadly, she does not have a happy ending.  The biologics for lupus that she had taken before coming to me as well as during her treatment with T pellets had done their damage and she was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that took over her health.  She came to talk to me to ask me if she could continue to get T pellets while she was treated for cancer because it had brought her life back and she wanted a quality life to the end of her life.  We continued treatment…It appears that the cancer was beginning before we started T Pellets and was too far advanced to treated effectively with radiation or other methods. The disease that she got secondary to her suppressed immune system from the Biologics too her life. The only joy I can glean from her treatment was the joy she had for several years of being able to see, as well as maintaining her relationship with her husband.  Sometimes the traditional treatments we doctors offer are more dangerous than the disease itself.

After treating this patient, I was more motivated to help more women with their autoimmune diseases by prescribing testosterone pellets.  Just to be clear, I do not change a patient’s treatment from her Rheumatologist, I add to it to make it work better against the autoimmune disease, hoping that improvement will allow my patient to lower the dose or get off the “Biologics” eventually.  So far I have successfully treated Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, and MS.  All my patients who were already treated by their Rheumatologists, stopped the progression of their otherwise progressive autoimmune disease and improved the quality of their lives. Testosterone studies about autoimmune disease are available in the Rheumatology literature, but rheumatologist don’t know how to prescribe testosterone, and they are not in the Gynecology journals for doctors who do give women testosterone replacement. Testosterone for women with autoimmune diseases is a treatment without a medical specialty!

Testosterone pellets give women the protective testosterone levels they had in their youth and by adding a very low dose of estradiol they feel “normal” again.  Sadly, the advice of most Rheumatologists is to avoid all “hormones”.  Their advice is only half right.  Patients who have autoimmune diseases should limit the use of estradiol (estrogens) and maximize the use of testosterone.  Estrogen given alone in any form, especially oral estrogen can cause a worsening of autoimmune symptoms, so we only use non-oral E2 (pellets) and we use higher than average doses of testosterone in our pellets and our treatment plan works!

We only use the safest testosterone and estradiol delivery system, which is testosterone pellets plus estradiol pellets for women.  This treatment plan has worked nicely. For over a decade with my patients.  I wish that more women with autoimmune diseases would come for treatment to both help their  disease symptoms and to get their quality of life back!

This Health cast was written and presented by Dr. Kathy Maupin, M.D., Bio-identical Hormone Replacement Expert and Author.   www.BioBalanceHealth.com  (314) 993-0963

 

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