…to ask if you decided to have HRT, & whether you’d recommend it?

[VenomHost]

I’m 52 & menopausal. Symptoms fairly mild but include weight gain, hot flushes & some insomnia & anxiety, although the last two likely to be partly due to a very stressful couple of years

Am considering HRT to hopefully ease these symptoms & also because I have read that HRT can be beneficial for bone & cardiovascular health & reduce risk of dementia.

If you decided to have HRT how easy was it to get, are you worried about any side effects or associated risks and have you benefitted / are you glad you’ve had it?

Just a quick update 2nd month on Divegel all month and 14 days on progesterone and 14 days off. The Progesterone helps me sleep through the night and is great but when am taking it am getting spots on face and never even got teenage spots but putting sudocrem on my face at night helps them. Am off the progesterone now for 14 days and finding hard get to sleep again but am sure it will all balance out in a few months. Wish had started hrt years ago as has been awful few years with family members passing, shocking male doctors do not want to prescribe at all. Things changing slowly. Now a shortage of Divigel and I had to ring lots of chemists here to source 2 packets of Divigel as it is all out of stock and no one has it. Shocking again that is the situation but know is the same in uk. Have written to local td and am writing/ringing the health minister's office mon. Horrible to be worrying about 1st starting a hrt and now worrying about sourcing the Divigel which is the estrogen gel. It took me 4 months to get the courage to actually start hrt as was so worried but once you start you will be so relieved you did. Sorry for long post and hope you are ok. Hopefully the next generation of women will not have to suffer like so many women have and there will be lots of menopause clinics.

To Earringsandlipstick I went to my male gp in my mid 40's and he told me too young to be in peri. Did not want to discuss at all. Went last year after all the focus on peri/menopause and he went off on a rant about Joe Duffy and menopause and I told him I do not listen to the radio and he was fuming. My sister said to me he has testicles and is male older so does not give a crap. He did make me an appointment for hospital gynacology which I will go to in May. I went to the wellwomanclinic and they were fantastic I have to say and felt like I was listened to the 1st time in years as barely living as felt so low and lost all my energy etc fm not sleeping. Also hse only have one menopause clinic in Dublin and are currently building a few others in Ireland but shocking that many have to go private and pay a fortune for something that should be available for woman and to not be dismissed as if we should just put up and shut up. Thank god for Davina as she helped so many women understand what they were going through and women now talking openly about it.

Coming back to update that my blood tests all came back normal so the GP is going to contact me to arrange a prescription to trial HRT. Cannot wait! Period arrived today eight fucking days early and a few days ago was heralded by a run of heart palpitations so strong that I ended up speaking to a clinician at the urgent treatment unit because I thought I was having some sort of heart episode, no pain or any other symptoms of a heart attack just the palpitations but these were the worst I've ever had (I get them in the 4-5 days leading up to my period so definitely hormone linked). Hoping this is not the start of yet another change to my cycle with an even shorter time between periods (only two weeks and six days since my last one) and worse symptoms in the run up to it.

Update my brain fog is gone and getting energy back and feeling more positive. Sleeping a bit better also and think it will take few months to really balance the hormones out but wish had started years ago and would have saved years of hell.