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Menopause

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14 months on HRT, symptoms worsening, what now?

4 replies

Psychonabike · 10/10/2022 17:03

Hi all,

I got some great advice here when I started HRT so hoping for some pointers as the situation has evolved.

At 44 (and 10 months!) I had a series of severe visual migraines. Optician suggested perimenopause as the cause. Had never had them before. Perimenopause made sense -my hair was also thinning and I seemed to be getting ever worsening PMT with it seeming like I was angry/irritable and emotionally fragile for at least half the month. My periods were fairly regular but really varied in character from very little for 1-2 days to heavy enough to stop me leaving the house.

I went on Oestrogel and Utrogestan (200mg days 15-26).

I had been really nervous about the progesterone component as the various forms of progesterone in OCP in the past had caused me all kinds of issues with then result that I always seemed to need Yasmin/Diannette to deal with the problems.

14 months on, I'm 46 and I've come to realise that I actually feel so much better on the days I take utrogestan rather than oestrogen alone. If I forget to restart utrogestan and start to move into the second half of my cycle without it, the migraines re-emerge and as they are very sensory I can't drive and they are really debilitating.

I'm also finding that the hair loss has restarted over the past few months -diffuse hair loss leaving my hair really thin. Got my hair cut yesterday and the hair dresser said they couldn't cut layers into it anymore as there isn't enough hair in each layer IYSWIM -so it's not in my head.

I feel like it was going really well, but things are slipping a bit and i seem to be really sensitive to a single missed dose of the progesterone. Periods are very heavy.

I've been wondering if I would feel better overall with continuous utrogestan, or something like a Mirena?

Grateful for thoughts.

OP posts:
Cranarc · 11/10/2022 18:23

My. understanding is that after 12 months of cyclical HRT it is OK to try constant progesterone. They'd reduce the dose to 100mg a day (or move to Mirena or whatever, but probably worth continuing the utrogestan at least while trying out the regime, since you get on OK with the drug). I think you can take a higher dose than 100mg per day if necessary but if it's OK for you to move onto daily utro they'd probably want to keep it at 100mg initially to see how you get on.

PrioritiseCalm · 11/10/2022 22:24

Would a daily dose stop your periods?

KangarooKenny · 12/10/2022 06:55

Get a Mirena. It helped my PMT.

Cranarc · 12/10/2022 15:07

PrioritiseCalm · 11/10/2022 22:24

Would a daily dose stop your periods?

Supposedly. Not my experience, though.

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