Hormone Replacement Therapy in Chicagoland

Hormone output changes across a lifetime. Through perimenopause and into menopause, a woman’s estrogen production falls and fluctuates, often for years before periods stop altogether. In men, testosterone declines gradually with age. Hormone replacement therapy supplies the hormone your blood work shows has dropped, so the aim is to bring a measured value back toward a target range your provider sets with you.

That distinction is what separates a medical hormone program from a supplement. Symptoms on their own do not establish which hormone is low, and several unrelated conditions produce overlapping symptoms: thyroid disease, anemia, sleep disorders and sustained stress can all present much the way a hormone decline does. Express Med Spa therefore does not prescribe from a questionnaire. A nurse practitioner takes a history, performs a physical exam, draws blood, and reads the panel next to what you reported before writing anything.

Two prescription medications carry the programs. Estradiol is the estrogen used for menopause and perimenopause care. Testosterone cypionate is the testosterone used for testosterone therapy, and testosterone is also what the pellets deliver, for women as well as men. Both are given by intramuscular injection, which places the dose in muscle where it is absorbed over days rather than all at once. These are prescription drugs dispensed under a treatment plan, and the hormones themselves are purchased separately from the visit.

Because the target is a number rather than a feeling, the plan does not stay fixed once it is written. Follow up visits repeat the panel and your provider moves the dose against the new result. Hormone therapy is ongoing care that is monitored and revised. It is not a course of treatment that finishes on a set date, and it is not something you would expect to start and then leave alone.

Express Med Spa runs two hormone therapy tracks, and both are available at every clinic: Frankfort, La Grange, Shorewood and Mount Greenwood in Chicago.

Menopause and perimenopause hormone therapy is built around estradiol, given as a 5mg office injection on roughly a three to four week cycle. That program has its own page: see menopause and perimenopause hormone therapy for the labeled indications, the current position on hormone therapy labeling, and the detail on how that track runs. If menopause is what brought you here, start there rather than on this page.

One point belongs on any page that mentions systemic estrogen. A woman who still has a uterus needs a progestogen alongside estrogen to protect the lining of the uterus. Express Med Spa does not carry a progestogen on its own injection menu, so where one is indicated it is prescribed and filled separately. Raise it at your consultation rather than assuming it is included.

Testosterone therapy is built around testosterone cypionate, given as an intramuscular injection at 50mg, 100mg, 150mg or 200mg, so a provider can move a dose in steps. It also has its own page: see testosterone replacement therapy for the men’s panel and that program’s detail.

Pellets sit across both tracks. A pellet is a small implant placed under the skin during a 30 minute in office procedure, releasing a steady level of testosterone between placements. Women are typically started on one to two pellets depending on what their labs show; the standard placement for men is six. Additional pellets can be added at a placement when results call for it.

One point deserves stating plainly, because a great deal of published material blurs it: the pellet offered here is a testosterone pellet, for women and men alike. Estrogen at Express Med Spa is delivered by injection, not by pellet.

Hormone therapy sits with the medical services on this menu rather than inside the aesthetic line. If you arrived here from B12 injections or IV therapy, this is a different kind of program: prescription medication, ongoing lab monitoring and scheduled follow up.

Every hormone plan starts with a 30 minute office visit with a nurse practitioner. It is a clinical appointment rather than a sales consultation, and it is a paid visit: $99 when billed through insurance, or $285 for women and $360 for men on a cash basis with the labs included in that figure.

The visit covers four things: an assessment of your history and what prompted the appointment, a physical exam, a blood draw, and prescription recommendations based on what comes back.

The panel is matched to the program. A women’s hormone workup runs CBC, estradiol and testosterone. A men’s workup runs CBC, estradiol, testosterone, FSH, LH and prolactin, adding PSA where it is indicated.

Those extra markers on the men’s panel are not padding. FSH and LH are the pituitary signals that tell the testes to produce testosterone, so they show whether a low reading is coming from the gland itself or from the signal reaching it, and that changes what a provider recommends. Prolactin is checked because an elevation there suppresses testosterone through a different mechanism entirely. Estradiol appears on both panels because men convert a share of their testosterone into estrogen, and that conversion matters once a dose is running.

Bring a full list of your current medications and supplements, including anything hormonal you are already taking, and your personal and family history for cancer, clotting and cardiac events. Those are the details that most often change a recommendation, and they are easier to give from a list than from memory in the room.

Three practical notes. The hormones are purchased separately from the visit fee, so the consultation price buys the workup rather than the medication. Injections and pellets are booked only for established patients who have completed this full workup, which is why a first appointment cannot be a walk in for a shot. And cash lab pricing is available if you are not billing insurance, though HMO plans are not accepted at any location.

Once your workup is complete and a prescription is in place, the appointments get short and routine.

Injection visits run 15 minutes. A provider administers the recommended dose of testosterone cypionate or estradiol. This visit is optional by design: Express Med Spa describes it as a service for patients who are not comfortable administering hormones at home, which means self administration is the expected route for many people once they are established. Injection training is available if you would rather have the technique taught before you take it on.

