Therapy

Helpful Hormones: The Ultimate Guide to Hormone Therapy for Men

As men and women age, we start losing vital hormones. For women, they start losing estrogen around 50, or when menopause begins. 

For men, it starts much earlier. Around 30 years old, men’s testosterone production slows down. 

Both men and women often turn to hormone replacement therapy to combat the loss. However, there’s some debate about whether HRT is worth the risks.

In this guide, we’re going over what you need to know about hormone therapy for men.

What Are Signs of Low Testosterone?

Losing testosterone is a normal part of aging. But for some men, they lose it faster or in larger amounts than others.

Others suffer from hypogonadism. This is a condition where sex glands don’t produce the correct hormonal levels — or any at all. It’s also referred to as “gonad deficiency,” “low serum testosterone,” or “andropause.”

This affects them from a physical, mental, and sexual standpoint. The dangerous signs of “low T” in men are:

Physical

• Declining muscle and bone mass 
• Fatigue
• Hot flashes
• Increased body fat
• Swollen breasts

Mental

• Depression
• Low self-esteem/confidence
• Trouble concentrating
• Trouble sleeping

Sexual Function

• Fewer erections
• Lower libido/sex drive
• Trouble maintaining erections

One of the biggest side effects of low testosterone is having less energy. This is one of the most common reasons men seek hormone replacement therapy. 

How Does Hormone Therapy for Men Work?

Companies like https://www.blugenix.com/ and many others work to optimize a man’s hormone levels. There are three common types of hormone therapy for men:

• Semorelin GH
• Testosterone replacement
• Human growth hormone

Millions of men opt for testosterone replacement over other therapies. It’s administered in three ways:

• Intramuscular testosterone injections – A doctor or specialist injects this into the muscles of your buttocks every two to three weeks.
• Testosterone patches – You apply these to your back, arms, buttocks, or abdomen daily.
• Topical testosterone gel – You apply this to your shoulders, arms, or abdomen daily.

Some experts suggest rotating the application areas for the patches. It’s best to follow your doctor’s instructions with the specific patch medication you use. 

If you’re on Medicare, check to see what kind of therapy your plan covers. You may also want to consider looking into Medicare supplemental insurance. 

What Are the Risks?

The risks of testosterone therapy can get categorized into two groups: short-term use and long-term use.

Short-term use causes minor side effects such as:

• Acne
• Fluid retention
• Frequent urination
• Swollen ankles

Some of the more severe side effects of short-term HRT for men include:

• Decrease sperm count
• Decreased testicle size
• Enlarged breasts
• Higher cholesterol levels
• Infertility
• Worsening of existing sleep apnea or sleep disorders

Your doctor will also monitor you for high red blood cell counts. This could increase your risk of clotting and high blood pressure. 

Long-term testosterone therapy comes with potentially severe risks. The most common is cardiovascular issues. This includes:

• Deaths from heart disease
• Heart attacks
• Stroke

A 2010 study found the cardiac side effects were more frequent and severe in older men. This led to some physicians refusing to refer patients to HRT. 

One of the biggest concerns in the long-term use of testosterone therapy is the potential risk of aggressive prostate cancer. Early studies believed there was a link. But, a study in 2018 found there was no conclusive evidence testosterone therapy increased a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer.

Because of the conflicting reports, you should always consult with your doctor before trying any kind of HRT. 

Is HRT Right for You?

Only you and your doctor know if HRT is right for you. But, it’s worth noting that hormone therapy for men also has many benefits. Many feel these benefits outweigh the risks.

If you’re taking another form of prescription medication, you may consider using an online pharmacy to save money. Before you place an order, read everything you need to know about Canadian pharmacy scams.

How to Write Great Blog Posts on Your Therapy Website

Do you want a way to improve your website and make it more interesting to visitors? Are looking for ways to engage with people on a whole new level?

Instead of printing out more flyers and buying more ads, why not focus on writing content of your own to share with people?

Content writing and marketing can help business and professionals from all backgrounds, and that includes therapists. Blog content on your therapy website can improve your overall site traffic, and can even attract new patients.

