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a sense of betrayal March 24, 2010

Posted by Lyn in : Natural Hormone Compounding Doctors , 2comments

I had an experience today that has really left me feeling betrayed. You know we work with doctors all over the Dayton area. There are some good ones out there who really do respect and validate women, who are truly interested in their health and work with us to find the cause of their hormone imbalance issues instead of band-aiding their issues with a drug. We thought we had found a good doctor in Cincinnati to work with us. He is a D.O. and seemed very genuine. Our clients we sent to him, for the most part, liked him and he signed off on our recommendation for their natural hormone therapy. Interestingly enough, we began to notice a pattern with this doctor. We would have a client who would go to our website; order a saliva kit; and fill out the online personal symptom sheet and medical history form on our website. The saliva test results would come back to me; I would call the client to get the name of her doctor; her insurance information AND I would tell her that we would make the recommendation for her hormone balance and fax it to this doctor. After she meets with him and he faxes back the signed prescription form to our compounding pharmacy, we will make an appointment to meet at the cottage for a free consultation. At this consultation, we will hand off the therapy, show her the dosage and the best delivery system for her, tell her what she can expect, answer her questions, and most importantly, tell her our commitment to staying connected. I am available 24/7 to answer any question and concern that arises AND furthermore, I call, email and check in with them often. You see, I am ALL about building relationships. I have a passion for helping women navigate the rough waters of hormone imbalances and I feel our great customer service can make the difference between success and failure on this journey. So what happened with this particular Cincinnati doctor today? I found out that when my clients go to him, he is sending them to the compounding pharmacy ACROSS THE STREET to make their therapy!!! Why?? Why would he take a client who we have already not only established a relationship with BUT have also gotten in her test results, written the recommendation for her hormone balance FOR him AND invested a lot of time and energy into? Why?? So here is the thing. Not only does that show a deep lack of integrity on his part, and a lack of professional courtesy….what it also means for the client is that I am no longer able to help them. He has effectively stopped any future contact. Because my compounding lab does NOT make her therapy, I have NO way of knowing what ingredients they use or what the quality of their ingredients might be or even what therapy they made for her. So I am not able to stay connected, help or counsel her! Imagine Pam’s surprise when she called me tonight because she is having an issue she needs help solving with her therapy and I told her I couldn’t help her because her doctor cut me out of the loop. She was upset!! It is like having that doctor deliver a baby and do all the work and then having the mother of that baby pay an entirely different doctor who had NO part in the delivery. Does this make any sense what-so-ever? To make matters worse, I have sent this doctor supplies, teaching aids, and
information to make his job easier in this field of natural hormone balance. I am upset for my clients, myself and our compounding pharmacy. (he is now off our website’s list of practitioners we work with. We all deserve better!)

Piqua Medicine Shoppe and Compounding Pharmacy-THE compounding pharmacy of choice in Ohio! March 16, 2010

Posted by Lyn in : Case Studies In Natural Compounded Hormone Therapy , 1 comment so far

Ok, so I had a lady stop at the cottage the other day and say that she could a get a saliva testing kit from another pharmacy for FREE. (we charge $4 for ours-it covers the cost of shipping AND it is about perceived value. People tend to value what they have to pay for) So I said, “Great! But just so you know your opportunity cost of going to another pharmacy (my 30 years teaching 6th grade economics taught me that the opportunity cost is the choice you GIVE up!). 1) Did you know that when another compounding pharmacy gives you a saliva kit and gets the results back in, they send your results to a local practitioner to make your recommendation. WE actually pull together not only your saliva test results, but the information you have either submitted to us online through my website OR at the free consultations we offer at the cottage and then WE ACTUALLY WRITE OUR RECOMMENDATION FOR YOUR BALANCE IN THREE AREAS: HORMONES, ADRENAL GLANDS AND THYROID FOR YOU. We just really don’t trust most doctors to do this for you. We have been doing this for 10 years; it is our niche; and we have clients all over the country who have literally been with us for years.Hormone balance is what we do and what we are known for. We are so well-known for this that Suzanne Somers lists US-The Piqua Medicine Shoppe in her last 3 bestsellers as THE compounding pharmacy of choice in Ohio! 2)Did you know that when you come to our Happy Hormone Cottage-either in person or via our www.happyhormonecottage.com website, that we spend time educating you, giving you materials to help you learn,
listening to you, validating you and respecting you? Our goal is to get you tested, treated and better and our passion is helping middle-years women navigate the waters of natural hormone balance with dignity. 3)When you do your saliva testing through us and ZRT labs, WE make your recommendation for your hormone balance and fax that to either your doctor or one of the 30 area doctors who work with us, get the signed prescription back, compound it in our new $200,000 state-of-the-art compounding lab, and then we take customer service to the next level. We sit down with you again and go over HOW to use your new therapy, WHAT to expect and HOW to stay connected. 4) Finally, when you visit our cottage and go through our PMS (!) Piqua Medicine Shoppe-you get ME! My passion is middle-years women. I am available 24/7 to talk to you, answer your questions, and discuss a concern. I call or email you every few weeks to check in with you. Your best health through natural hormone balance is my passion and building and maintaining relationships is everything! I think it is impactful that I am a middle-years woman who has gone through exactly what you are going through. I can relate and share with you my experiences so you won’t have to go through what I did. I love being with you on your journey and I embrace the opportunity to do so every day with every woman I meet! So when you get a chance to spend that $4 on a saliva testing kit-even though you could maybe get it for free someplace else, just know what that $4 gets you! Sometimes things are greater than the sum of their parts. The Happy Hormone Cottage and Piqua Medicine Shoppe ARE these things!

