WTF happened yesterday?!

[abouttoturn50]

Hi, so after a couple of failed attempts at HRT with Evorel Conti (issues when adding progesterone) and Evorel 50 and Mirena (for 2 weeks after insertion I had horrendous anxiety, insomnia and awful mood and thoughts so was removed on my request), I was given Evorel 50 and Utrogestan which I intended on using vaginally. The GP wouldn’t agree with this method and has referred me to gynae and told me I have to use it orally but I’m still going ahead with vaginal use!

Anyway after putting it off and putting it off I couldn’t cope with the constant anxiety and occasional panic attacks so I started on the patches. Within a few days the anxiety had gone but bloating began! 😫 I got up to the time to start the Utrogestan but ended up stopping the patches because the bloating was awful. 3-4 days later bloating gone, anxiety back!! 😫😫

After a few days I decided that dealing with the anxiety was worse than the bloating so put a patch back on and decided to just keep going. I’ve since read that oestrogen causes water retention and progesterone is a diuretic so going with that theory maybe if I started the Utrogestan the bloating would have calmed down?!

So yesterday I was 2-3 days into being back on the patch, had a perfectly normal morning seeing my daughter, nipping to Tesco etc. came home to sort out lunch and my face started feeling hot, like my hand felt really cold on my face! Then the heat feeling went down my neck, my heart started racing and I felt like I was about to be sick. Obviously this led to me panicking and I took a diazepam. Once that kicked in and I felt calm my face and neck felt warm for a while. I had a nap after all this happened and woke up fine! WTF was that?? Was it a hot flash??

My daughter mentioned a few times that my face is a bit red and occasionally I’ve felt my face flush but nothing like what happened yesterday!

I’ve recently had health checks bloods, ecg, blood pressure etc and everything was normal other than a slightly raised cholesterol which is being checked again in a few weeks. I eat super healthy since my cholesterol results and have lost 2 stone with exercise and being in a calorie deficit!

I’m still very apprehensive about introducing the Utrogestan but I cannot carry on with the anxiety and panic.

My doctor isn’t great with HRT which is why I’ve been referred so I’ve used this site, Menopause Matters and the Newman website to get info!

Any advice is welcome! Thank you 😊

It was a hot flush.

It's best not to do this stop/start with estrogen because it won't help and may make things worse.

The medical advice is to give any HRT 3 months to settle down.
You don't need to use diazepam- just carry on with HRT.

It's also better to start with a low dose of estrogen and build up.
So a 25mcg patch is better for a few weeks then increase- this may help prevent bloating.

You don't need a referral to gynae for using utrogestan vaginally.
Lots and lots of us use it that way and it's licensed for that all over Europe just not in the UK but many consultants prefer it- mine does.

@JinglingSpringbells thank you. I did consider cutting the patch in half if the bloating continues after the Utrogestan part of the cycle. It's helped so much with the everyday anxiety and panic though.

I took the diazepam because I went into panic, I didn't know what was happening. I'd been having panic attacks before I started the patches and although I knew the feeling was different (to begin with) I ended up panicking about it 🙈 Now I know what it was hopefully I'll deal with it better if it happens again.