Hello everyone, I haven’t posted on this forum for over a year when I was considering going back on HRT after five years or so. I am 55 and have been going through the menopause for at least 12 yrs,

I decided to give it another go and started taking Evorel Conti patches a year ago. My symptoms (hot flushes, memory loss, feeling low) improved on the whole but I am still anxious. However, my main issue with the Evorel Conti is hair loss! Now I presume this is due to the HRT as I only started losing my hair a month or so after starting the patches and I never thought about HRT being the cause as it improved my well-being generally. I have persevered with it but now got to the stage where I am thinking there must be a link due to the synthetic testosterone equivalent hormone in the patches - noresthisterone. I reckon I have lost at least 40% of my hair.

I read on this forum it’s the same hormone that causes male pattern baldness. So, dilemma, do I stop and hope my hair grows back? (luckily, I did have thick hair to start with), or carry on, and try halving the patches so I am taking less hormones. My GP was very understanding about the hair loss and swapped the hrt for the ustrogel and progesterone tablets. I picked them up from the chemist, read the leaflets and one of the gel side effects is hair loss! Plus, you have to stop taking the progesterone between certain days and then have a bleed, which I haven’t had for years. I’m at a crossroads as to what to do for the best and am inclined to just halve the evorel patches which is much less of a faff to administer. Any advice from the group,is welcome, thank you for reading. Sorry about the long post.