pepperminty, I'm an HRT lifer and I don't intend to find out!
I think the menopause is a fault in the female design and the only thing you can do to rectify that fault is to take hormones, nothing else will cut it. The problem is that the menopause is not just about the immediate symptoms that some women experience like hot flushes and night sweats (never had either of them myself) but it is also very much about the long term health problems that oestrogen deprivation causes.
How long does it last? It can go on for many years and without HRT, some symptoms like VA and bladder problems will never go away.
Basically you dry up from the inside and the ageing process speeds up big time. It's frightening how quickly bone mass diminishes and other problems emerge like bladder, cognitive skills, depression, high cholesterol to name a few - the actual list of menopause symptoms is endless.
Oestrogen is a like a control centre for so many vital bodily functions and without it, your health will deteriorate. I wish this wasn't the case but we can't hide from it so we have to deal with it by using HRT.
I think it is only a matter of time before doctors urge all women (unless they have a very serious underlying health problem) to take HRT as soon as their oestrogel levels drop. It would be one of the most impacting preventative health measures ever taken.
Apologies if this is depressing but I think the whole thing needs to be blown wide open. The new NICE guidelines are welcome but they don't go far enough and I think the whole approach to HRT needs to be reformed.
So there is a light but it is not at the end of the tunnel, it is at the beginning of the tunnel and stops from you entering it! In other words, you have a choice and don't have to go there.
