The New Image Approach to Female BHRT at Any Age
Most women have hormone imbalances before menopause.
Any symptom that changes with your cycle is a hormone imbalance.
Symptoms of a Hormone Imbalance Include: Heavy Periods, Hot Flashes, Headaches, Mood Swings, and Fluid Balance..
🛑 Beware 🛑
Knowing how to order the right tests, interpreting the results, and prescribing the right hormones, at the right doses safely, takes years of experience and training that is simply not provided to nurses, nurse practitioners and chiropractors. Plenty of pop-up clinics touting buzzwords like “peptides”, “vitality”, and quick weight loss using homemade GLP-1 shots, are appearing in gyms and all around our area. They are run by inexperienced non-physicians pushing the boundaries of their legal scope of practice and judgment, looking to make a quick buck. We have been here for 20+ years doing what is safe and evidence-based. Moreover, we NEVER charge a monthly fee and can bill most insurances for your office visits. Just try that at the pop-up clinics. Let’s face it… If the insurance companies won’t credential a provider to see you, why should you pay good money to go there?
Precise Salivary Testing
… assures we get the right dose of each hormone every time customized to your unique needs.
Board-Certified OB/GYN
… with 18 years’ BHRT experience individually designs and manages your treatment.
On-Site Compounding Lab
New dose? No problem! Get your refill at your visit.
No Painful Shots or Pellets.
Female BHRT Video Library
Produced by New Image
BHRT Medical Director, Gregory Zengo, MD
Atlanta & Athens Bio-Identical Hormone Treatment for Women
At New Image, Female BHRT has been our most popular service since 2002. It starts wtih an accurate salivary hormone testing to truly identify which hormones are deficient and by how much. We have the experience of thousands of patients to know how to blend lab results with your symptoms to design the optimal treatment without EVER overdosing you.
Imbalances in the major sex steroid hormones can lead to symptoms later in life, even while you are still cycling. Proper testing and replacement of all ovarian hormones, including testosterone can restore your feeling of normal pre-menopause, or during the menopause transition.
Stress, even a small amount, can impact the delicate ovarian balance over many years. At the first visit, we test other systems that are affected by stress. This includes the Thyroid and Adrenal. Most women will not feel their best by replacing female hormones alone and ignoring the adrenal and thyroid imbalances. Our replacement is always below the pharmaceutical FDA-approved estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone for women.
Customized lifestyle and nutritional counseling is always incorporated into the treatment plan at the first visit and beyond. Additional testing may be added in the future if indicated, but typically the initial assessment is kept affordable with the most helpful testing ordered.
Since the approval of Prozac 30 years ago, women have had their cyclic symptoms managed with anti-depressants. We NEVER use anti-depressants or birth control pills for treating PMS cyclic symptoms. Those never treat the source and often create worse side effects. Instead, we do the salivary test on the most symptomatic day of the cycle to diagnose the deficiency and replace what is missing.
Our on-site Compounding Lab can fill your prescription at your visit for maximum convenience and accuracy. For many patients, the monthly cost of their entire hormone treatment is less expensive than a single drug copay.
The New Image Path to Wellness
Saliva Testing and Stress Hormone Balancing Program
Bio-Identical Medicine means replacing EXACTLY what the body is missing due to age, stress, or both. This non-drug form of therapy means there are no side effects since the therapy is not a foreign substance in the body. Bio-identical therapy restores balance, and we can prove that balance is restored by checking subsequent hormone levels. When was the last time someone offered you an Ambien level, Premarin level, or a Zoloft level? Those levels don’t exist. BHRT medicine is simply more precise. Unlike many drugs, the breakdown metabolites of these natural hormones are also active in the body, and serve to support many more unseen pathways. For example, giving Zoloft for depressive symptoms can suppress the natural sleep hormone Melatonin. Testing and giving back the right amount of a serotonin precursor instead can support Melatonin production.
Many patients use this kind of testing and treatment to come off of stimulants and antidepressants which never helped in the first place. At the conclusion of testing, many patients realize that they do not have any “diseases”, but they learn about their very real, and measurable, stress-induced imbalances that are directly responsible for their symptoms.
All office visits are billable to most private insurance plans except Kaiser and Ambetter. We offer reasonable cash visit prices for these patients and ones who have Medicare or Medicaid. We accept HSA cards for payment. For patients without insurance or have high deductibles, we have low cost live and even cheaper online visits for your ongoing care and needs.
At your first visit, you will meet with Dr. Zengo to discuss and prioritize your symptoms over time. Based on this initial assessment, the appropriate testing will be ordered. This can include blood tests for detailed thyroid function ($50 if not billed to insurance), salivary adrenal and gonadal performance ($105-$239), GI testing ($349 and up), and/or Neurotransmitter testing ($209).
Your results will be reviewed at your second visit and targeted bio-identical therapy will be prescribed. This often involves nutritionals and vitamins. In some cases, bio-identical hormones will be prescribed. Some of these will be available at your local pharmacy since many bio-identical hormones are still regulated as prescriptions even though they are not “drugs”. Others will need to be compounded creams and all of our patients are eligible to receive compounded prescriptions at a deep discount from our in-house compounding lab.
At follow-up visits every 6-12 weeks, progress is assessed using many indicators. Only rarely will repeat salivary testing be necessary in the first 6 months. Many patients graduate our program and no longer need any prescription therapy after 12 months. Others who continue with our program (menopause, andropause, and more chronic cases of higher stress exposure) typically need repeat salivary testing every year and thyroid testing after every medication or dose change.