At the Institute for Hormonal Balance, our team knows how important it is to have regular check-ups with your health care practitioner because we’re women that understand. As one of the most prominent woman-owned practices in the DFW area, we have a personal and professional passion for gynecology near Fort Worth. However, there’s so much more to total wellness than just your annual check-up.
Contact our office to talk about your needs, or keep reading to see how we take your intimate health beyond the exam room.
The Value of Your Wellness
Let’s start with an important question: When was the last time you had your annual gynecologic exam? No matter how old you are, regular check-ups are essential for every aspect of your wellness! We understand how busy life can get, but isn’t your health worth a couple of visits per year? Instead of waiting until something’s wrong to talk to a specialist, our team recommends prioritizing these 3 pillars of women’s wellness.
Annual Exams
The first thing to prioritize for your wellness is scheduling annual exams—and sticking to them! Regular check-ups provide important insights that build deeper understanding with every visit. Your health status, age, and risk factors all determine the necessary frequency of your exams. Keeping up a regular schedule helps get ahead of potential health concerns before they start!
Proactive Approaches
Early detection and intervention is key—whether it’s an infection, type of cancer, or other condition. Looking into potential hereditary conditions with a trusted specialist can help prepare for the future. Prevention starts by finding a trusted professional who cares about your emotional and physical well-being.
Intimate Understanding
Having a trusted specialist that understands your concerns firsthand can provide peace of mind for life’s toughest questions. As a woman-owned practice, we provide guidance from our experience as care providers and caring people! Mandy Cotten, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, and the rest of our team provides personalized guidance to help our patients in ways that extend beyond typical gynecology near Fort Worth.
Well Woman Guidance
Thousands of women across Texas trust the Institute for Hormonal Balance for in-depth approaches for complete wellness. We may have begun with gynecology-focused care in the 80s, but our expertise surrounding complete wellness has only grown! To provide the innovative care patients truly deserve, we offer a variety of well woman services.
Pap Smear
According to theU.S. Centers for Disease Control, 11,500 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed each year. The good news is that regular checkups, including yearly pap smears, help women catch cervical cancer in the earliest stages – with an over 90% survival rate.
During your Pap smear, one of our providers will collect a cell sample with a brush. These cells are then examined in a thorough lab screening to identify any abnormalities that may indicate cervical cancer or precursors.
Additionally, a Pap smear can detect certain infections and human papillomavirus (HPV)
Pelvic Exam
We also perform a pelvic exam alongside a Pap smear. Here, we will examine your vulva, vagina, and perineum, and insert a speculum to gain a better visual of your vaginal walls and cervix.
This helps us identify any unusual changes that may be causing issues like pain, vaginal discharge, or frequent infections. Annual pelvic exams check for abnormal infections, discharge, and other concerns. With a year pelvic exam, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that some women can defer their pap smears for up to 3 years.
With a gentle touch, our team guides patients through this intimate exam.
Physical
During your annual exam we will also evaluate your breast health by doing a manual breast exam, assess your thyroid, abdominal health, as well as other related concerns such as incontinence and problems with intimacy..
To learn how your pelvic floor contributes to both, check out this related read!
Achieve Confidence Over Incontinence
Breast Exam
1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives. That makes this one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers among women worldwide. While that is a scary statistic, the mortality rate of breast cancer is dropping every year thanks to breast exams and mammograms.
This is one of the most common and important exams we provide in our range of well woman services. With a thorough examination, our providers can identify potential risk factors associated with cancer, cysts, or tissue changes. We can also refer you to receive a mammogram as needed.
Tailored Approaches to Wellness
With a multi-dimensional approach to complete women’s wellness, our practice provides guidance and care that goes beyond the standard for gynecology near Fort Worth. Since every woman is beautifully unique, we use findings from the aforementioned exams to create a wellness plan focused on each individual need. These are a few ways we empower total wellness for our patients every day.
Hormone Therapy
With deep roots in the world of hormone therapy, Mandy Cotten is an internationally published authority on the impact hormones have on women’s health. Her research into using testosterone therapy to mitigate breast cancer is blazing a new path forward for preventative care! In addition to testosterone, progesterone and estrogen play key roles in women’s overall wellness.
