Lloydminster Co-op pharmacist Jackie Dunham, left, and pharmacy manager Michelle Teasdale, announced a new health service for women called Harmonique. It will be led by Dunham, a certified menopause practitioner who can share her challenges with menopause with other women seeking relief. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
The Lloydminster Co-op Pharmacy has launched what amounts to a personalized hormone tune-up clinic for women, called Harmonique.
It’s an individualized health plan designed to assist women in navigating through the physical and emotional challenges of PMS and the stages of menopause.
It’s run by pharmacist Jackie Dunham who is now a certified menopause practitioner.
She works directly with women and their physicians to treat symptoms based on prescription hormone replacement using bioidentical hormones.
“These are not natural, but identical to the ones the body makes. We call those endogenous hormones that we all have,” explained Dunham.
“I have prescription-made products that I can prescribe for patients that are bioidentical. There are some that are not bioidentical. I choose to use the bioidentical ones because there are fewer side effects.”
Treatment solutions also include supplements and advice on lifestyle changes like diet and exercise.
“A lot of the metabolic changes that happen as we age can affect the hormones too,” said Dunham who faces hormone challenges herself.
“Ever since I was in pharmacy (25 years) I ended up having issues like irritable bowel syndrome leading to distress and different hormonal challenges with like Oligomenorrhea which means not cycling for long periods of time.”
Other common symptoms of PMS are mood swings, depression, anxiety, and changes in appetite and sleep, in addition to the ones experienced by Dunham.
“It really became a passion to help myself and I ended up doing a lot of personal research and research into how I can heal naturally, and or with conventional medicine,” said Dunham.
“What I realized over this time is there is never only one solution. A lot of times you have to bring in different modalities to get to what you want to do.”
Dunham has worked with naturopaths, physicians and her own learning to seek relief.
“It’s been super healthy both emotionally and physically,” she said.
Dunham is is taking the same holistic team approach with Harmonique starting with one-on-one consultations with women at the pharmacy.
“I always want to have the patient’s physician on board. There are things in their medical history that maybe they haven’t told me that I need to know,” said Dunham.
“I write up a treatment plan and send it to the doctor and get their approval on that, then we go forward.
“It’s definitely teamwork.”
Dunham has completed a course in bioidentical hormones from the Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy Academy and earned her menopause practitioner certificate from the North American Menopause Society.
“It gives me a really good foundation to help women get to these health goals,” said Dunham.
“What specifically shows up in their lab work is really helpful for me to make determinations on how we can treat their lifestyle,” she said.
Dunham says women with PMS issues may be doing all the right things, but their hormones are out of balance.
“I would say it’s an easy fix. Some people are starting from square one and we have to start slow and drink more water, eat more protein add some exercise,” she said.
