A month off HRT and I feel really well. Am I out the other side of menopause?

[Bryonyshcmyony]

I am not anti HRT, far from it.

I ran out a month ago and my BP was high, so the gp asked me to keep a BP diary before filling my prescription. I just didn't get round to it. Now it's been a month since I took my last HRT tablet and I feel well. Plenty of energy, sleeping well, mood seems very stable.

Is menopause going to come back and bite me on the bum or am I out the other side?

I'm thinking of not bothering getting my prescription filled again.

The posts I have read on other forums all say that symptoms came back after around 3 months.

@JinglingHellsBells

The posts I have read on other forums all say that symptoms came back after around 3 months.

Interesting. Thanks.

Surely some people come out of the other side of the menopause though or is thst a myth?

It's very individual.

One poster on another forum was 'forced' to stop HRT at 60 (now outdated advice.) Within 6 months she needed a hysterectomy as her pelvic floor /prolapse got worse.

I stopped for a month and was unable to sleep within a couple of weeks.

My dr's advice was 'give it 3 months if you want to stop' and see how you feel then.

'Coming out the other side'...
flushes and sweats etc can stop but a good percentage of women have them for 10-15 years, and some for life (again, my consultant told me that.)

Longer term impact of menopause- pelvic floor deterioration, bone loss, arthritis, heart disease risks never go away and get worse.

Interesting article in the Telegraph today about menopause and the impact on women's lives. The woman who runs the Latte Lounge wants it renamed as 'estrogen deficiency syndrome' (because that lasts for life.)

Not sure I want my pelvic floor to get any worse 🤣

I agree wait 3 months and see how you feel. I agree that menopause is a life stage and you can and do come out the other end of it.

But I do disagree with a barista wanting to call it “oestrogen deficiency syndrome” as human woman are by nature supposed to not have the same level of oestrogen their entire lives. It’s supposed to be a bell curve. That’s normal. What does a barista know anyway about basic biology?

Excess oestrogen also is the #1 cause of cancer in women. And HRT does increase cancer risk for ALL women. It might be a tiny increase for one, but larger for another. And the longer you take it, the more risk there is. For myself, HRT is not even an option due to my family history of breast and womb cancers. Obviously menopause is uncomfortable and a detriment to my life right now, but it won’t kill me.

I think I read somewhere that you can feel much calmer and in a more even keel once menopause is done. I hope thats true!

Yes, I tend to think of it as 'estrogen deficiency syndrome' too! I have some friends who ask how long I'm planning to stay on it, and I point out that you wouldn't ask a diabetic person how long they were going to stay on insulin, or the same question to someone who takes thyroxine.

I've tried to come off mine a few times to 'test' if I still need it, and in both cases I stopped sleeping properly within about 3-4 days. However if someone comes off it and seems to be managing OK then that of course is their choice and they just need to consider whether they have lost any important benefits (e.g. bone, heart health, vaginal atrophy etc)

I know my bones are fine as I broke one last year and had a bone scan. Heart health surely improved with diet and exercise. Vag seems fine! Hmm.

Not really sure what to do. Maybe I'll get the prescription and not take it straight away.

It's not just managing though - I feel better!

Better than I did while taking it I mean.

@Bryonyshcmyony

I think I read somewhere that you can feel much calmer and in a more even keel once menopause is done. I hope thats true!

I certainly do. I had my Mirena coil out three years ago at 54 and haven't had a period since so I'm definitely post menopausal and I do feel good. Nothing seems to faze me, the mental fog of my perimenopausal years has gone, and I'm enjoying life. I haven't felt the need to take HRT, but I'm keeping an open mind about it in case things change.

@PlanDeRaccordement

I agree wait 3 months and see how you feel. I agree that menopause is a life stage and you can and do come out the other end of it.

But I do disagree with a barista wanting to call it “oestrogen deficiency syndrome” as human woman are by nature supposed to not have the same level of oestrogen their entire lives. It’s supposed to be a bell curve. That’s normal. What does a barista know anyway about basic biology?

Excess oestrogen also is the #1 cause of cancer in women. And HRT does increase cancer risk for ALL women. It might be a tiny increase for one, but larger for another. And the longer you take it, the more risk there is. For myself, HRT is not even an option due to my family history of breast and womb cancers. Obviously menopause is uncomfortable and a detriment to my life right now, but it won’t kill me.

Hahaha! @PlanDeRaccordement

A barista!

The woman is Katie Taylor and this is her here with her father Prof Baum.