Pellet placement runs 30 minutes. It is an in office procedure in which pellets are placed under the skin, after which they release testosterone steadily until the next placement. Women are started on one to two pellets depending on lab results; men are placed with a standard six. The site needs ordinary wound care for a few days afterward, and vigorous lower body exercise and submerging the site are worth avoiding for the period your provider specifies.

Follow up visits run 15 minutes and are where the plan gets corrected. Each one repeats the lab work, a CBC, estradiol and testosterone, alongside a physical exam and assessment, and your provider adjusts the medication from there. Follow ups are $59 through insurance or $212 on a cash basis with the labs included.

The phrase established patient does real work in that sequence. It is what the short appointments depend on, and it means the exam, the panel and the prescription are already on file, so a 15 minute visit can be exactly that rather than a compressed consultation. It is also why a lapse in follow up visits eventually interrupts the shorter ones: without current labs there is nothing to dose against.

No good faith exam requirement applies to these visits, and none of them carries meaningful downtime. Injection and follow up appointments are short enough to fit into a working day, and a pellet placement asks only that you take it easy for a few days afterward.

Hormone therapy does not have a finish line the way a course of facials does. It is ongoing care, and the honest answer about how quickly anyone responds is that it varies between people and is tracked with lab work rather than promised in advance. What can be stated precisely is the schedule.

Estradiol injections are given roughly every three to four weeks. Testosterone injections run on a recurring schedule your provider sets, which is part of why four strengths are stocked: the interval and the dose are adjusted together rather than one at a time.

Pellets last months rather than weeks. Placement is recommended every three to four months for men and every four to six months for women. That is the practical appeal of the pellet route, roughly three appointments a year in place of a recurring injection schedule.

Monitoring is the part that does not change. Follow up visits repeat your panel, and the dose is revised against those numbers rather than against how the last few weeks felt. A plan that appears to be working still gets re checked, because the point of a lab guided program is that the labs, not the calendar, decide what happens next.

The follow up panel is not only checking whether the target hormone moved. It repeats a CBC, because testosterone can raise red blood cell counts, and it repeats estradiol alongside testosterone, because the balance between the two shifts once a dose is running. A provider reading that panel is watching several values at once rather than a single number.

Expect the first months to involve more adjustment than the ones that follow. Levels are being found rather than maintained, and a dose that reads correctly on one panel can need moving on the next. If your labs shift, your prescription shifts with them. That is the expectation to carry into the program, and it is why the follow up visit is priced as part of the pathway rather than sold as an add on.

Both routes deliver testosterone, and both are offered at all four clinics. They differ in five ways that usually decide it.

How often you come in. Injections are a recurring schedule, and estradiol runs about every three to four weeks. Pellets are placed every three to four months for men and every four to six months for women, so roughly three appointments across a year.

Who administers it. Injections can be self administered at home once you are established, with in office visits available whenever you want them. Pellet placement is always an in office procedure performed by your provider.

How steady the level is. A pellet releases continuously between placements. An injection schedule produces a rise and fall between doses, which is one reason interval and strength are adjusted together.

How easily the dose changes. This is the real trade off. An injection dose can be moved at the next appointment across four strengths from 50mg to 200mg. Once pellets are placed they release until they are spent, so a change generally waits for the next placement.

What it costs across a year. The per visit figures look very different from the annual ones, because an injection is $30 to $55 while a pellet placement is $350 or $550. Run each number against the cadence that route actually uses before drawing a conclusion from the sticker price.

What the appointment itself involves. An injection is a routine intramuscular shot. A pellet placement is a small in office procedure with an insertion site that needs ordinary wound care and a few quiet days afterward. Neither is a significant undertaking, but they are not the same kind of visit, and that matters to some people more than the schedule does.

Neither route is presented here as the better one. Convenience points toward pellets and flexibility toward injections, and that is the trade off your provider walks through against your labs at the visit.

Express Med Spa publishes hormone therapy pricing, and the structure is unusual for a med spa because these visits can run through insurance. That is why almost every figure below comes as a pair.

Initial consultation, with insurance: $99, for women and men alike. Without insurance the visit is $285 for women or $360 for men, and the labs are included in that figure at cash pricing.

Follow up visits with labs: $59 through insurance, or $212 on a cash basis.

The gap between those pairs is mostly the labs. A hormone panel run on a cash basis is the single largest line in the visit, which is why the cash consultation costs roughly three times the insurance one while covering the same appointment. It is also why the men’s cash consultation is higher than the women’s: the men’s panel runs more markers.

Injections: testosterone at $30 for 50mg, $35 for 100mg, $45 for 150mg and $55 for 200mg. An estradiol office injection is $55.

Pellets: $350 for women and $550 for men, with additional pellets at $35 each when your labs call for them.

Individual labs can also be run on a cash basis outside a bundled visit, including estradiol at $86 and total testosterone at $91, with an insurance lab draw fee of $59.

Two things are commonly misread. The hormones themselves are purchased separately, so a consultation fee covers the workup and not the medication. And unlike the aesthetic services on this site, the hormone consultation is a paid medical visit rather than a no charge one, because it includes a physical exam and a full lab panel drawn on the day. HMO plans are not accepted at any of the four clinics.

Prices are subject to change, and your own plan is confirmed at a planned consultation with staff.