LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Las Vegas doctor is helping women battling menopause with a tailored approach she said delivers a more natural release.

A former athlete and a very busy healthcare executive, Maureen Schafer noticed her energy levels changing when she turned 50.  She consulted Doctor Andrea Dempsey, M.D. at Dermabella Medical Spa for answers.

“She said your hormone levels have taken a hit with age, which is natural, but we don’t have to accept that,” Schafter explained.

Maureen had many choices from the different ways to put hormones into your body: patches, creams, pills. She chose Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy delivered in the shape of a pellet.  It’s individually dosed, based on a person’s weight and lab results.

“The delivery system is similar to how we make our own hormones,” Doctore Dempsey explained. “As it’s delivered to the body, it’s more of a natural release. People are more prone to get the effects they would get when they were younger, and feel them longer, and the compliance is better.”

The procedure itself takes five minutes, placing the pellet under the skin with an incision in the upper butt cheek.

The positive effects last about four months. Schafer first tried this a year ago.

“Over the course of just two months, I felt my energy levels really rebounding,” Schafer said. “My sleep was coming back, and just lots of other things that made a positive difference in my life.”

“This pellet makes them feel younger, and it’s hard to describe because people think ‘Oh, really? There’s no such thing,'” Doctor Dempsey added. “But aches and pains seem to improve, as well as sleep. It does feel kind of magic in a sense. It’s not a dramatic difference, but it’s sort of ‘I feel like myself again.'”

Doctor Dempsey would know, as she’s a patient herself. While she has offered all the other types of therapies for more than a decade, in 2019 she switched mostly to offering just hormone pellet therapy.

She’s done 2000 procedures and wants women to know they don’t have to suffer through menopause.

Although women make up the majority of Dr. Dempsey’s clientele for hormone pellet therapy, about 25 percent of her clients are men.

The pellet therapy lasts about six months in men, compared to about four months in women.