With an unmatched level of care, we create customized plans to optimize necessary hormones for many reasons. Hormones not only affect how you feel- symptoms such as fatigue, night sweats, hot flashes, insomnia, anxiety and depression can be debilitating, but hormone deficiency also affects your cardiac health, brain health, vaginal and urinary health, and bone health. We tailor each patient’s hormone care plan to address their individual health concerns and history.
We provide options such as creams, injections, pellets, patches, and pills to optimize your hormone levels. Our preferred method of hormone optimization is through bioidentical pellets. Pellets provide a consistent level of hormones over a period of 3-5 months so once they are inserted into the fat tissue, typically on your hip, you don’t have to worry about anything on a daily basis. Over time, these pellets are absorbed directly into the bloodstream to replace the natural production of key hormones that your body stops producing over time.
Estrogen
Estrogen is most commonly associated with women, but both sexes provide and need some estrogen. This hormone is responsible for many aspects of overall wellness, including bone density, cardiovascular health, and emotional regulation. Optimizing estrogen in women also promotes healthy vaginal tissue, helps with incontinence, as well as reduces pain with intercourse.
Progesterone
This hormone is essential to uterine and reproductive health. It also plays an important role in breast tissue development during pregnancy and regulating menstruation, but its effects go beyond reproductive health. Progesterone naturally supports GABA receptors to improve your mood and sleep while lowering stress.
Testosterone
If you thought testosterone only matters in men, just ask Mandy! Testosterone is an essential hormone in both sexes for many reasons. It helps maintain bone density by supporting musculoskeletal health, which is crucial to prevent osteoporosis. Testosterone is also largely responsible for libido and contributes to healthy vaginal lubrication in women. Sexual health, energy levels, and muscle mass are all closely tied to this essential hormone.
Beyond Sex Hormones
There are many other contributing hormones, such as cortisol and thyroid hormones, that we can address with hormone therapy and supplementation. To us, hormone health is a cornerstone of overall wellness, which is why this therapy is always a part of the conversation for women and men alike! As we look to improve the physical aspects of vaginal health, our practice offers several other innovative options.
Vaginal Rejuvenation
Over time, skin throughout the body ages in different ways. For your vaginal tissues, this often leads to dryness, increased laxity, and lack of sensation. In many cases, women write this off as just another “perk” of getting older, but it doesn’t always have to be this way!
With TempSure Vitalia, we can stimulate healthy collagen production and tighten sensitive tissues. Using the power of targeted radiofrequency heating, our probe naturally restores delicate skin without pain or downtime! Vitalia’s specialty designed probe promotes complete comfort and safety throughout every treatment. Your ideal number of sessions will depend on your unique conditions. While treatment can also help improve pelvic muscles through better circulation, we turn to another device for enhanced pelvic floor wellness.
Emsella
Many aspects of your overall health and wellness are linked to your pelvic floor muscles. Mobility, range of motion, core strength, and even urinary function are all controlled by this important muscle group. Age, childbirth, and other factors can drastically affect the health of this area, but instead of hundreds of grueling Kegels, we recommend taking a seat.
Our Emsella chair uses HIFEM technology to manually induce thousands of controlled contractions that specifically target pelvic floor muscles. This not only strengthens the muscle group, it also re-trains the body for better control over them! When paired with Emsculpt NEO in our core to floor protocol, we improve the overall strength and function of the legs, core, buttocks, and pelvic floor muscles. This combination helps women recover from childbirth faster, maintain mobility as they age, and stay dry throughout every sneeze, jump, or cough!
O-Shot
To round out our all-encompassing approach to women’s wellness, the O-Shot is an incredible option! For women losing sensation in their clitorus or experiencing painful intercourse, this is a life-changing treatment. This treatment works by strategically injecting platelet-rich plasma (PRP) derived from your natural blood cells throughout your vaginal area.
PRP contains natural growth factors that work to jumpstart cellular growth, increase natural lubrication, and restore sensation. With just a few injections, we improve sexual, physical, and emotional health beyond anything that’s possible with traditional gynecology near Fort Worth.
Experience Total Wellness
Women’s Health Month may only last 31 days, but at the Institute for Hormonal Balance, we promote total women’s wellness all year long! After you schedule your annual check-up with one of our knowledgeable practitioners, talk with our team to create your plan for complete wellness.
Schedule an appointment for a one-on-one consultation, or start getting personalized advice from the comfort of your couch with our treatment planning tool!
