Hi Wrensong..I'm on the "boring forum regime" oestrogel and utrogestan! But only thing that worked for me. Had everol conti, and Elleste duet and elleste solo, prempackC (discontinued), premique (discontinued), Premarin and provera (provera nearly had me certified), oh and femeston - over a period of 10 years. the prempack was the bulk of the time but I still had loads of symptoms the only thing it fixed was flushes but I was a novice then. The rest has been over period of 3.5 years to get it right!
I started on 2 pumps of gel and had to up it to 4 over the first 2 months. Stayed like that for 7 months I reckon and then I was getting permanently sore boobs so dropped to 3. Been like that ever since. Was told to take utrogestan continuously but after the Provera fiasco just decided to take Utro on a cycle and have a bleed and I take it vaginally. I have never tried it orally, from what I read here it had more side effects that way so I just thought "why risk it".
So all in all it has taken a whole year to get any semblance of life back and believe me I was a nut job for about 10 years to a lesser degree at the start and to a huge decree by the time I got to starting all the different ones! Testosterone was introduced 7 months in and that fixed libido, energy levels to a certain extent and had a major impact for me on brain fog.
As I understand it, it is oestrogen that has an affect on all the "lubrication"?? eyes, mouth, vagina, skin elasticity and the lubrication in the joints - hence a lot of meno women have sore joints without the right amount of oestrogen. Did the optician explain why oestrogen wasn't the culprit in DES??? Wrensong?