Anyone know anything about Estradiol gel

[SakuraBlossom]

I have a few posts on this board over the last year and I finally found a private GP who specialises in the menopause. Although I was in there for 45 minutes and we talked a lot about me and how I am peri-menopausal and am having a lot of the symptoms, I don't think I asked as many Q's as I should.

Basically, I am having some very severe PMT symptoms and the GP thinks that my oestrogen is dropping a lot before my period. As a result she has give me Estradiol gel. Apparently there is a national shortage of the pump and so I have the sachets. I was so desperate not to feel this way again that I was just glad she had listened and given me something.
I am to go back and see her in 3 months.

So, I am to take 1 sachet and put it on my leg or arm every day for days 16-26 of my cycle.

Does anyone else take this? Have you had any side effects? I used it for the first time today and I did feel weird later on. Is it basically an eostrogen supplement that will address the dip in oestrogen I have and hopefully reduce the symptoms I am having?

You'll feel like a new woman! (But I have no experience of sachets/pumps, I just have the gel) Don't live in the UK. Give it a few months (me, 2 weeks)

God I hope so dan. I have been so scared and miserable lately. My DH is away and I am sitting here in a state of anxiety wondering whether it is the peri-mens OR am I just going bat shit bonkers which really doesn't help when I have 2 small DC to look after on my own. This morning I went for coffee with some friends and I felt like I was there in person, but I was on a different planet.

I really do hope I feel like a new women. Preferably a really good version of myself.

It is the anxiety that killed me too! I became a shadow of my former self. Dithery too. Horrible with young children to look after.
Only 47, started at 43.

I thought the shortage was over? Besins who produce it told someone on another forum (who phoned) that supplies were back to normal now. I managed to get some about 3 weeks ago but I had to wait a week for it to come in.

Did the GP tell you there was a shortage and prescribe Sandrena instead, or did were you offered Sandrena by the pharmacy?

Did you try different pharmacies?

You will have been given Sandrena I expect. It's ever so slightly different and you can't adjust the dose so easily (as it's in measured sachets.)

Give it a go! You've nothing to lose. But longer term, I'd ask for the gel because it's easier to adjust the dose yourself. I've used it for 10 years.

I think she prescribed Sandrena as an interim whilst stocks come back in.