Oh gosh how I wish I'd found this forum a long, long time ago.
I'm 55 and started HRT four days ago.
My last period was about 5 or 6 years ago, I honestly don't remember. At that time and for the following years I had some hot flushes, but being a 'cold' person, I did not find them bothersome. I did however have horrible breast swelling and pain (I had fibrocystic breast disease in my 20s /30s) and sudden weight gain - the latter was in fact a bit welcome as I am underweight. I used the herb Agnus Castus for 2 months and it seemed to sort things out. Still got hot flushes, but nothing problematical. But.. then..
Since last March, and ramping up the previous 2 years, my hot flashes became catastrophic. 10 - 14 a day, a few at night. The heat was the least of my worries. I started also having constant head pressure, unbearable bilateral tinnitus, and every time I flush, these are increased, and worse, during each flush it feels like a cross between having an anxiety attack and sudden-onset jeg lag. During some of the flashes I am so utterly drained of energy, I can't even talk. When I'm sick or tired (and more on that later), they are much, much worse. I barely go out, and feel like my life has been completely curtailed, and it was curtailed before. I got very, very depressed, and felt myself on the edge of a total breakdown. And then I made an appointment to see a private GP for bio identical hormone therapy.
The reason why I didn't seek help earlier was because I was not sure these symptoms were menopausal, especially since I'd already had symptoms years ago and things were OK. Also: I have some kind of chronic 20+ year immune system disfunction. ME/ CFIDS/chronic Lyme type situation. The 'usual' pattern for this is frequent infections, low resistance to stress, getting sick after aerobic activity and many many of the symptoms that are listed here on another thread: light and noise sensitivity, depression, waking up feeling very anxious etc etc.
I thought that it was this situation - the ME/CFIDS situation - that was worsening, not that I was having a return of menopause issues, and I worked with a herbalist for a year, who in fact treated hot flushes in addition to immune system issues, and since the hot flushes were not responsive to herbs, she thought they were possibly related to chronic Lyme etc.
So on I persevered. And on and on it got worse. I started to work with my GP regarding the immune system issues - I've moved about a huge amount in the past 10+ years - not just house, but country - and recently returned to the UK (3 years ago) and thought, lets try once more to see if I can get well. I've not had much luck with GPs in the past, and have always preferred to seek 'natural' and holistic approaches to health care.
My GP sent me to specialists for immune system, ENT for the head pressure/tinnitus. No one had any suggestions of what it might be or what to do other than get therapy as perhaps I had post viral fatigue syndrome after a tick bite infection, and the syndrome was exacerbated and ongoing due to trauma. Now, I've had a lot of traumatic events in my life (family car accident when I was 7 in which my father died being one such event, several other events in adulthood) and I lost my mother a year and a half ago, so yes, therapy is needed and I have had it off and on for years and in the past year a weekly Samaritan call.
And then I thought, maybe I need to look at the hormones. I read somewhere that hot flushes are often worse in women who have had trauma in their lives.. so I was thinking...should I just focus on this? But how long would it take to ease the situation? I truly felt I couldn't carry on. So.. I thought, maybe it's time to try 'bio identical hormones'. I had experimented with topical progesterone years ago but stopped as I didn't notice any particular difference and thought I need someone to monitor this.
Although I asked my GP about the hot flushes, he didn't make any suggestions. He supported the idea of going private to try 'bio identical' hormones when I mentioned it. So that is what I did. Only, now I know that 'bio identical' is pretty much the same thing as HRT. I did not know that then, nor did my GP tell me this, nor did he suggest I go to the nurse in the practise who specialises in menopause. I only found out there was such a person when I had to go to another doctor for blood tests because he was away. Female doctor who was horrified when I told her what I'd been going through.
But by that time I had booked and paid for my appointment with the private doctor. Perhaps I would not have been prescribed 'bio identical' hormones on the NHS, but still, I would at least have tried. Due to my chronic health condition i have not had paying work for decades, and we struggle financially. So I'm pretty upset about all of this.
Anyway, I got the blood tests asked for by the private GP done on the NHS (which apparently I'm lucky to have gotten) and I saw the private GP last Friday.
For what it's worth, the blood test results are:
LH 85.3 iu/L
FSH 141.0 iu/L
Oestradiol less than 18 pmol/L
Progesterone serum 0.2 nmol/L
Serum Testosterone less than 0.1 nmol/L
DHEA 0.8 uol/L
The private GP prescribes licensed "Body Identical" (bio identical) Hormones, produced by pharmaceutical companies as opposed to compound pharmacy ones. I had expected to come away with topical estrogen and progesterone.
But this is what she sent me away with:
Oestrogel - 2-3 pumps a day
Utrogestan - 1 capsule orally at night
Testim gel - 1 tube to last 7 - 10 days
Vagifem 10Mcg tablets - 1 daily for 2 weeks and then 1 twice weekly.
Thus feeling a bit 'freaked out', especially after reading the inserts to all of this. And I HATE the smell of Testim.
I truly hope I'm not going down some horrible road that will only make me feel worse... but I haven't been able to function at all the past year so i'm honestly not sure how much worse it could be.
Anyway. Thanks so much for reading, if you got this far
I've been a bit headachy and achy in the last couple of days, but have no idea if this is in response to the above or just my 'normal' chronic health situation.
