Can't take HRT - what are my options

[TooHotToHoot]

Due to a history of hormone linked breast cancer (high oestrogen and progesterone receptors) HRT is off the menu for me.

Really struggling with mood swings, anxiety, weight gain and hot flushes. I had these whilst having treatment (aka: chemopsuse) but ten years after diagnosis I've recently finished all medication and hoped it would all ease off but it seems that as I'm 49 I'm in the throes of the real thing now. It's a bit soul destroying tbh as I could have done with a break from it all.

Can anyone advise anything I can do to get through this?

This may not be helpful at all, but I too have a history of hormone reactive breast cancer from in my 20s, and I’ve just had surgical menopause this year (I’m early 40s for reference). After discussions with my breast oncologist (who signed me off three years ago) I’m back having annual mammograms so that I can take HRT. I know it’s personal choice and very diagnosis dependent, but I’m also under the very watchful eye of an NHS menopause clinic (at Hammersmith hospital) and will be seeing a private specialist later this year too, not for a minute trying to persuade you to take the HRT route but letting you know others do and get supported by the NHS with it.
Alternatively - Marion Stewart has a fully natural approach and programme (hot flash daily or something similar) which might help.
Congrats on beating cancer and good luck.

That's interesting. I had a bilateral mastectomy so no need for mammograms (yay!) as any further appearance of the cancer would be metastatic rather than a local recurrence.

Thanks for the Marion Stewart suggestion. Off to Google her now.