I’m perimenopausal. I managed to get prescribed evorel sequi patches and the difference was amazing - gone was the hysterical woman, and I got myself back.
At the three month review, I was daft enough to say I had bother getting them to stick and they slightly irritated my skin. I wish I had never uttered those words! I was given oestrogen and Utrogestan.
The gel - worked OK when I used one pump in the morning and one at night, but if I did two pumps at the same time (the equivalent dose to the patch I was on), symptom relief was not good. It was like before I went on to the evorel patches.
I was then given estradot patches to try. They stick well, and don’t irritate, but symptom relief is poor - they aren’t doing what the evorel did. I am just over two and a half weeks on them, and I know the say give it 3 months, but the evorel had an almost instant effect. These - not so much.
I had another review - as the overwhelm and anxiety is crippling me. I came out brow beaten. All I had wanted was to go back on evorel - but I was told that the slight irritation was likely to worsen over time, and was likely a sign that I wasn’t absorbing that oestrogen well. My experience of symptom relief for those three months was dismissed out of hand - I was told I felt good probably because I was ovulating. But it was three months in a row - that can’t be a fluke, and unconnected to the patches, surely.
I asked whether it was normal for patch A to work for one woman and patch B not work as well, with some women experiencing it the other way round (B working and A not), and was almost laughed at. But from reading here, it seems that that is common.
Instead, I was prescribed the new generation COCP (qlaira) - with body identical oestrogen, and was told that for perimenopausal women this can often be a better option than HRT, as whilst we’re still producing our own oestrogen (albeit erratically), HRT can sometimes top this up to too much and sometimes still not provide enough. The idea of this pill I think is that effectively it takes over from your body and thereby provides a regular level and cycle of hormones.
I was also told that HRT wouldn’t sort out my mental health issues. I dispute this: to the extent that these are being exacerbated by the hormonal rollercoaster of perimenopause, then nothing other than resolving those fluctuations will help the mental health side. It’s like trying to fill a bath tub with the plug out.
Whilst I’m waiting for that prescription to be available, I wanted to ask for help from you all.
(1) do you find that some patches work well for some women and not others?
(2) have you found that even though a patch doesn’t stick well, the symptom relief is good?
(3) has anyone tried Qlaira, and is it effective?
(4) what do I do? Push to go back on evorel? Stick with Estradot for a couple of months and pray it starts doing something? Or try Qlaira?
I’m just at the end of my tether, utterly confused, and wondering why I can’t just go back on to the patches that I found made life liveable again. I really can’t keep on like this and just want to get things back on track.
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Topic: Utter confusion - please help! (Read 270 times)