Interesting @dramaalpaca

Do you feel better than when you had the Mirena?

@PlanDeRaccordement The Latte Lounge is an advice platform for midlife women . . . no baristas making recommendations LOL!

I think it's commonly accepted now that woman are living much longer post-childbearing years, so decades of life without estrogen is a relatively new thing. In the past women died much younger so didn't suffer in quite the same way from older age conditions such as osteoporosis and dementia.

It's for everyone to make their own risk/benefit assessment isn't it? For me, menopause felt like it WAS killing me as my quality of life was so poor and it was adversely affecting every aspect of my life. I wonder if the people who say life is calmer after the menopause find that because they have ended up scaling back their expectations and activities so much? One of my friends in her late 50s simply can't and won't commit to certain things as she never knows whether she will have slept well enough/ have back pain/ need to go to the loo at certain venues too often etc etc.

For me, HRT has been a liberator, and if I end up dying slightly earlier, then that's a price I'd be willing to pay for being able to live my later life in an active, healthy, happy way!

Listen to the interview with Katie and Prof Baum.

I think so. I got the Mirena at 46 because my periods went erratic and heavy after years of predictable 28 day cycles. It stopped my periods completely, and I had it in for 8 years which is why I don't actually know when I went through menopause. When I got the Mirena perimenopause and all its joys were in full flow, but it had all settled down in the two years before I had it taken out.

I had never hear of Latte Lounge. I seriously thought it was some cafe in London. lol!

But yes, it’s an individual choice similar to how we choose how to do childbirth. It doesn’t make sense to me to have a pro or anti view point on HRT because like natural birth, or Elective c-Section or water birthing, or epidural etc it is so unique to each woman.

It’s great to live in an age where we have choices!

@NormaSnorks
I have watched and sat by bedside of female relatives dying way too young due to cancer. I know you were being honest in that you felt menopause was killing you, I’m fine with that but I do feel you are minimising the agony that women dying of cancer endure. It is a slow and painful death. Not something to be flippantly written off as “dying slightly earlier”

I had never hear of Latte Lounge. I seriously thought it was some cafe in London. lol!

So did I

The cancer risk does worry me it must be said. I know @JinglingHellsBells thinks that's overstated and hioefjoshes right.

*hopefully she's!!

Do we come out the other side?

Is the other side the land of no estrogen and all of the horrible things that go with that?

In the past year I've had to stop HRT twice. The first time for 3 months and the next time for 2 weeks.

I'm post menopausal. I've never had the feeling of 'life is great now I'm taking HRT' but without it, those 2 periods were extremely unpleasant.

The only thing that kept me going was the thought of going back on HRT.

I started to believe that internal combustion was on the cards

@Bryonyshcmyony

The cancer risk does worry me it must be said. I know *@JinglingHellsBells* thinks that's overstated and hioefjoshes right.

It has been overstated by media outlets, even reputable ones,so the key is to read the actual scientific papers. For example one article was talking about the risk in terms of “doubling” or “tripling” depending on the cancer type and HRT type. But the article neglected to say that these were figures where you go from say 1 in 10,000 women to 2 or 3 CASES of cancer. So reading different articles you quickly see a pro or anti bias. The anti ones will report the statistics in the most alarming fashion possible while hiding that it’s really going from teeny tiny risk to tiny risk. And the pro ones will similarly do the opposite and report the numbers, say for example they’ll say the risk of cancer if you only take the lowest risk HRT and for only one year and have zero other risk factors (like me and my bad genetics)...they’ll neglect to mention how risk goes up if you take for multiple years or take riskiest type of HRT.

So my advice is to go on PubMed and read the scientific papers to see the actual numbers and risk factors for yourself.

@Bryonyshcmyony I don't think I have ever said it's overstated, not in those words. I am worried as much as the next woman using HRT as I have used it long term as I have risk factors for other diseases.

I am constantly evaluating my views.

What is important is to listen to a range of opinions by medics and also dig deeply into the stats.

For example, the research behind that Lancet publication (the one Prof Baum is talking about) included-

-Many research trials that were not peer-reviewed (so potentially incorrect)
-They were not double blind trials, but observational based on women's own records of what they used and when.
-Allegedly, 40% of the stats came from the WHI trial 20 years ago (and that has been shown to be flawed)
-The number of women using micronised progesterone in that research was 58- compared to thousands in the trial using other older types of progesterone.

• Micronised progesterone is shown to be safe for at least 5 years (and maybe longer but who knows?)

It's a minefield, I agree but all we can do is keep reading and make our own choices.