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HRT, shock pregnancy/abortion and breathlessness

4 replies

Floralbiscuit · 13/10/2025 16:58

Hello,
I'm 44 and have been on HRT for a few years. Two weeks ago, I discovered that I was pregnant. This was shocking because the odds were very low for several reasons including that my ovarian reserve was incredibly low in 2022.

I was 6 weeks pregnant when I found out. I didn't have any of the usual pregnancy symptoms other than I'd noticed I was breathless/my heart felt fast and my hands were really burning. Fitbit showed my resting heart rate had gone from 66 to 78 in the course of the month.
I had a medical abortion last week. I was 6 weeks pregnant when I realised.

I'm still in shock and trying to come to terms with it. My burning hands have pretty much resolved and my resting heart rate has returned to normal. However, the breathlessness is still bothering me when taking a short walk to collect dc from school. It was definitely worse during the pregnancy but may have been there before. I had recognised that I got episodes of breathlessness when I was taking progesterone.

Now given everything, I'm not sure whether the issue is asthma or progesterone/hormones/pregnancy/hrt or another lung issue which is meaning that I'm freaking out about all sort of lung conditions (as a child, I had exposure to a lot of unhealthy lung stuff).

My health anxiety is currently through the roof and I'm waiting for a GP appointment. I was wondering whether people had experience of breathlessness after a termination or delivery (I didn't have this with my dc) or while on hrt? [I'm looking for reassurance rather than rare horror stories, please!]

OP posts:
3luckystars · 13/10/2025 17:00

I get breathless when I am short of iron. Could you be?

3luckystars · 13/10/2025 17:01

Immediately if I feel breathless, I know that
its low iron now before the blood test even comes back. Take iron and call your gp for a review. Good luck x

3luckystars · 13/10/2025 17:01

Definitely get it checked out anyway. Apologies I double posted.

Floralbiscuit · 13/10/2025 18:10

Thank you. My ferritin was checked and was good (109) so I don't think it is that.

OP posts:
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