Anyone else couldn't tolerate HRT?

[QuietlyRecalibrating]

I wanted to share something I’ve been struggling with, just in case anyone else is feeling the same way. We hear so much about HRT being an essential preventative tool, and I genuinely wanted it to work for me. While it was wonderful for my sleep, the severe jitteriness, anxiety, daily migraines, jaw clenching and not able to focus and compete technical reports became too much, and I had to make the hard choice to stop.
Honestly, walking away made me feel incredibly guilty and scared. I felt like I was actively choosing to ruin my future bone and heart health because I couldn’t handle the side effects.
I started reading the actual clinical guidelines. I was so relieved to discover that taking HRT purely to "future-proof" our bodies isn't actually what the medical consensus recommends.

1. It is NOT recommended for preventing heart disease or dementia

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) guidelines (updated November 2022) explicitly state that clinicians should not use combined estrogen and progestin for the primary prevention of chronic conditions in postmenopausal persons.

www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/home/getfilebytoken/v7w4xaGG822hVc_SCU3tQ_

1. Bone protection disappears when you stop

HRT temporarily pauses bone loss, but protection is strictly tied to active use. When you stop HRT, the pace of bone loss is rapid, returning to the accelerated rate seen right after menopause.

https://www.medicalindependent.ie/clinical-news/womens-health/hrt-discontinuation-of-menopausal-hormone-therapy-and-risk-of-fracture-nested-case-control-studies-using-routinely-collected-primary-care-data/

HRT is undoubtedly a godsend for so many, but I'm finally accepting that it isn't a mandatory requirement for aging. If the side effects are breaking us down, it’s OK to stop without carrying all this guilt.
Has anyone else been in this boat? I’d love to hear your experiences and how you're navigating menopause without hormones.

I gave up after 6 weeks. I have fibromyalgia. It magnified my symptoms. I felt more unwell than usual- wasn't prepared to put up.with this . It did eradicate the hot flushes, but i decided I'd rather cope with these than feel ill. Was really disappointed 😞

The side effects from HRT were worse than the symptoms I was trying to manage. I tried the gel + pills and the patches. I had suicidal ideation with both. It was hell. And yet people kept telling me to ‘stick it out’ in case it got better.

It's fine not to take HRT @QuietlyRecalibrating if you don't feel the benefits and if it doesn't suit you. It's a really personal choice and everyone has to weigh up their own risks and benefits.

However....just wanted to mention that what you have included is not accepted widely by all menopause experts.

HRT has never been prescribed as prevention for heart disease or dementia but there is a LOT of evidence (in other research papers) that is does affect CVD positively. That's different to hrt being licensed for prevention of something. (The link doesn't seem to work - but US HRT and research is often very different to UK/ Europe.)

The link to the Nottingham Study- although ti says there can be a faster drop in bone density after stopping, it concludes women who have used HRT are in a better position than women who haven't.

Many women at risk of osteoporosis will take hrt for life or well into their 70s and 80s unless there is a reason to stop. It's a prescribed treatment, with fewer side effects than some of the other treatments.

HRT seemed to trigger headaches and reflux. I tried various different pills and patches but gave up in the end.

I stopped 2 months ago after taking it for 4 years. Difficult decision as it helped massively with brain fog and anxiety when I first started in.I decided to try stopping due to other side effects - very painful swollen breasts, binge eating, bloating. I felt like I was coming on a period all the time. I tried different types, doses, saw a private menopause GP but nothing changed. Now I'm off it I feel SO much better .Sort of lighter, more myself and I no longer have painful breasts or bloating. M eating is back to normal.
I exercise regularly (yoga x 3 a week, pilates x 2 a week, running) and take omega, a good multivitamin and calcium so I'm hoping I'm 'future proofing' myself that way. The anxiety and brain fog hasn't returned. I am having my expired mirena coil replaced next week and have started using a vaginal estrogen cream/pessary as a trial, so I will be having some localised hormones /HRT but I won't use gels and patches again.

@QuietlyRecalibrating “For most women, the bone protective effect of MHT use disappears completely within about one year of treatment being stopped, then their fracture risk rises compared to never users, peaking after about three years, before declining to become again equivalent to never users – about 10 years after discontinuation – and then again continuing to decline relative to never users.
So, even after stopping MHT, women should benefit from notably reduced fracture risk in their later decades.”

