How much oestrogen?

[DustyLee123]

So the Panorama programme said women should be on 100 mcg a day, yet there’s 75 mcg in a pump of oestrogen, so two pumps is 150 mcg.
Or am I reading it wrong?

I have 200mcg patches and still have to use topical oestrogen twice a day otherwise I get terrible UTIs itching and atrophy. Also still getting awful joint pains and exhaustion and brain fog. What am I doing wrong if the standard patch or gel dose is up to 100mcg?

Completely agree with @BedBathAndBeyonce

Another thing, the progesterone is very important. Yet nobody seems to mention that. There has to be balance.

@DeliciousApples I sound like a Louise Newson fan girl but she always mentions progesterone, it's how I knew to ask for it. I listened to loads of her podcasts to arm myself with information. I actually think we should be on testosterone too but that just seems to be disqualified for women via NHS.

I am interested in the saliva tests you mentioned. I'd never heard of them but I'm wondering how reliable they'd be if hormone levels can fluctuate hourly. I'd be interested to know what my levels were at.

@roobyred me too. Two male GPs tried to (no exaggeration) push Citalopram on me when at 45 I found myself sobbing that I’d never been depressed or anxious in my life before and how it had crept up to where I didn’t recognise myself; something wasn’t right, that I couldn’t cope with the little things like I had always been been able to.

This was compounded by frequent UTIs, a lack of libido, itchy genital area with no possibility of STD and not thrush, shit sleep and itchy crawling skin.

Finally got the systemic HRT, including progesterone, and Vaginal oestrogen and lo and behold! My old self that had been lost like a frog being slowly boiled in water is now fully returned. Not every woman’s experience, I’m sure – but absolutely mine and it makes me mad as hell.

P.s. all the doctors cared about was whether I was having hot flushes.

The programme discussed patches because the women they spoke to were all on patches.

Not gel, or spray, or tablets.

The highest licensed doses are 4 pumps of gel (3mgs estrogen), 100mcg patches, or 2mg (estrogen) tablets.

What your dr should be doing is increasing the progesterone (Utrogestan) or you risk endometrial hyperplasia.

The ratio of estrogen to progesterone has to be correct.

The licensed does are up to 100mcg patch + 200mgs progesterone daily

So if you're using more, you perhaps should be suing 300mgs progesterone daily.

Are you not using vaginal estrogen for those symptoms?

Is this through Newson or another dr?

Thanks JinglingHellsBells I have Mirena for progesterone. It’s NHS. Should I be asking for additional progesterone? Hasn’t been mentioned before. Google says Mirena is 20mcg per day. That sounds low..?

Taking twice daily local vaginal estrogen controls those symptoms thankfully. But the other whole body wide symptoms haven’t gone, one example my memory is so bad I often forget to take the pessary and then get a UTI.

I find it confusing that the high daily topical oestrogen need doesn’t seem to be lessened by high oestrogen patch already in the background