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[Meno44]

Any advice welcome.

I’m post menopausal and 47 years old. Last period was over 4 years ago. Since then I’ve tried various patches and my current regime is Oestrogel and provera tablets continuously.

While the HRT has helped many symptoms (vaginal dryness, sleep issues and hot flushes) it is also causing me negative side effects.

The main one being bleeding. This has been investigated and luckily I was ok but it happens often and is usually accompanied by stomach cramps.

Maybe the HRT is not for me? I want to stop but I’m scared how I’ll feel and I’m still relatively young to just have no hormones in my system ever again.

Anyone stopped and felt ok?

[Nas]

Hi
I’m 5 years older than you and am having this “HRT/no HRT” conversation with myself regularly!

My issue is that I have a problematic fibroid, which I believe feeds off HRT.

You may need an increased or different type of progesterone, if you are bleeding ( or a mirena coil).

Only you will know how you feel if you stop HRT;  it’s a case of what you can and can’t live with i think.

Best of luck 🤞

[CLKD]

The way to find out is to stop treatment.  Think back to why you initially went onto replacement therapy - which symptom were you trying to ease?

Vaginal atrophy can be helped with appropriate treatment should you decide to stop completely. 

If you stop you could consider a) R symptoms bad enough to consider a different way of delivering treatment and b) can U cope without

[Meno44]

Thank you both for your replies.

My main issues before starting HRT were vaginal dryness and hot flushes.

I think I’ll try and come off it and maybe ask for some estrogen cream to apply vaginally.

Has anyone stopped suddenly or should I reduce my dose gradually?

[CLKD]

I would reduce and also get Vaginal Atrophy treatment now ...... so that the vulval area is protected.

What does it suggest in the leaflet in the boxes? 

Hot flushes can be eased by some anti-depressant medication apparently.  Is there a GP interested in womens health at your Surgery?

Also: put the product names into the search box on the Forum: separately : to C what pops up.  Make notes ;-)

[Shorty Pants]

I've just come off my hrt and am just using vagirux for dryness. Still have the mirena coil for now until I see how I get on.
I came off gradually over a period of weeks and did go back on it once, as I had bad effects. The hot flushes and waking in the night are diminishing, after being worse than when I started hrt! Had bit of anxiety and headaches, which were pounding, but again these dont seem so bad 10 days on.
I definitely concur with CLKD re getting on meds for vaginal dryness early, as this has worked well for me.
Will I stay off it? Well I'm under a lot of work-related stress atm, so hard to work out what's hrt and what's me being stressed out, so jury's out on that one!

[Meno44]

So I’ve spoken to a GP and it’s been suggested that I stick with my gel and provera but on a sequential basis for about 3 months to see if this helps with the unpredictable bleeding.

In the meantime a request has been put in for me to have another ultrasound scan.

[Meno44]

Has anyone had experience of bleeding then changing from continuous to sequential and it helping?

[CLKD]

I would pop the product name/s into the search box on the Forum and read any threads that appear.  Make notes ;-)

[sheila99]

It means the bleed comes at an expected time (you are supposed to bleed on a sequi regime). Other options are double dose progesterone or a mirena. I don't know if can double dose provera but you can with utrogeston. They advise you to be on hrt until at least 'normal' meno age so in your shoes I'd try to sort out the progesterone before abandoning hrt.