Hello everyone, I was a very regular visitor to this forum a couple of years ago, as I was suffering horribly with anxiety and depression after a sudden menopause due to chemotherapy for breast cancer. Although I knew the problem was hormonal I was unable to find any combination of HRT that would help, principally because I was horribly intolerant to Utrogestan, to the point where it was causing acutely distressing anxiety even during the phases when I wasn't taking it. Things got so bad last summer I took an overdose, but then as I was recovering from that I was switched to Provera which has proved to be better, in the sense that I can tolerate it OK for a certain length of time (usually somewhere between 30 and 40 days) before it starts to make me feel ill (gradually worsening depression, exhaustion, stomach problems and constant bleeding). So it seems that I can't take it continuously, which I'd prefer to do to minimise the changes in hormone levels, to which I seem to be extremely sensitive.
At the moment I'm doing roughly 35 - 40 days on 5mg Provera plus estrogen, followed by the same length of time on estrogen alone. I use Estradot patches, and need at least 100 patch to feel OK, sometimes going up as far as 125 to balance the Provera when it's built up a lot. It seems to be a constant juggling act - when I'm on estrogen alone I usually settle at 100 plus a quarter of a 25 patch as being just about the right amount to keep me stable. Any more and the anxiety starts to escalate, any less and I can be feeling suicidal within a couple of days, lying in bed sobbing for no reason. Does anybody else find that such tiny changes in the dose of estrogen (ie 6.25mcg) can have such massive effects on their mood? I can just about manage this when I'm in the estrogen-only phase, but add in progesterone and it all goes haywire - trying to balance the effects means gradually increasing the estrogen but by tiny amounts, and then the withdrawal is awful, another several days spent lying in bed in utter despair and hysterical crying. Followed by trying to get the estrogen level gradually back down to the right place again (and it seems to be slightly different everytime, so I can never pre-empt it, I can only wait for the symptoms and then react to them).
To cut a long story short, this has become a long-term health condition which is dominating my life - I can't work, can't really plan anything because I never really know how I'll be feeling from one day to the next. It's 4 years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I haven't been able to resume a normal life, despite the treatment itself being successful. The only suggestion my GP has now is a hysterectomy, which obviously would remove the need for progesterone, which does seem to be the big problem here. But I'm terrified for several reasons: there are an alarming number of possible serious complications, plus an equally alarming number of 'lesser' effects like increased likelihood of prolapse, detrimental effect on your sex life, not wanting to have any more major surgery having already had a mastectomy etc. Especially if in the end it doesn't make a lot of difference.
Anybody out there faced this dilemma? Has it worked for you, or do you wish you hadn't done it? What would you do in my situation? I'm also wondering if there's any other solution I haven't tried; I gave up looking a while back and decided to just accept that this is how I am now, but it's pretty miserable, I'm fed up and not sure I'm prepared to just give up and be effectively disabled for the rest of my life (I'm 54 by the way).
Thanks for reading this far (if you have managed to!) Sorry if my account is a bit rambling and hard to follow - it's a long and complicated story - but I'd appreciate any advice or useful experience anyone can offer x