Oo-er that's tricky to answer as you've changed doses about a bit! You would really need to give each dose a decent amount of time before deciding it wasn't for you and chopping and changing can mess up your hormone stability and perhaps this is what caused your flushes and other symptoms?
The problem with conti patches is that you can't increase oestrogen without also increasing progestogen so you don't know if it's the increased progestogen causing the side effects. This is why many women on higher oestrogen doses than the standard medium dose of 50 mcg, tend to take separate oestrogen and progestogens - enabling a bit of closer tweaking of each independently, although the choices of progestogen if you do this is limited to 2, or three if you count the Mirena (same prog as Femseven).
If you had a bleed this is likely to be due to reduction in progestogen and implies there was some lining to shed, although some women also experience oestrogen withdrawal bleeding - but if this was the case it also implies the lining has thickened a little.
Sorry I can't be of more help - the main thing is to find a dose at which your symptoms are improved - so as I said you need to give a higher oestrogen dose long enough to assess the affect on your joint aches.
Hurdity x
