Libsyn Directory

The Estrogen Patch Shortage: What Women Need to Know Before Switching

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Release Date: 10/17/2026

Quick Hits: Biohacking Your Way to Optimal Aging with Zora Benhamou

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. What does it take to age well? We hear plenty about supplements, biohacking tools, and the latest longevity trends, but what about our relationships, emotional health, and everyday habits? In this Quick Hits episode, I’m joined by Zora Benhamou to explore aging with more curiosity, confidence, and intention. We talk about the factors that...

Peptides for Women Over 40: What Works, What’s Risky & What You Need to Know with Stephanie Gambetta

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Peptides are everywhere right now. Weight loss. Muscle. Recovery. Energy. Skin. Longevity. Suddenly everyone seems to have a “stack” they swear by. But how do you know what is actually safe, what is experimental, where your peptides are really coming from, or whether the protocol you saw online makes any sense for a woman in midlife? In this episode, I sit down with peptide coach Stephanie Gambetta, founder of The Loop Way, to cut through some of the noise. We talk about the huge difference between using peptides strategically and simply throwing more things at your body because someone...

Quick Hits: How This Magic Mat is Revolutionizing Stress Relief, Sleep, and Healing - The PEMF Breakthrough

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. For almost two years, I kept hearing about PEMF mats. People were using them for stress, sleep, pain, and recovery, but every time I started researching them, I got overwhelmed by all the different technologies and claims. Then I discovered AlignMat. After using mine for a month, I finally understood why people get so obsessed with these things....

My Midlife Aging Dilemma: Botox, PRP, Facelifts & What I’m Doing Now and Planning Next

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

I turned 50 this year, and I swear my face got the memo. Suddenly I started noticing things I had not really paid attention to before: a little more sagging, broken capillaries, pigmentation, droopier eyelids, changes around my jawline, and that feeling of looking in the mirror and thinking, “Okay... when did THAT happen?” So naturally, I went down a rabbit hole. A very deep rabbit hole. Skincare. Red light therapy. PRP microneedling. IPL. Lasers. Botox. Retinoids. Copper peptides. Exosomes. Eyelid surgery. Deep plane facelifts. And after months of researching, trying products, talking to...

Doing Everything Right But Still Feel Awful? This May Be Why with Dr. Meg Mill

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Have you ever noticed that when stress goes up, everything else seems to fall apart with it? Your digestion gets worse. Your anxiety ramps up. You suddenly react to foods you used to tolerate. Your sleep goes sideways. Your migraines get worse. And for so many women, this seems to intensify right around perimenopause. We spend a lot of time talking about hormones, supplements, gut health, inflammation, diet, and lab testing. But what if there is another layer sitting underneath all of it? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Meg Mill, pharmacist, certified functional medicine practitioner,...

Quick Hits: Why Belly Fat Shows Up in Midlife and Why Dieting Harder Can Backfire for You

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. In this episode, I sit down with Ann and Anoop Asok to talk about stubborn belly fat, metabolism, reverse dieting, muscle, stress, and why so many women end up trapped in a cycle of eating less and working harder without getting the results they want. We get into why midlife body composition can change even when your habits have not, what years of...

The Estrogen Patch Shortage: What Women Need to Know Before Switching

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE Can't get your usual estrogen patch? Don't panic. You have options! In this free guide, hormone specialist Karen Martel breaks down the different estrogen delivery methods, including patches, creams, gels, oils, and injections. Learn how they compare, understand approximate dosing equivalents, and discover what to ask your doctor before making a switch. Plus, get practical tips for navigating the estrogen shortage so you can stay on track with your hormone therapy and avoid unnecessary disruptions. Imagine finally getting your HRT dialed in, feeling good again,...

Quick Hits: The Protein Mistake That Could Be Costing You Muscle in Midlife with Angelo Keely

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. We talk constantly about eating more protein in midlife. But here is the question we do not ask nearly enough: Is your body actually getting what it needs from that protein? Because there is a big difference between eating protein, digesting protein, getting enough of the right amino acids, and actually giving your body what it needs to maintain...

Menopause and Heart Disease: What Women Are Still Not Being Told with Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Most women enter perimenopause thinking about hot flashes, weight gain, sleep, brain fog, and hormones. Very few are told that this may also be one of the most important cardiovascular windows of their lives. And that is a problem. Heart disease remains the number one killer of women, yet women are still being underdiagnosed, dismissed, and evaluated using systems that were largely built around male cardiovascular disease. In this episode, I sit down with preventative cardiologist Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum to talk about what women actually need to understand about their hearts in perimenopause and...

Quick Hits: Empower Your Physique: Breaking Misconceptions for Women Over 40 with Philip Pape

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. This week we're exploring the intricacies of hormonal health and nutrition for women over 40, including the delicate balance between diet, exercise, and hormones. Joining us is nutrition expert Philip Pape, and together we debunk diet myths and provide personalized strategies to maintain energy, muscle mass, and metabolic health. We also discuss...

More Episodes

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE **The Estrogen Shortage Survival Guide for Women**

Can't get your usual estrogen patch? Don't panic. You have options!

In this free guide, hormone specialist Karen Martel breaks down the different estrogen delivery methods, including patches, creams, gels, oils, and injections. Learn how they compare, understand approximate dosing equivalents, and discover what to ask your doctor before making a switch. Plus, get practical tips for navigating the estrogen shortage so you can stay on track with your hormone therapy and avoid unnecessary disruptions.

Imagine finally getting your HRT dialed in, feeling good again, walking into the pharmacy for your refill...

And being told your estrogen patch is out of stock.

That is exactly what happened to me, and I am definitely not the only one.

Women across North America are suddenly finding themselves calling multiple pharmacies, being switched to different patch brands, being offered oral estrogen, or wondering if they are about to be forced to go without the hormone therapy that has been keeping their symptoms under control.

But before you panic, there is something important you need to know:

You have options.

In this episode, I am breaking down what is happening with the estrogen patch shortage, why two patches containing the exact same estradiol dose can feel completely different, and what women need to understand before switching from one form of estrogen to another.

We also get into one of the most confusing parts of HRT: why the numbers on a patch, cream, gel, oil, or other estrogen product can look wildly different even when they are being used for similar purposes.

And then we go into a much bigger conversation about estrogen delivery itself.

Because swallowing estrogen, wearing estrogen, applying estrogen to the skin, and using other delivery methods are not necessarily doing the exact same thing inside your body.

If your pharmacy has already told you your patch is unavailable, or you simply want to understand your backup options before this happens to you, this episode is one you will want to save.

In This Episode, We Talk About:

Why estrogen patches are suddenly becoming harder to find
What the recent increase in HRT demand may mean for women
Why one estrogen patch can feel completely different from another
What actually determines how a patch delivers estradiol
Why the adhesive itself may matter more than you realize
Commercially manufactured versus compounded estrogen
Why compounded does not automatically mean better or worse
What women need to understand before changing estrogen delivery methods
Why comparing the milligrams on two estrogen products can be extremely misleading
The differences between patches, gels, creams, oils, sprays, injections, and oral estrogen
Why some women absorb certain forms of estrogen better than others
Why oral estradiol behaves differently once it reaches the liver
The estrogen metabolite almost nobody talks about
What SHBG and thyroid-binding proteins have to do with estrogen therapy
Why route of administration may matter for cardiovascular and clotting risk
What questions to ask your provider if your usual patch disappears
How to create a backup plan before you are scrambling at the pharmacy

TOPICS