Home / Services / Hormone Therapy (BHRT)
Bioidentical Hormone Therapy · The heart of what we do
Hormone therapy built around your labs and your life.
Individualized bioidentical hormone therapy for women and men — menopause, perimenopause and low testosterone — from the team Ascension Parish has trusted with hormone care for twenty-one years.
Prefer follow-ups from home? Online hormone replacement therapy →
1 · Why people come
The symptoms that actually bring women in
Hot flashes are what everyone expects, and for a great many women they are not the first thing to arrive and not the worst thing to live with. What sends people looking for answers is usually quieter than that.
Sleep that stopped working — waking at three in the morning, night after night, for no reason you can name. A mood that no longer matches the situation. Brain fog serious enough that you have started writing things down that you never used to. Joint aches. A body that responds differently to the same effort. Intimacy that has become uncomfortable and that nobody has ever asked you about.
These are commonly dismissed — sometimes by other clinicians, often by the woman herself — as stress, or ageing, or simply the price of a busy life. Frequently they are hormonal, and frequently they are treatable. The reason we take an unhurried history is that this list only comes out when there is time for it.
2 · How we work
What makes ours different
None of this is exotic. It is simply what hormone care looks like when a practice is built around it rather than fitting it in between other things.
3 · Getting started
Nothing about this is an ordeal
There is no examination required to begin, and no commitment before you have spoken to a person.
- A call firstRing the office, or use the request form. We work out what kind of appointment you actually need — most people are not sure, and that is normal.
- Your history, at homeYou fill it in through the patient portal in your own time. It goes straight into your chart, so your first visit is a conversation rather than paperwork.
- An unhurried first visitIn our Gonzales office. Your symptoms, your history and what you are hoping for — with labs ordered where they would tell us something useful.
- A plan, then follow-upWe start, and then we check. Adjusting as your body responds is not a sign something went wrong; it is how this is supposed to work.
4 · How it is delivered
The same hormone, three different experiences
Pellets, creams and injections are not better and worse versions of each other. For testosterone, they differ in how steady the delivery is and in how much the routine asks of you, and people genuinely prefer different ones. Estrogen and progesterone have other options as well — tablets or capsules, transdermal patches, vaginal creams and more. The full comparison is in our Education Center.
5 · Worth saying plainly
If you have tried hormone therapy before and it did not work
We hear this often, and it is worth addressing rather than glossing over. A course of hormone therapy that produced no benefit is not proof that hormones were the wrong answer for you.
It is frequently a question of the dose, the delivery method, which hormones were included, or how long it was given before someone concluded it had failed. Sometimes the original symptom was never hormonal in the first place, and that is worth knowing too.
- We have written this up in full in our Education Center — why some women say hormone therapy did not work.
- If you are in that position, bring whatever records you have. Knowing exactly what was tried, at what dose and for how long, saves repeating it.
- And if the honest conclusion is that hormone therapy is not what you need, we will say so.
Twenty-one years of this conversation, in Ascension Parish.
Start with a call. We will work out what kind of appointment fits, and answer the cost questions before you commit to anything.
6 · Common questions
Straight answers about hormone therapy
What is bioidentical hormone therapy (BHRT)?
BHRT uses hormones that are structurally identical to the ones your body already makes, derived from plant sources. It can be delivered as pellets, creams or injections, and it is dosed to the individual rather than issued as a standard package.
What are the signs I might need hormone therapy?
Hot flashes and night sweats are the well-known ones, but sleep that stopped working, mood changes, brain fog, joint aches, vaginal dryness and low libido are just as common and far more often dismissed. There is no single test that decides it — it comes out of your symptoms and history, weighed together at your visit.
Is hormone therapy safe?
Hormone therapy carries both benefits and potential side effects, and which way that balance falls depends on you — your age, your history, how long since menopause, and which hormones are involved. Those are discussed properly at your visit, with labs ordered when they are clinically useful. A physician's job here is accuracy rather than reassurance.
Do I need an exam or labs before I can start?
No exam is needed to get started. You complete your history at home through the portal, then have a proper conversation with your provider. Labs are ordered where they would genuinely change the plan, and recent results from elsewhere often count.
What delivery methods do you offer?
Pellets, creams and injections — and for estrogen and progesterone, tablets or capsules, patches and vaginal creams too. Pellets are placed a few times a year, ask nothing of you in between, and give the steadiest levels of the three. Creams are daily and easy to adjust; injections are periodic and familiar to many men. Your provider helps you weigh which suits your life.
How soon will I feel a difference?
It varies genuinely from person to person, and anyone offering you a confident number before knowing your history is guessing. Your provider will set realistic expectations with you, and we follow up to see how you are actually responding rather than assuming.
I tried hormone therapy before and it did not help. Is there any point?
Often, yes. A course that produced no benefit frequently comes down to the dose, the delivery method, which hormones were included, or how soon it was abandoned — rather than hormones being the wrong answer. Bring whatever records you have so we are not repeating something that has already been ruled out.
Do you treat men as well?
Yes. Testosterone therapy for men is a substantial part of what we do, and a good number of our male patients arrive because a partner is already a patient here.
Do I have to come to Gonzales?
For your first visit, yes. After that, follow-ups work well by secure video anywhere in Louisiana, with labs drawn at LabCorp (our preferred lab) or any lab you choose. Patients travel in from Prairieville, Baton Rouge and across Ascension Parish, and after that first trip, distance does not have to decide it.
Will I see the same team every time?
Yes. That continuity is deliberate — hormone care is a series of small adjustments over time, and noticing what has actually changed requires a team that remembers where you started.
How is hormone therapy paid for?
Hormone consultations and follow-up office visits are covered with Blue Cross Blue Shield or Aetna. If you choose pellets, the insertion procedure itself is cash-pay. Every cost question gets a straight answer during your free consultation, before you commit to anything.
Related: Hormone Pellet Therapy · Testosterone for Women · Men’s Hormone Health · Lab Testing
7 · Why ACWH
Care you can trust
Physician-owned
Independent and locally rooted — answerable to patients, not a corporation.
Board-certified OB/GYN
Care led by a board-certified physician, not a one-size protocol.
21 years in Ascension Parish
The parish's first dedicated women's health practice, since 2005.
Time to truly listen
Unhurried visits and plans built around you.
4.9
★★★★★
Our Google rating is public and unfiltered — we don't curate it.
8 · Further reading
From our Education Center.
Written by our clinicians, reviewed by Dr. Adams, sources cited.