I was on HRT for 20 months and came off it this summer. When I first took it, I had so many symptoms and HRT really helped. But then gradually it started to make me feel worse. I felt bloated, swollen breasts and just not feeling like myself. I came off it and I feel so much better. Much happier and lighter, it's hard to explain sometimes. I lift weights, eat as clean as I can, training for a marathon for the first time and focus on the joy and organise more time with friends and family and time outdoors. I feel great without HRT for now. But having been ok it and then off, I wouldn't rule it out again in the future.

Same here. Absolutely hated it - felt in a perma state of PMT so stopped. Have taken up much more exercise which has been extremely beneficial and take an AD to manage the rage. Feel healthier than ever at 58 and have come to terms with losing out on the broad benefits of HRT to try to plug those gaps manually as it were

Thank you so much to everyone who shared their experiences.it’s been such a relief to hear you were able to navigate without HRT successfully.

@JinglingSpringbells I completely agree with you that HRT is a deeply personal choice.You’re right that observational studies often show positive cardiovascular markers in HRT users (the "healthy user effect" plays a big role here in population data). However, major international consensus bodie -including the UK’s NICE guidelines (NG23), The Menopause Society (formerly NAMS), and the USPSTF -explicitly advise against prescribing HRT for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease or dementia. While the observational data is interesting, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) haven't shown a primary preventative benefit, which is why guidelines in both the UK/Europe and the US remain aligned on this. (Apologies if the link had a formatting error -it's the official 2022 USPSTF recommendation statement!). And my original post certainly wasn't meant to criticise HRT or discourage anyone for whom it works brilliantly. It was simply to offer reassurance to women who, like me, suffered work-impairing side effects, so they know they aren't failing or ruining their health if HRT isn't biologically right for them.

HRT has never been prescribed for prevention of CVD or dementia.

I could link (but it's too time consuming!) to other information by the International Menopause Society and websites of eminent UK endocrinologists and gynaecologists whose research proves without any doubt that HRT does benefit CVD but it's not and won't be prescribed for that per se.

I keep banging on about this and make no apologies for it- but all women over 50 ought to be offered an NHS DEXA scan so that they can make an informed choice over their risks of osteoporosis and how to prevent it.

In the UK no one has an assessment of their bones unless they have a fracture and by then it is too late- 1 in 2 women will get osteoporosis. 100K a year die within a year of a hip fracture.

The ROS has campaigned for this for years but each government has said No. It's a disgrace.

For women who choose not to take HRT the best thing they can do is pay for a private DEXA scan once they are over 50 or 55. It's around £250 and only needs doing every 3 years.

The main reason I wanted to open this discussion in the first place is that so many of us suffer severe, work-impairing side effects or face recognised clinical contraindications that make staying on HRT impossible. When that happens, it can feel deeply isolating -especially when the prevailing message on so many threads is that we must stay on systemic hormones at all costs, while the well-documented medical risks (like stroke, blood clots, or gallbladder issues) are downplayed or completely brushed aside.
There is also a broader conversation to be had about how pharmaceutical and media narratives have medicalised the natural process. Labeling every midlife ache, sleep change, or fatigue spike exclusively as an "estrogen deficiency" ignores the fact that men undergo very similar biological aging shifts at the exact same time.
Regarding bone health specifically, clinical data shows that many women still develop osteopenia or osteoporosis and experience fractures even after years of HRT use, because bone architecture is multi-factorial. And DXA scan is not the only measure of bone health; your actual structural strength and long-term fracture protection rely heavily on bone quality, muscle strength, joint agility, and fall prevention.

I feel no woman should ever be made to feel guilty, fearful, or "lesser-than" for prioritising her immediate quality of life, brain function, and mental health over a medication that her body is actively rejecting.

Thank you for posting this. I am facing similar. I’ve been on continuous HRT for over a year now. It has been fabulous in easing my sleep issues (my main menopausal symptom), but I’m now suffering with jaw clenching and heightened anxiety and I really don’t feel like myself. I am seriously considering whether I should stop taking it but am concerned about the sleep problems returning (they were seriously impacting my work). The jaw clenching in particular has come as a shock. I had no idea this was a potential side effect.

@user9812 Thank you for sharing this. Developing jaw pain and heightened anxiety on HRT is actually a recognised biological response driven by central nervous system (CNS) excitability.
Research from UK neuro-pharmacology centers (including clinical studies published by Imperial College London and the British Journal of Pharmacology) demonstrates that in sensitive individuals, hormone metabolites can alter GABA receptor configurations. Instead of calming the brain, this triggers paradoxical anxiety, restlessness, and motor tension.
Please note that you are not alone at all, I had this too. Definitely chat with you GP about your options.

If I'd had to keep taking Utrogestan then yes, I would have given up.

