Question by mollusk: What’s the effect of hormone replacement therapy on bipolar disorder?
My mother has been considering hormone replacement therapy to deal with her menopause, but also for other medical problems that I can’t fully explain. All I can really say about it is the doctors strongly advise the therapy and have warned her about health risks if she doesn’t do it. This isn’t the issue I’m talking about for this question though.
Right now she has only one reason for refusing the treatment. She is afraid that hormone replacement therapy will make her bipolar. I thought the idea was a bit outrageous, but I honestly don’t know for sure. I know bipolar is mostly due to a genetic propensity plus an environmental trigger. I thought bipolar disorder has to manifest itself some time before 40. I need real information for or against this argument.
I know menopause is hard on women. That’s why I’m taking this issue seriously and trying to get accurate information on it so that she can make a safe, intelligent decision based on fact and not superstition.

Best answer:

Answer by barry
I strongly recommending first getting her:
Eight Weeks to Vibrant Health: A Take Charge Plan for Women to Correct Imbalances, Reclaim Energy and Restore Well-Being by Hyla Cass MD and Kathleen Barnes. Book or audio course.

Dr. Cass (see her many books at amazon.com) advises not to use Premarin, or similar, which most doctors would prescribe (animal cruelty issues + KNOWN TO CAUSE CANCER IN SUSCEPTIBLE WOMEN!) but to use natural hormone replacement therapy with bioidentical hormones, from a compounding pharmacy, via a naturopath.

She also recommends soy products, for the phytoestrogens, but Dr. Joseph Mercola, at http://www.mercola.com (which is the most visited natural health website in the world – consider signing up for the regular free Ezine) warns against the use of UNFERMENTED soy products for females, and recommends fermented ones like natto, (NOT tofu) which is the best dietary source of vitamin K2.

Dr. Mercola advises that 90% of US soy is now GENETICALLY MODIFIED – this is known to produce adverse health/reproductive results in animals.

Other books: Natural Prescriptions for Women: What to Do– And When to Do It– To Solve More Than 100 Female Health Problems– Without Drugs by Susan Berg and The Editors of Prevention Health Books, from your bookstore, or Amazon.com.

From Yahoo! Answers: Read the book _Natural Hormone Balance for Women_ by Uzzi Reiss.

View: http://search.mercola.com/search/Pages/results.aspx?k=menopause & http://www.womentowomen.com/menopause/default.aspx &

http://search.mercola.com/search/Pages/results.aspx?k=soy

Other natural products which may well help menopause are evening primrose oil, and black cohosh, for “hot flashes”, from health food stores.

I’m not aware of HRT triggering bipolar disorder, but Google: “HRT; bipolar disorder; triggering” and ask at the following:

CHATSITES & FORUMS:
http://bipolarchat.net/ & www.mcmahonweb.com/ & www.psychforums.com/ & www.supportpath.com/ & http://www.abssn.org/ & www.crazyboards.org/forums/ & http://www.bpbabble.com/ & http://crazymeds.us/ Check out http://dailystrength.org/

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!