The Happy Hormone Cottage is Bursting at the Seams! March 7, 2010

Posted by Lyn in : Hormone Therapy Joy , add a comment

It looks like we made it through another grueling winter! Luckily, at the cottage, we have been so busy, we haven’t really noticed the winter! AND, with our female population of women stopping by who are having hot flashes, who notices the cold?? We actually sit around and glow! :)


We just celebrated our 6-month anniversary at our little Happy Hormone Cottage and I am just amazed at our growth. I really had no idea when we began our free resource center for women at the end of August, that we would experience this much growth this quickly! It just goes to show we must simply dream bigger! Since opening, we have established relationships with 30 area practitioners in the greater Dayton area, who partner with us in this area of compounded natural hormone replacement therapy. Since we launched our website in August, 744 women receive our monthly email Wellness Updates AND we have gone from 6 free consultations a week to 23 consultations a week. Even more interesting to me is that fact that now that our clients are feeling better, have more energy, and are sleeping better, they are bringing their husbands into the cottage for their male menopause (andropause) issues!! Luckily, my husband Jeff Hogrefe RPh, works with these men on Saturday afternoons and takes them off-site to a nearby location for their meetings. It is just too much for the men to step into a “happy hormone cottage” with grace and dignity! They are much happier meeting at an alternative location and talking over health issues with another guy, who has compassion for men in this area.

Finally, we just finished a $200,000 renovation at our Piqua Medicine Shoppe and Compounding Lab that includes a brand new state-of-the-art compounding facility. We are proud of the fact that we are listed in Suzanne Somer’s last 3 books as THE compounding pharmacy of choice in Ohio and we are proud to stay at the top of our game! Our clients’ health and well-being is our greatest treasure!


Have a great month! I hope to see you soon at one of our Happy Hormone Coffee Hours on Wednesday mornings, a Happy Hormone Hour, or a local health event like the Miami Valley Hospital South free Women’s Health Seminar that is being held Tuesday evening, March 9, 5:30-7:30 p.m.  Check my website’s events page for information and updates!

By the way, you can now schedule a consultation online!  Visit

http://www.happyhormonecottage.com/begin_your_journey.htm and click on Make an Appointment!

Warmly,
Lyn

It Happened Again! (or doctors’ ignorance on natural hormone replacement…stop the madness!!) March 3, 2010

Posted by Lyn in : Uneducated doctors , 1 comment so far

My husband has told me never to blog when I’m angry! I am not going to take his advice this time! I just got a call from a client who went to a doctor (I have heard of him but he is not on my website as one of the doctors we work with) to have him sign off on our recommendation (prescription) for her natural compounded hormone therapy. I tell my clients all the time to make the call BEFORE your appt to make sure that dr will sign off on what we do, because doctors know drugs and what we do is NOT a drug! So Andie goes to this doctor for his permission and he won’t sign off on it.(big surprise!!) I am ok with a doctor not signing off on something he is not familiar with and admitting it. But this doctor went on to not only say he didn’t know much about it because “hormones aren’t his area of expertise,” he THEN proceeded to put the fear of God into Andie about taking hormones and what too much can do and ya-da, ya-da, ya-da.
He then proceeded to do a blood test to measure the hormomes because he couldn’t validate the saliva testing that we do. On top of that, when Andie suggested that he go to my website where he will find many, many clinical studies on BHRT and the efficacy of what we do, his response was, “I am not going to go to some website and read about this!” The sad truth is that now Andie-periomenopausal and miserable: can’t sleep, no energy, no libido, foggy thinking etc…..all treatable with checking her current hormone levels and then replacing them with customized, natural therapy made just for her….is confused and caught in the middle. Who does she trust? Her doctor or us? I feel her pain! I am totally empathetic! It just makes me so angry that doctors who know nothing about natural hormone replacement have to throw out false facts that scare and confuse their patients, instead of just saying, “You know what? This is not something I am familiar with, but let me check into it for you. Let me read, make some calls, get some answers and maybe we can meet again soon to talk about this some more.”
How awesome would that be? Now Andie is left to muddle through the maze once again. So a woman who could have gotten tested, treated and better is now left to continue to suffer and to have a lower quality of life that impacts the entire family unit……….ALL because a medical professional who knows nothing about natural hormone balance refuses to become educated, therefore perpetuating the myths surrounding hormone replacement. Let me say once again that natural hormone balance is hormone replacement. It is NOT hormone substitution (premarin, prempro, prevara, estrotest, etc) that CAN cause serious health risks. To lump ALL hormone therapy under one umbrella and call it ALL bad is like saying that ALL fruit is bad because apples (i.e. premarin) has been known to cause breast cancer. Does this make any sense to you…or is it just me??!! I hope I live long enough to see the day when doctors will actually love middle-years women enough to take the time to become educated in this area, ask the tough questions and actually find the CAUSE of her hormone issues and maybe, just maybe, realizing that to REPLACE these hormones in her body so she can get her life back JUST MAKES SENSE!