Thankfully the Mirena worked for me. And the Utrogestan suicidal thoughts largely stopped too.

I appreciate why you didn't stay with HRT . Honestly, you don't need to justify not using HRT- no one is arguing with you on that.
Each to their own!

Me. I gained shedloads of weight and started bleeding randomly.

Thank you so much for highlighting this. I saw a private menopause specialist on zoom as anxiety was really impacting my work life in particular. She prescribed HRT without any blood tests or anything. I had the patches and two week oral progesterone for 3 months and felt pretty dreadful. The breakthrough bleeding and cramping was horrendous and like nothing I ever experienced. I went to the GP and switched to the continuous progesterone patches and that gave me insomnia and awful anxiety. So I came off and felt so disappointed as we are old by Dr Newsom, Davina etc it is the magic bullet. It’s a really damaging narrative as it clearly isn’t for a significant number of women.
My GP did send me for a blood test and my ferritin was 9 (severe iron store depletion) and I wonder if the severe bleeding on HRT led to this. I saw a nutritionist after who was appalled I was given HRT by a menopause specialist without having bloods done first.
It’s left me very cynical about it all and feel like it’s sold as snake oil (although logically I know it does help a lot of women).

@Skybluecoat , @Peggy21 thank you for sharing your experiences.

The main reason it’s so important to share our experiences and put the actual scientific picture out there is that the popular media narrative leaves out critical details that women really need to know.
When headlines or social media posts talk about HRT having "no increased risk", they are almost always citing data from estrogen-only studies. What they don’t say is that estrogen-only HRT is only for women who have had a hysterectomy. Women with uterus must take a progestogen to protect our endometrial lining. and large-scale clinical trials show that it is precisely the combined estrogen + progestogen regimens that carry the documented increased risk. And conflating this gives women with uterus a completely false sense of security.
And Neurological side effects are NOT "Wait and See" Symptoms. We are constantly told to "hang in there for 3 to 6 months" for side effects to settle. That might be fine advice for a bit of breast tenderness while local tissues adjust. But central nervous system reactions like fine-motor lag, severe jaw clenching (bruxism), brain fog, or sudden physical anxiety -are not "adjustment" symptoms. They are direct biological signals of central nervous system hyper-excitability. Our
brain and nervous system shouldn't have to "power through" months of work-impairing stress just to wait out a medication mismatch.

Nobody is saying HRT shouldn't exist or that it doesn't help some women. But women who suffer side effects deserve a safe space to talk about them, understand the real science, and know that stopping is a perfectly valid, medically sound choice without being made to feel like they're just "doing it wrong."

Yes, I started it because I'd read such good things about it protecting our bones etc and it was a miracle, overnight, for my sleep. I think perhaps it helped a bit with focus, but the 'PMS' type symptoms were horrendous. I thought I'd always suffered quite badly, but nothing compared to this.

So I stopped. I'm making sure to have plenty of calcium and do the right exercise, and having to accept that my skin is going all saggy, but that's better than what HRT was putting me and everyone around me through.

Thank you @QuietlyRecalibrating , I couldn’t agree more. Interesting what you say about estrogen alone vs estrogen and progesterone; I hadn’t thought of it like that.

@Hyroplate thanks for sharing your experience. And @Peggy21 Thanks for sharing the story of private zoom appointments handing out hormone patches without even basic blood checks.
Sadly this is what happens when a global £17 billion industry takes over women’s health. when there is that much commercial pressure, hrt stops being treated as a carefully tailored prescription for severe deficiency and gets marketed instead as a universal anti-aging fix. then, when women suffer side effects or random bleeding, the nhs gets overwhelmed, women are left feeling stranded, disappointed, and out of pocket after being sold a one-size-fits-all dream.
We need to start talking openly about all this, and the fact that stepping off and managing health without hormones is a completely valid choice.

My jaw clenching is from my HRT ?!?!?

It's awful and triggers migraines. Thank you for sharing!

Do you have any further info about which bit of HRT is causing it please?

I gave up after about 18 months after trying several different options. I was continually nauseous. It was like being in early pregnancy all the time. And then I began getting migraines which I hadn't had since I was in my teens. I didn't find the menopause too bad apart from hot flushes and whilst I am aware of the potential downsides of not taking HRT I felt so lousy whilst on it that I just couldn't continue.

I have beem on it for almost 2 years and stoppping now. It affects my sleep in a bad way . It gives me crazy dreads which wake me up. Then I can't get back to sleep.
It seems like every woman my age is on it . But stats seem to say very few women are ?

How did you stop, did you tapper off over weeks/months?