How do you know?HI

Posted , 5 users are following.

Hi ladies I have a question?

how do you know when the time has come that your body needs HRT?

who makes that desicion?

the doctor? Will they know your needing HRT?!!

aorry but it's so complicated!!

for me at the moment my periods haven't been the same ?!!. I'm also getting really stronge pains before and after a period? Unsure why sometimes taking somthing helps but each time each month the pains seem to be sharper Amanda started lasting longer... I don't know why this is happening? Does anyone experience this?!. Heard lots abousorry I don't know how it's spelt ? Can anyone help with this please?.

1 like, 9 replies

9 Replies

  • Posted

    Bloody hell......

    sorry that post makes me look daft or very drunk WHICH I'm certainly NONE...... LOL

    meant to say Sorry it's complicated!

    my periods are not the same with a lot of very strong pains before and after a period. 

    Amanda! What !!!!! 

    Sorry the pains are sharper and lasting lot longer. 

    Soooooo can anyone help me here?

    ps so sorry about my post being somewhat unusual and probably very complicated!!!'m?

  • Posted

    Hi Shelly,

    I went and asked the doctor for it.

    No one offered even though I had been seeing her regularly with various problems that are meno related.

    The first thing she offered was horse urine type which I put straight in the bin. At the time I thought that was the only option. After much reading and research I found out about bio identical plant based HRT and went and asked her to prescribe it by name (oestrogel and Utrogestan). She was thankfully happy to do so.

    My next move if she had not prescribed it would have been to see someone privately.

    You can take HRT before your periods stop, it is supposedly better for you to do so.

    • Posted

      Hi Zigangie thanks,

      when domi know though that HRTbis needed though?

      what are the signs?

      for me my periods have defiantly changed

      im at the moment on Sertline as my mood swims were very erratic.

      when do you know yes I need to go onto HRT?

    • Posted

      I just decided I'd had enough of feeling the way I did. I was treated with anti depressants and anti psychotics.

      Then after my periods had stopped 2 years I was always so very hot and that was making me get angry as well.

      I didn't realise how bad I was feeling as you get used to symptoms until a few weeks after starting HRT. When the depression and anxiety along with the feeling of being to hot all started going away.

      I decided to try HRT because I was too hot and had zero libido.

      But it improved so many other things that I just thought was me and my mental health etc.

      I had high anxiety and heart palpitations, depression, aches and pains gastric problems, needing the loo all the time up 2 or 3 times at night to go.

      So far all the above has got better. I no longer have heart palpitations. Occasional anxiety but that still seems to be improving.

      I didn't know anything about peri menopause but I so wish I'd read about it and asked to try HRT 10 years ago because I have wasted so much of my life feeling ill.

      Your doctor could do tests to see if you are in peri menopause. Then really you would be best to ask if you can try it and go from there.

      I wanted to do it naturally really but decided I'd had enough so I would give it a try for 6 months to see if it helped.

      The only thing it hasn't is sleep. For the first 8 nights on it my sleep was perfect as it always had been but now has gone back to how it was in early peri which is waking up at 3 or 4 am and can't get back. But that is an improvement on what it was which was unable to get to sleep and often not having any sleep at all.

