“Hormone Replacement Therapy and unwanted hair growth”

Many women have started hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help ease or eliminate their menopausal symptoms. With this relief, however, many of them have experienced the unwanted side effects of hair growth. Unfortunately, this hair growth does not happen on their heads, but rather on their face or in other areas.

It can begin with just a few hairs, then they quickly become much more of a problem. HRT is a combination of estrogen, testosterone, or progesterone. Testosterone is the culprit in this cocktail. As we know, men have much more testosterone than women, which gives them their “beards”. That is acceptable for a man, but not necessarily for a woman.

As a woman takes HRT, the hair follicles are stimulated by these new hormones and begin to grow more hair, or thicker, darker hair. Many women begin tweezing or waxing these hairs, which only makes the situation worse. Tweezing and waxing NEVER gets rid of the hair. It only temporarily removes it for a short time. You can read more about this in my blog post:

“Tweezing and Waxing is bad for your Health!”

Many of our clients wouldn’t dream of stopping their HRT, even with the side effect of excess hair. Fortunately for them, electrolysis can permanently get rid of those awful hairs, while allowing them to go through menopause much more easily.

We have experienced excellent results with these clients, probably due in fact to the early stage of the hair cycle. We refer to these hairs as “virgin” hairs. Meaning they haven’t been active in the hair follicle for many years.

If you are experiencing hair growth due to Hormone Replacement Therapy, the first thing to do is to “stop tweezing or waxing” and contact an experienced Electrologist. Their work will be the perfect complement to your HRT to help you look and feel your best.