Surgical menopause - awaiting HRT appointment

[bluemoonredsky]

posting AIBU for traffic.

I had a hysterectomy and ovary removal in July due to long history of gynae problems (not cancer related to me). Ovary removal was my preference due to strong family history of ovarian cancer.

Consultant who did the surgery wanted to wait 3 months for symptoms to appear so that they could be treated individually and allow for senior input due to my age (37). HRT appointment scheduled for mid-October.

i had post-surgery complications and was seen by another Gynae consultant who was appalled that i had not been immediately prescribed max dose of oestrogen as a minimum whilst waiting for a long term plan.

Octobers appointment has been cancelled and rescheduled for mid December and i am struggling.

symptoms so far:

Mood swings (so bad i feel like i am going mad)
hair loss
skin pigmentation under lips (looks like coffee stains)
dry, itchy skin
how and cold flushes
restless legs
insomnia

do i take the oestrogen or wait for a specialist?

or does anyone have any tips and tricks to get me through until December?

That’s ridiculous, they should have put you straight on HRT
i just had a big gynae surgery and before I went under there was a risk of hysterectomy/stoma etc
she reassured me that I would be walking out with HRT if she had to remove stuff

Get on it straight away! I had same op and didn’t even mention her to me, and within 6 months I had a breakdown, I was a complete shell of myself, delusions, paranoid, suicidal. I believe it was due to the crash of hormones following hysterectomy.

I truly feel awful today and at my wits end. I have never felt this bad in my entire life. I will be speaking to the GP tomorrow if i can get an appointment. Thanks for your advice x

Hi OP. I'm so sorry you feel so rough. Gynae surgery can leave you feeling appalling anyway.

I'd be asking for highest amount of oestrogen.

My gynae told me that the younger you are, the more oestrogen you need in general.

For a surgical menopause you should be prescribed HRT as a discharge medication.

You then follow up with your own GP after about 6 weeks to see if it's working or not as they only prescribe the cheapest from the hospital.

That treatment is appalling. You should have been started on HRT on discharge from hospital. I’m not surprised the other consultant was outraged. Yes take the oestrogen!

Yes you definitely need to be on HRT. It should have been started before you were discharged home, no wonder you feel rubbish you poor thing! There’s only a handful of reasons not to prescribe it (ie if you currently had breast cancer) but presumably none of them apply or the second gynaecologist wouldn’t have given you a prescription! I bet the first one was a man 😑

Honestly OP I would feed that back to the department because the first gynaecologist clearly needs a bit of extra training.

I have patches, started on 50,s and working way up to 100s as the pharmacist at GP was concerned too much to quickly could cause other symptoms and agreed i should have already been on them.

thanks for your input it really did make me feel like i wasnt being dramatic and get help.

to add both consultants were female, pharmacist was male and i feel like he was the inly one thats truly listened! He is going to review in 4 weeks and up the dose.