Are your hormones wreaking havoc on you? Here's how to fix them the safe way

CAPE CORAL, Fla. —

Melissa Horne turned to hormone therapy after struggling with anxiety, irritability, and sleep disturbances, ultimately finding relief at The Skin Spot in Cape Coral.

"Irritability. Not sleeping well. I would wake up at like two in the morning to be wide awake. My sex drive was just hardly any, and I guess the most serious part was I had my first panic attack," Horne said.

She discovered the clinic through Facebook and began treatment with lead injector Michael Tichy.

"Hormone therapy, it's available in a few different forms. You could do injectables, you could do creams, gels, or you can do pellets," Tichy said.

"My anxiety and my irritability, that really curbed a ton. And even my husband and daughter noticed that they were like, wow, these are working," Horne said.

Experts caution that not all solutions found on social media are reliable. Dr. Cherrie Morris, Chief Physician Executive of the Lee Health Women's Institute, emphasized the importance of consulting professionals.

She warned against relying on over-the-counter products without professional guidance. "If you're using some things over the counter, and they aren't really relieving your symptoms over time, I think that it's really important to come in and talk about it, because it may not be related to what you think it might be. And also you may be ignoring something that's more serious, especially when it involves irregular bleeding or abnormal bleeding," Morris said.

Morris also highlighted the importance of balancing hormone levels.

"I've seen quite a bit of that in my career where patients were given too much estrogen. And that caused a lot of bleeding issues because it wasn't balanced with the progesterone," she said.

Hormone therapy has evolved, with some treatments now receiving Food and Drug Administration approval.

"They removed the black box warnings on menopause hormone therapy back in November of 2025. And that took away a lot of the misconceptions. And it's about hormone therapy for women, especially menopausal women, which is a really good thing," Morris said.

While hormone therapy is often associated with menopausal women, younger women are also turning to it for various benefits.

"We have a lot of women that are in their 30s. They're still 30s, 40s. They're not in menopause yet, and they're just doing testosterone. So they're doing it for energy, for sleep, for fat burning, muscle building, and for just feeling good in general. So once that time comes, where they're perimenopausal, like before menopause or menopausal, then we can transition, adding the estrogen in," Tichy said.

Men are also exploring hormone therapy, primarily testosterone treatments.

"There's a lot of men who do different hormone therapy, mainly testosterone," Morris said.

For those deemed suitable candidates by their doctors, hormone therapy can be transformative.

"Personally speaking, I am on menopause hormone therapy. And it really probably made a very big difference in my life. And so understanding it and trusting in it has made a difference," Morris said.

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