Hormone therapy (HRT)

What HRT does and doesn't do — a clear, honest guide.

The Mirena IUD can be a surprisingly powerful tool in perimenopause — but only for some of what you're dealing with. Here's exactly what it does, what it can't do, and when combining it with estrogen makes sense.

Hot flashes at 2 a.m., periods that ghost you for three months and then return with a vengeance, a brain that won't cooperate — perimenopause can feel like your body rewrote the rules without telling you. The good news: there are more evidence-backed treatment options now than at any other point in medical history, and many of them are a video call away.

You started hormone therapy hoping it might help with the weight — or you're avoiding it because you're scared it'll make things worse. Neither fear quite matches what the trials show.

Every FDA-approved HRT dose, broken out by hormone and delivery method — patch, gel, pill, spray, and progesterone — so you know what to expect before your next appointment.

Starting hormone therapy brings a real, well-documented list of things your body might do in the first few months — most of them ordinary, a handful worth a same-day call. Here's the complete picture, including the question that trips up almost everyone: what HRT actually does to your hair and skin.

Can you still have a glass of wine? Does it matter if you take your pill on an empty stomach? Will this treatment change your weight? Those questions tend to show up right after the prescription does, and they deserve real answers rather than a doctor's-note disclaimer. Here's what actually holds up against the evidence, and what doesn't.

Hormone replacement therapy is now widely available through telehealth. These seven providers are the most accessible, honest options — compared side by side on price, lab requirements, and who they serve best.

Seven telehealth providers now sell hormone replacement therapy directly to consumers, and their sticker prices span more than $200 a month depending on formulation, consult structure, and whether insurance ever touches the bill. Here's what each one actually charges once every fee is counted.

A patch or pill promising to fix your hormones overnight, no doctor required, checkout in under a minute — you've probably scrolled past one in your feed. Here's how to tell that ad apart from the real, prescription patch your friend's doctor might have mentioned, plus the practical questions — placement, bleeding, cost — that come up once you're actually wearing one.

If your plan denies HRT — or you don't have one — the number that matters isn't a single "HRT price," it's which of seven very different pathways you use to get it. Here's what each one actually costs, cross-checked against real pharmacy and provider pricing, including the route most comparison pages skip entirely.

Every HRT price list eventually collapses into the same handful of real pathways, and they don't cost anywhere close to the same amount. This ranks them from the true floor price to the priciest legitimate option, with every fee that doesn't show up on the homepage counted in.

You've already decided hormone therapy makes sense — the harder question is which delivery format actually fits your body and your budget. Patch, pill, gel, or injection all put estrogen into your system, but they don't all get there the same way, and that difference matters more than most comparison charts let on.

A bioidentical-HRT telehealth provider, reviewed.

A menopause-specialist telehealth platform that bills your insurance — most PPO patients pay a copay, not a cash price. Here is what it covers, what it costs, and who it fits.

Veozah is not a supplement and not a hormone — it is a prescription medication with an actual clinical trial record. Here is what the evidence says about how well it works, what it costs, and when it makes sense.

Alloy combines Menopause Society–certified physicians, transparent pricing, and all-50-states coverage into one of the most accessible specialist menopause telehealth options available. Here is the complete picture.

The HRT Club solves a specific problem: making already-prescribed HRT medications dramatically cheaper. It is not a clinical service. That distinction matters — and once you understand it, you can decide quickly whether it fits your situation.

Fountain stands out in telehealth HRT for its genuinely all-inclusive pricing — labs, visits, and medications in one fee — and for including testosterone at every tier without a separate charge. Here is what that means in practice, what the trade-offs are, and who it makes most sense for.

Inner Balance offers one of the lowest ongoing HRT prices in telehealth once past the initial six months, with a vaginal estrogen cream included that most competitors charge separately for. The honest picture: very limited patient reviews mean this platform is genuinely harder to assess than more established competitors.

Oestra's real price only shows its final form six months in — before that, you're paying roughly double. Here's the honest math on both phases, what's actually bundled into that fee, and where the fine print has been tested by real customers.

Fountain bills every four weeks, not monthly, and the number that lands on your statement depends on how much you commit to upfront — about $150 a cycle if you prepay 48 weeks at once, $167 if you prepay 12, or $199 if you'd rather pay as you go. Testosterone, when your labs call for it, is folded into that price rather than sold as a separate tier.

Winona is real telehealth HRT — licensed physicians, its own compounding pharmacy, no waiting room required. The part most reviews skip is how its per-product pricing actually adds up.

Winona's homepage number is $39 a month — but that's the price of one product, not what most women actually pay once estrogen and progesterone are both in the cart. Here's the real math, plan by plan.

"Alloy discount code" searches keep turning up STARTGLP1 — a real fifty-dollar-off code that has nothing to do with hormone therapy. Here's what that code actually covers, and what genuinely brings the HRT bill down instead.