Hello
I've been a browser on here on and off for a while now, and after a fair bit of searching, plus reading lots on the Louise Newson site, I now think I know where I want to go next on my HRT journey, but could do with some thoughts from those with some real life experience.
My story so far is I am 56, started HRT about 7 years ago when peri, main symptoms were serious night sweats and heavy and clotty periods, plus feeling angry a lot of the time. I can't remember what brand of HRT I started with (now wish I'd taken more notice!) but I know it worked quite quickly but after about 18 months I felt I needed a higher dose as the symptoms were returning.
The brand I was using was one that was in short supply about 2 1/2 years ago and the GP said I ought to go onto a conti one, so I tried that for about 4 months - it came in a round pink dispenser. I had spotting throughout and my moods were worse, so I went back to cyclical and now use Femoston 2/10.
On the whole my symptoms have been fairly ok, though over the last 12 -18 months I suffered increasingly with low mood, lack of interest in things, anxiety, anger, intrusive thoughts and a reducing libido. Since all that coincided with ongoing meno, plus covid, plus family concerns and a few other life things, I didn't know how much was down to hormones and how much related to things outside my control.
A fairly scary symptom was increasing difficulty in finding words, to the extent that I wondered whether I had a type of dementia. I saw the GP and did a cognition test, which showed I had zero cognition issues, in fact I apparently scored higher in the word test than any other patient! She did however diagnose anxiety and referred me to the psychotherapy team. She also suggested I get a mirena coil fitted.
The psychotherapy referral took me to some hugely valuable CBT sessions which really helped address my anger issues, plus self-esteem and my own 'I am rubbish' default setting, and I now feel I deal with quite a few domestic issues much better than before, and my husband can see the difference too! I do still have difficulty in finding motivation and concentrating on things that I don't want to do (like paid work - not so good!) and I still have real trouble finding words a lot of the time, and am now thinking I should start calling it brain fog and conclude it is a meno symptom.
So that left me with the HRT, and whether to go for a Mirena coil or not. I really don't like the idea of a coil, and having read up on it, I'm not sure it's the best option for me, so here is where I am at.....
I think I'd like to go for Utrogestan and an estrogen patch.
The symptoms I most want to address are mood swings (I still get a mood cycle and am definitely irritable for the week before my period), brain fog, and low libido. Having looked at Louise Newson's site I think the above combo of Utro and a patch are probably what I need, though that is also in an ideal world, because I've read so many posts on here about women taking years to get their estrogen dose right.
I kind of feel on an even keel as far as night sweats go - I don't get them that often and nowhere near as bad as when I first started taking HRT. I do tend to feel stiff and achy in a morning and have always put that down to getting older, but it might also be a meno symptom (when do you stop blaming meno for everything?). I sleep ok on the whole, usually waking a couple of times a night but not for long unless something's bothering me, and while I get a bit of bloating here and there, I haven't tracked food v HRT to see if it coincides with the progestogen bit of the cycle.
As for libido, that's really one of the bigger things for me because I met OH later in life and the relationship was hugely physical with lots of sex, which was massively curtailed when his son had to live with us for a couple of years. I can now see that this coincided with the start of being peri, and by the time we were living on our own again, the libido had started to drop. We talk often about wanting more sex, and my brain definitely wants it more often, but the body takes so long to get interested, and I'm so conscious about the time it takes for me to get aroused, that its like a spectre hanging over any chance of lust kicking in. I'm happy using lubes, but having read more about the different roles of our hormones, I do think that a change in HRT might be what I need, and maybe even testosterone at some point.
Slight problem before I even get to the Utrogestan, and that is that I am in Scotland, and although it is approved for prescribing in my health authority, it is restricted to those with specific indications. My maternal grandmother had breast cancer, so that's one indication in my favour, and I've always suffered with PMS, which was always worse when on the pill, so I'm hopeful that's another tick for me. If anyone has any hints on how to get the GP to agree to prescribe it then I'd be happy to hear them.
So I guess my underlying question is, will moving from Femoston 2/10 to Utrogestan and an estrogen patch simply throw everything out of kilter and plunge me into a period of peaks and troughs where I'll probably wonder why the heck I bothered? And how easy is it to know what dose of estrogen patch to start on, if that comes after years of a combined HRT tablet? And while we're at it, just how long is a piece of string?
Anyway, I've said way more than I'd originally intended, so thanks to those who have got this far, and thanks even more to anyone who might have some experience they can bring to this.
Thanks in advance for any wise words
Stephanie
Author
Topic: New Member looking at moving to conti HRT (Read 1362 times)