Microscopic blood in urine

[ellarella]

Posting to see if this sounds familiar to anyone. Got what I thought was a uti in may, but wasn't. Culture found microscopic blood in urine though. Came back in September and so I had an ultrasound of bladder & kidneys and then later a bladder scope and blood tests. All fine. Finally gp reluctantly (I'm about to be 42 and she thought I was too young) prescribed vaginal estrogen pessaries which worked really well for a month or two. Started on full HRT last month after a hormone test showed my estrogen levels were low, just finished the 2 weeks of progesterone and the vaginal/bladder burning and irritation has returned. I'm so fed up of this. Is it even vaginal atrophy if the pessaries aren't working? Thanks for reading!

You might need to use vaginal estrogen more than twice a week. Some women need it daily, or 3 to 4 times a week. Try using more?

It's also possible that on the progesterone part of the HRT you get more bladder irritation but that's a case of seeing it you carry on getting that each month. If you do, you might want to consider a different progesterone that isn't Utrogestan.

Progesterone brings back my menopause symptoms if my oestrogen isn't high enough.

i have used vaginal oestrogen for 5 years but it took best part of 3 years before I could use it only twice a week. Like everything around menopause it varies hugely from woman to woman

id suggest using it 4 or 5 times a week and see if that makes a difference

That's interesting. I felt so good until halfway through the progesterone cycle and now I feel like I'm back to square one!

You might want to review the type- consider patches with Norethisterone, or maybe a table form of Femoston which has dydrogesterone in it (similar to micronised progsterone.)

That's helpful thank you. I'm new to all this and already fed up. Didn't even know atrophy existed ffs.

@ellarella i use vaginal oestrogen cream (estriol) daily.

I think there should be a public health campaign to let women know about vaginal atrophy and oestrogen cream.

i had no idea what was going on when I started to have problems. It was other women in menopause forums who told me

it’s so incredibly common and yet so many women have no idea it’s a thing

Do you find that easier since you can put it on bladder opening too? I worry that vagifem stopped working because it's internal if that makes sense. Back on an every day dose to see if it calms down but open to asking for cream instead.

You can have both- pessaries and cream (to use externally.)

Whichever you use, it's absorbed into the bladder and urethra through the vaginal walls.

Interestingly, I saw a large pink poster in a public loo for Ovesse recently. I don't think it mentioned bladder issues but was more about painful sex.

This is another brand of Ovestin, now available without prescription.

Yes, that's exactly how it affects me, and it takes a few days after stopping it before I feel better. If my oestrogen is high enough I'm fine.

Can reply directly but that's disheartening for us! Will have to up my estrogen. Thank you!