I know how you feel! You could try making an appointment with your GP and sounding them out but if you don't get anywhere or feel you are being fobbed off, it might be worth seeing a private specialist like Professor John Studd, Dr. Annie Evans or Dr. Nick Panay, they are all excellent and you don't need a GP referral, you can just ring up and make an appointment. You will then get a private prescription that costs more, hence the subject of this thread!
The NICE guidelines have been changed and GPs are supposed to prescribe HRT but the problem is, you cannot force them to if they don't want to. Also, even if they are willing to prescribe HRT, many of them don't prescribe the right type and this inevitably leads to women becoming disillusioned with HRT and often results in them giving up on it.
Make sure you print off a copy of the new NICE guidelines and take it along to your GP appointment, it might help.
This is how we have ended up where we are now and why so many of us have had to seek help privately, myself included. You could try to get referred to an NHS Menopause Clinic but there is a fairly long waiting list at most of them.
The system is seriously flawed and women are not getting the help they need. This is why I constantly bang on about the need for Family Planning Clinics and Menopause Clinics to merge thereby offering women a joined up service. There is a definite overlap between the two services with many women using the BCP and Mirena coil during the menopause and most GPs are not really well enough versed in HRT to be able to prescribe the right type. It is a fairly specialised area of medicine (although not the most challenging) that really needs to be supervised by a well trained gynaecologist, rather like the one I had at my old FPC who used to fit coils etc.
I hope that helps.
