It seems inconceivable from a physiological perspective that Oestrogen could cause exactly what it should be preventing but that seems to be what is happening to me :(
I'm 3 years into the full menopause. Really struggled during the peri stage, horrible anxiety, panic attacks, lightheadness and dizziness and the rest. Tried HRT then, didn't seem to help and things gradually got better. One thing that has rarely been an issue for me was hot flushes/night sweats. I would have the occasional ones, at my worse times, but never more than 3 a day or so, so never an issue.
The one issue that remained is the biological inability to relax, always feeling on full alert, very much like being on constant adrenalin, and this significantly impacting on my sleep. It got so bad, I decided to give HRT another go seeing how much it helps many with this issue.
I'm on week 5 of 25mg sandrena gel and getting totally fed up already. I fully appreciate that it takes 3 months to see a real benefit, but so far, all I have is an weekly increase in hot flushes and night sweats. I had almost none for months before starting. Within the first week, I had 2 or so a day, with the first starting inevitably about 1 hour after rubbing it in. This has gone up each week and I'm now already on number 6 today. As for my sleep, it's as bad if not worse.
How can this be? It's really hard to foresee that suddenly, in 6 weeks, I'm going to be completely free of these flushes again and suddenly sleeping well. I don't wan to give up but I am so tempted. Any words of advice? I don't really want to increase the dose.