  • Posted

    Shelly.................I think firstly it depends on where you live in the world to answer that, i live in the UK, and here what we have in a lot of surgeries is, we have to meet a criteria to proove we need HRT, the criteria is, a single blood test done over 9 months, which is 1 test done 3 months apart, if you get two positives your on perimenopause which, is stage 1 of menopause, but because hormones fluctuate massively during early peri, some drs choose not to offer HRT, beause it doesnt give a true picture due to fluctuations making the test unreliable, so thats why 3 are done, however, if 2 out of 3 tests come back positive you are considered on menopause, on the otherhand if, 2 come back negative, then your not, so, at my surgery however bad your symptoms are, you wont get anything on the NHS in the UK after that, if your surgery uses this criteria, not all use it its just national guidlines, and those guildines change from one year to the next.   If your very low you will be offered something after 2 positive tests, however, i had 2 positive tests done by a specialist endocrinologist done 3 months apart, but wasnt seeing him for menopause, he did the test due to my age, and sticking  to criteria to be sure,  repeated the test 3 months later which, again was positive for menopause, he then advised me to go to my gp and insist on HRT, gp refused to give it to me without doing her own testing first, which i expected, so, my gp gave me one single test which came back normal, which, i was expecting due to it being the 3rd test done out of 3, i told her i had already had 2 positive tests, but, she refused to give me HRT because her single test was negative, and at that time i knew nothing about the 3 test criteria, so, just depends, in england you have to fight to get HRT from SOME surgeries due to lack of funds, so depends on your surgeries budget as well, but if your tests are positive and your offered it, you decide if you want to go on it after weighing up pros and cons, its entirely up to you, but i got the proof but couldnt get it, and my female gp turned round and said, you cant be on the menopause anyway because your not 51, i was 49 at the time, what a bitch she turned out to be, so, good luck with that one because i gave up in the end, but turned out couple of years later i couldnt have had it, because, my sister developed breast cancer during perimenopause.
    • Posted

      Hi Elaine,

      I just don't get why they insist you have to be 51, my GP was the same. Telling me I shouldn't be getting any symptoms until my periods had stopped.

      Well I'm 2 years post now and on HRT and I now know just how many nasty symptoms I've had disappear, some of them I've had 10 years. Yet these were mostly blamed on depression even though I pleaded I had nothing to be depressed about.

    • Posted

      Zigangie..............thats it completely totally agree!! i think its truly because gps are not specialists in any one area, they generalise being GPs they trained to look out for signs and symptoms, and if they fall down on that, they have to keep going back into hospitals to gain experience in picking things up more,  but, when they do the tests if nothing shows then, its either a virus, or, in your head, they dont think out of the box then and as far as their concerned no need too, total arrogance, and ignorance, but for a female gp to say it, got to be suspicious of mine, she was on the management team, so, think she was thinking more costs, trouble then is, if you get a normal tests, how do you then, get past our gps to see the guys in the know at the hospital?? extremely frustrating, it beggars belief how many women are on tablets for nerves, depression, anxiety, when its been peri, totally unecessary, and god know what that does to someones confidence then, i knew without a doubt  my symptoms were all down to peri, i had period changes for god sake and she argued with me over that.................laughable when i look back now, i stood my ground though, i had to fight her every step of the way, and i had to do it, without getting aggressive otherwise i would have lost the argument.   She later left, due to missing a poor autistic boys blood clot in his leg, it went on to kill him after going into his heart he was 18, told his mum it was hormones, A so his was hormones, A&E missed it also, she was desperate, so rang her again begging her to come back as he was worse, she arranged for bloods died the day before she got them done for him, took her a week to ring his mum with it, destroyed his parents, suing the surgery, and now shes left, relieved still plenty of the same type of gp their though, scary! and this is why you have to fight!!  drs are not god, and simple blood tests can lie, the body is clever, sometimes it hides things, so, sometimes people need more specalists tests doing, but its getting them, do it for oursevles because nowadays they wont!!  
    • Posted

      I think I did a say my next step would have been private. Something I really couldn't afford but after research found some to be quite a bit cheaper.

      Some like to do loads of expensive blood testing, but there area a few who don't and who go by trying HRT then seeing how you feel.

      It may come to that in the future as they seem happier to let you stay on it if all is well, whereas a GP will want you off it after 5 years.

  • Posted

    well shelly for me when i was 51 my periods stopped i was having flashes nearly every hour and i couldnt sleep at all so i started having migraines all the time .my doctor said im having a hard time of it and thought that my quality of life was at risk so he put me on hrt it was a life saver for me .

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