Splitting the dose AM and PM - did I fuck it up?

[BiggerBadderBrainfogged]

Hi all,

This thread has been so helpful and was pivotal in me realising HRT is not the last resort but essential - it has been a life saver as I had awful symptoms.

I am on four doses of Oestrogel which I had been taking in the morning and has been a total dream - I feel like this is the right dose for me and wipes out most of my symptoms.

My last bad symptom is inability to fall asleep - takes ages and I wake frequently. I saw a Liz Earl YouTube where she said sleep problems for her were solved by taking her gel at night so yesterday I did three in the morning and one before bed. I did sleep really well so today I did two in the morning intending to split it and have two in the morning and two before bed.

I ended up having a massive hot flush in the supermarket an hour ago and as soon as I got back I slapped on the other two doses. I am now feeling tearful, which was one of my worse symptoms pre HRT, and worried I’ve effed up.

If I persist with the split dose, will I start to get the same relief I had before the split or should I go back to taking the whole lot in the morning in one go? Or should I take the whole lot before bed and cope with one day of being a basket case, to put it mildly (this scares me a bit). Any advice?

It's something you need to see how it goes. Everyone is different.

The BMS suggests splitting larger doses, simply because you might run out of room to apply it! I guess you're doing both outer upper arms, and both inner thighs? One blob on each?

Don't think of estrogen as something that 'works' the minute you use it- it's not like pain killers. It's a hormone that has to build up in your system to a level that eases symptoms. The most important thing is not to skip doses and try to apply at roughly the same time.

I split mine am and pm but that's only because when I first started HRT I felt sick (like morning sickness) using 2 pumps at once.

You've certainly not messed anything up by just experimenting.

Thank you for reassuring me. I’ll try persisting with this for a few days and see if it evens out and goes back to being the miracle cure it has been since I increased to four pumps. My body definitely missed the reduced morning dose and I do tend to get really quick results with HRT so fingers crossed my body adapts.

Just updating this in case anyone else has a similar question.

Splitting the dose did not work for me at all. I also tried taking all four pumps before bed and that didn’t work either. My sleep was still terrible and I started to have angry, weepy, hot flush symptoms during the day.

I went straight back to taking all four in the morning and I am right as rain again. Thankfully really quickly too.

I still think it was worth trying just in case it works for you because switching back was almost instant relief and no side effects as far as I can tell, but I only lasted a few days in each experiment as my symptoms were so awful and I was too chicken to try for longer.

I am now going to try other more traditional methods to help my sleep that I’ve never needed before (cut caffeine, exercise etc etc boo!)

I just wanted to share this account as I searched everywhere for someone else’s experience.