Worse bladder symptoms after starting HRT during menopause, is this common?

[WillTraynor]

Has anyone experienced worse bladder symptoms after starting HRT? I've just started HRT and my bladder sensitivity has definitely got worse. Is this common? Is it just a reaction to starting the medication which will ease off in a few weeks? Or do I need to change my HRT? My GP is fairly clueless, unfortunately.

what sort of hrt are you using?
Some forms of progesterone can irritate the bladder especially if you're using it daily.
Have you also been prescribed topical estrogen for vaginal use? This can help your bladder.

I had quite extreme urgency and started on pessaries. I kept a diary and realised caffeine is a massive irritant for me, so quit caffeine and all was good for a couple of weeks. I then started on utrogestan 100 + 2 pumps of oestrogen and the urgency started coming back, although not as bad. I suspect it's the gel, as I forgot it one night and was quite a lot better the next day.

I'm not saying its definitely this but I used to use the pessaries inside and cream outside and after a while the pessaries started causing irritation, urgency etc.
I switched to cream inside and out and it was 100 times better.

Ime the pessaries can be very drying. Coffee also irritated my bladder as well but I can drink it again now.

Yes - I stopped using the cream for this reason and stuck to just pessaries but just had nearly a month of anti biotics for UTI and wondered if I can't use pessaries now. I sadly think caffeine is going to have to go too. Add it to the long list of things I can't enjoy anymore.