If you want to know how blogging can help improve your therapy website, read on to learn more.

Blogging For Your Therapy Website

There’s proof that content writing can do wonders for marketing and bringing in new business, but some therapists may not know where to start.

You can blog about almost any topic of your choosing, including something as dense and important as therapy.

Do you want to create great blogs for your therapy website? If you follow this advice, you’ll see your web traffic and amount of new patients increase.

Think About Your Favorites

As a professional therapist, it’s safe to assume that you spend time learning about the latest news in your industry. You may have a favorite therapy website of your own that you frequent.

If you want to write great blog content for your website, think about what kinds of content you already enjoy reading.

As a therapist, you know what issues are going to matter the most to your clients. Use your own personal expertise to think about what content you think will resonate the most with readers.

Scan your favorite websites and think about what kinds of headlines and topics interest you the most. From there, you can start thinking of content to post on your own website’s blog.

Know Your Audience

If you want to keep your audience engaged, you need to understand what your audience wants.

As a therapist, you could probably speak about a variety of topics related to practice. Feel free to discuss whatever you like, but in general, it’s a good blogging practice to focus on writing content for a niche.

Think about the kinds of clients you normally see and write content that would appeal to them the most.

If your practice is full of marriage counselors, be sure to write plenty of posts about how to communicate with your spouse and how to properly resolve conflicts.

If you primarily focus on family therapy, fill your blogs with parenting tips and fun things to do together as a family.

As long as you know your audience and keep the focus on them, you’ll have plenty of loyal blog followers.

Go Beyond Written Posts

Blogs aren’t just for traditionally written posts. If you want to draw people to your therapy website blog, take time to explore other ways to create content for them to share.

Video content is more popular than ever right now, and you can easily create some to entertain your website visitors.

Record yourself giving a talk on a therapy topic that interests you. Gather a few of your professional friends for an informal roundtable discussion and record the results.

Pictures and other visual elements can enhance your posts, and in some cases can be entire pieces of content themselves.

Infographics are still popular ways to share information. Use a site like Piktochart to create interest infographics on topics that interest your readers.

If you go down the infographic route, be sure to but your logo and short link to your website. That way when it gets shared on social media, people will know who created it.

Consider Your Day To Day

We know that doctor-patient confidentiality is important for therapists. You should never write specifically about patients or use their names, but you can draw on your daily experiences for blog content.

If you had an interesting conversation with a patient about their insecurities at work, you can draw experience from that to write a post about building self-esteem and maintain it in the workplace.

Did you recently talk to someone that’s going through a bad divorce? Write a post about dealing with the ending of marriage and how to best care for yourself emotionally.

Have you talked to someone dealing with a lot of stress at home? That conversation can turn into a post about using stress journals to manage their feelings.

Every day you’ll find new material for a blog post. You just have to think about the best way to use your experiences.

Consider The Times

Content that can be read and relevant at any time of year is great, but you shouldn’t forget about the power of time and season-specific posts.

If it’s winter where you are, consider doing a post on what seasonal affective disorder is and how people can overcome symptoms.

If you’re writing posts during the holidays, write a post on how to handle the holiday blues and the best ways to deal with stress.

These posts may be time specific, but they’ll be popular search topics around those times.

Keep Presentation In Mind

Your website is going to be the first impression a lot of people have about you, that’s why it’s important to make sure that your therapy website and accompanying blog look professional.

Make sure your pictures are the right size and resolution. Posting blurry pictures or low-quality visuals won’t reflect well on the blog.

It’s also important to proofread your posts before you post them. Nothing makes someone look more unprofessional than content with a lot of spelling and grammar errors.

Also, keep formatting and the presentation of your posts in mind. Make sure text is properly aligned and that all of your links are working.

Next Steps

Now that you know how to write blogs for your therapy website, you may be interested in learning about other ways digital marketing can help your practice.

Check out our blog post about remarketing and retargeting so you can make sure your PPC ads are working.

And remember, our blog has content about nearly any topic you can think of. Explore it to find posts that matter to you!