What made you pull the HRT parachute?

[carameansbeloved]

I’m sure this has been asked but I’ve read three pages of threads and haven’t seen it.

I’ve had a range of symptoms over the last 18 months, all mostly manageable, but one new symptom (bouts of crying at things I would normally take in my stride) is making me consider seeking extra support. But I don’t know if it is “bad enough” to ask for HRT.

What made you pull the HRT parachute?

Or, if you had bouts of crying, did anything other than HRT help?

Volatile moods - like, terrible rage over really minor things. I despised my husband. We hadn't had sex for 6 years but to be honest I never had a sex drive anyway. We were heading for divorce.

Plus vaginal atrophy, insomnia, night sweats, brain fog, really terrible anxiety, crushing tiredness. And a family history of dementia and heart disease.

I went on oestrogel, utrogestan, ovestin, and then later testosterone, and I'm utterly transformed.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I fell in love all over again with my husband. We're in our 50s and suddenly we can't get enough of each other. Not just sex, but holding hands, going on dates, hugging, kissing. I fancy the pants off him. It's wonderful.

All my other symptoms disappeared too and l actually feel better than I've ever felt in my entire life. I spent most of my life on the pill and I now think it gave me low libido and low mood. I came off the pill and straight into perimenopause, so I've never felt "normal" until I went onto HRT. I now can't believe what I missed out on for all that time.

Yes I had the watering eyes. My eyes were really dry, but watered a lot at the same time. Bizarre.

I tried changing my diet which helped a bit, but after about 6 months I was having horrific anxiety, a really short fuse and waking all night every hour on the hour.

HRT hasn’t been the magic bullet I was anticipating tbh but it’s certainly helped.

Spending a fortune on herbal remedies, the hot flashes where I'd be stripping myself in shops. The joint pain.

On patches now and just feel normal.

I got pulled over by a traffic cop for aggressive driving. I made an appointment with the doctor the following week.

I’d been playing the “is it chronic illness is it perimenopause” game for a while but the thing that actually prompted me to make the call was when I had a 17 day cycle. I mean come on! My cycles had decreased to 22-23 days but 2 periods in less than 3 weeks - where I had a week of soul crushing despair and a week of bleeding - was the straw that broke the camels back! I only started a month ago but already feel like a veil is being lifted.

This thread.
I read it last night after getting in from work and sobbing. I realised reading everyone's posts that I needed to pull myself together and phone the dr.
My appointment isn't until next week so crossing my fingers.

I'm 44 have spoken to two Dr's in the past couple of years one crap and one who was brilliant and offered me HRT at the time but I dint feel I needed it yet but things have rapidly declined over the last year and I'm ready.

Also one symptom I now realise could be perimenopausal was my eyes watering seemingly all the time. Does anyone else get this? - yes, I had this too. My optician diagnosed dry eyes and I was using drops several times a day for them. HRT sorted that out and now I just use the drops as and when, probably once a week or so. Dry eyes make your eyes water, bizarrely.

I read it last night after getting in from work and sobbing. I realised reading everyone's posts that I needed to pull myself together and phone the dr.
My appointment isn't until next week so crossing my fingers - I hope you have a sympathetic GP who is happy to prescribe, and fingers crossed that you'll feel a lot better.

Insomnia and my Vulva being so sore it was getting painful to sit down! Couldn’t wear trousers at all!

It was the sleep disruption for me…coupled with working night shifts, I was getting so little sleep and what I was getting was poor quality. I struck gold with the first combination being the right one for me, so it was life changing.

My ‘only’ symptoms were aching hips and catastrophically heavy periods which made me very anaemic.

The periods were sorted by a mirena and oestrogel stopped the bone ache within a couple of days. I now also have testosterone for my sex drive 💪🏼

For me it was inability to sleep and constant needing to go to the toilet. I'm sleeping better and don't run every 5 mins to the toilet so from that pow it has worked.

The symptoms creep up on you.
Plus there was some negative press a while ago, but studies show now that all the benefits outweigh the risks.

