How long before the HRT starts to take effect?

[LurcioAgain]

9 days in with Prempak (0.625), and still having hot flushes at 40 minute/1 hour intervals through the night...

How long before this stuff actually starts to work? Or should I be going back to my GP and asking to try something different? It's doing something (TMI alert) - fanjo dryness/ discomfort has cleared up.

my HRT got rid of the hot flushes after three days and there is now a bubbling spring where previously an arid desert

Thanks Gatekeeper. Love the poetry. Three days was what my GP said, so feeling a bit pissed off. Though I have had some sort of virus so it's possible that I'm just a bit feverish with that (DS has had it too, and woke up this morning drenched in sweat - and I'm pretty sure a 6 yo boy isn't going through the peri!)

You might like to think about asking to change the type you take.
Prempak is one of the oldest ( and cheapest?) being made from conjugated equine oestrogens (CEOs) and these have largely been replaced in newer HRT with bio identical estrodiol. These are considered safer and with fewer side effects.

Also, pill form HRT can be hard to get on with as so much of the active ingredients can be lost during digestion. Patches or a gel are much better absorbed by most people, and much safer re. blood clots.

Thanks Pinkfrocks. I came across your explanation of this on another thread, unfortunately after I'd been to the GP, but will read up about it and go back to the doc armed with some facts if things don't pick up soon (I was a bit worried by his fall-back suggestion that if HRT wasn't right for me, he'd try high blood pressure pills to treat the hot flushes - they tend, from friends and family who've had them, to have very nasty side effects indeed). The cheapest thing had occurred to me (cynic alert).

I don't think 9 days is that long - though I can see if the GP said 3 you'd be feeling disappointed. I'd be inclined to give it another few weeks, and see if the flushes do start to decrease in frequency.

I'm fairly sure the last lot of HRT I had was Prempak, and that it did stop me having hot flushes.

Though we are all different.....

Thanks Marianne - I did wonder if 3 days might be a bit optimistic. Should clarify - when I said "soon", I was thinking of giving it at least one complete cycle of 28 days... Fingers crossed. If not, I'll start researching bio-identical treatments (mirena plus oestrogen patches seems to be quite a common one).

LurcioAgain - just to add while you arre doing your research - that the Mirena is not bio-identical and contains a synthetic progestogen. The only licensed bio-identical progesterone available as part of HRT is micronised progesterone with the brand-name Utrogestan.