Gina had done her menopause research. She read the forums, watched the videos, and arrived at my office, at 49 years of age, with a clear plan: compounded bioidentical hormones only, because she wasn’t going to risk her life on “those pharmaceutical drugs.” She was informed; she was certain. However, little did she know that she was working from a map drawn by marketers, not by doctors.
When a patient asks if “compounded bioidentical hormones” are safer than standard prescriptions, they are starting from a false premise. In simple terms, compounded means the medication is custom-mixed by a pharmacist—like a handmade recipe—rather than produced in a standardized, mass-scale facility.