Estradot 75 patches
Ovestin oestrogen topical cream every night (helps greatly with UTIs)
Imvaggis oestrogen pessary x 3 per week
Utrogestan x 1 every night
Female testosterone daily

Everol patches 100
Mirena coil (currently)
Ovestin cream

And just had a blood test to see if I can have testosterone, GP very proactive about the idea if my levels are low.

Btw you could also check iron levels which can go v low in peri due to flooding periods.

It’s been a game changer for me. No physical symptoms really - perhaps slightly heavier periods - but the anxiety and mood swings were crippling. I had never suffered from PMT and always considered myself to be very emotionally stable, to the point that I was actually quite dismissive of other people’s anxiety (to my shame now). All of a sudden I was unable to cope with even mild stresses without gut wrenching nerves and I would wake up in the middle of the night, heart racing, worrying about really inconsequential things.
My husband is a medic (in a very different field) and he gently suggested seeing the GP. I’m on Utrogestan tablets and Oestrogel now and would say that I’m 80% better. When making your appointment with the GP, ask which doctor in the practice has an interest in menopause - you might have to wait a bit longer but won’t have to waste your time with someone who doesn’t get it.
Glad that you’re coming round to the idea. As others have said, there really is no need to soldier on with this and there are loads of other health benefits to HRT too.

I haven't read all posts - but my GP said to me last week, and we were talking about something unrelated, "think of a good reason why you shouldn't give HRT a go". She's a massive advocate of it. I haven't really had any symptoms but am 54 next month and her theory is that I will feel better and not realise that I have been feeling under par for a while. I still haven't decided yet!

i had all the typical symptoms but at a relatively low level. I managed until the brain fog really took over and I was really under performing at work. I’d be trying to read complex technical documents - some of which I wrote - and my eyes just kept sliding off the page and nothing was going in. Plus losing words and not being able to organise myself. Was around the time of Davina McCalls documentary on menopause and the bit where she said she thought she was developing dementia really hit home.

Really shocking loss of confidence and inability to do things that I’d previously found straightforward. I felt like I had turned into a different person - middle aged woman faffing over everything and achieving nothing. There were definitely more mental than physical symptoms- my doctor described it as anxiety, but to me it was more like not recognising myself anymore.
I’ve been on it now for several years and I do sometimes feel like I’m ‘cheating’ but the alternative is a lot worse.

Crushing health anxiety and rage would hit me like a switch. After a year on oestrogel and utrogestan my thyroid level has gone back into the normal range and the feeling of having something stuck in my throat / gerd type symptoms have disappeared.

As well as The Crying, shoulder pain, couldn't open jars or bottles as no strength in my hands, sore stiff ankles on waking was hobbling like an old granny, hip pain, insomnia, night sweats, gripping 4am nonspecific fear, palpitations, kept pulling muscles in my calves and thighs when excercising, loss of confidence, social anxiety, general anxiety and ditheriness, UTIs, headaches (just realised I haven't taken a painkiller in months and I was on them daily for headaches that wouldn't shift for days) stress incontinence, exhaustion, brain fog, general overwhelm, inability to prioritise a list of tasks, loss of the ability to drive, especially in the dark, loss of libido, snappy, intolerant, and generally fucking miserable and didn't recognise myself. This is just what I can remember off the top of my head, I'm sure I've missed stuff.

You would pry the HRT out of my cold dead hands, it has changed my life and that of my family and that's not overstating it. I'm on 75 patches twice weekly, Testogel every other day, and Mirena.

I didn't recognise the person I'd become. Aside from the hot flushes and poor sleep, I'd become a lot more anxious, tearful, poor memory and concentration, lost motivation and interest in things, lost self-confidence - just generally struggling with things that were never a problem and I previously took in my stride.

HRT has helped with the physical symptoms but still not there with everything else. Recently shelled out for a private consultation and been told I'm not absorbing anything from the Evorel patches I'm on, and therefore getting no benefit from the testosterone I've had to jump through hoops to get from the GP. Still a work in progress but there's the hope of feeling better, as I really can't continue as I am. Just want to feel like myself again.

I also was getting so little sleep I was a zombie. Now sleep again

Thanks for responding @CeciNestPasUnPipi

Did your GP prescribe the testosterone or did you go to a private menopause clinic?

And did you add the testosterone after you'd been using the HRT fora while?

Sorry for all the questions!