It is with great pleasure that I write about my experiences with Dr. Nerette and Stephanie Muniz, ARNP and their state of the art Medical Spa (Belissimo) in Weston,Fl. I feel incredibly blessed to have this quality facility right here in my hometown of Weston, but I would gladly drive to another county for this level of service.
In response to turning 50, and starting to get the usual battery of miserable “peri-menopausal “ symptoms, I started a process of self education over 2 years, in order to learn about my options. I was in denial about my gradual loss of energy, accepting that I would just have to live with the feeling of being completely pooped at the end of my day. I thought that I would never be able to sleep soundly through the night again. I thought that I would just have to “suck it up” and live with the hot flashes, the sagging, ever increasingly drying skin, the less than robust libido and the joint aches that I started to get at way to early an age. Making it through a workout at the gym, once a pleasure, was getting to be a huge chore , with delayed onset soreness that lasted for 3 or 4 days. My neck and jaw skin no longer look taut, and I was getting brown spots on my face , all of a sudden, it seemed.
Don’t get me wrong- as a trained medical professional ( I am a Physician Assistant) and have always been committed to healthy living and exercise, I didn’t look like “I was falling apart” ; I just felt like I was leaving behind the energy and pain free living I had always enjoyed. But I knew that I was not going to feel any better unless I did something. With a friend diagnosed with breast Cancer at age 43 and all the press around breast Ca, I wanted to make certain that I made the right choice about hormone replacement. I read several books and dozens of articles about hormone replacement and unflinchingly chose the bioidentical route. Without any doubt, I truly and completely believe that not only is this the way that women can manage their increasingly longer and productive lives joyfully, but I feel that bioidentical hormone therapies(along with good healthy living habits) are THE KEY TO MINIMIZING ONE’S RISK OF CANCER.
In the summer of 2008, I set out to find a local physician who knew enough about bioidentical therapies that I would feel comfortable be his patient. As a PA, I took a course of OB/GYN in training , prescribed and promoted (later, as a sales rep) birth control pills for several years. Add this to the fact that I am pretty obsessive about my own health and picky about the doctors that I choose to see. I went to lectures and first appointments with 3 other physicians before I came to see Dr. Nerette.
What impressed me about Dr Nerette (and Stephanie) were the following:
-he spent over 1 hour in initial consultation with me , cheerfully and thoroughly answering my questions
-he tested my blood for no more or less than he NEEDED to guide his therapy ( it is very easy in these situations to order unnecessary tests)
-they offer a Truly Complete array of medical and spa services, and there was no sense of over promotion-(as a result, I chose to do my Botox there next time)
-Dr. Nerette ( and Stephanie’s ) bedside manner were terrific; friendly, real, easy going, professional and informative.
About a week after my Sottopelle insertion ( a tiny bioactive pellet inserted under the skin of your tush), my hot flashes DISAPPEARED. Two weeks later, I started to get up in the morning without that dragging feeling I have felt for so long. At 4 PM, I was not looking for a latte nor a place to rest any longer…I was planning my family dinners and doing my administrative “homework” with out that feeling of tired drudgery. My workouts started to improve: I am able to do cardio AND weights again, instead of having to choose one or the other. My body , in all, feels like it did 10 or more years ago, long before I had any inkling of what it is like to live without hormones. You see, nearly every cell in the body has receptors for hormones, and my body had been, as they say” running on empty”. Stephanie just re-checked my levels at the one month point and, they were in the normal ranges for a non menopausal woman. More important to me than any of these mostly beauty conscious changes I have mentioned, is the feeling that I have done right by my body; that I have made the correct decision concerning my overall health and wellness.
I believe that Dr. Nerette and the bioidentical hormone replacement therapy options that he offers are truly cutting edge today. I fully expect that what he and select few other physician establishments are offering to the general public today will become mainstream by the time my children start to reach midlife… What Dr. Nerette offers is cost effective, future forward, sound medical practice with a terrific bedside manner. Please don’t wait until you are sick or suffering before you learn enough about bioidentical hormones. No pharmaceutical company is going to pay for the kind of ads needed to bring this forward to the American public at large , (because they are generic/un-patentable). It is a gift you give yourself and your family.
Sincerely,