Some folks asked if I would check in when I started my HRT so here I am. I have only noticed two differences thus far:

1. I have little blue adhesive residue circles all over my lower belly where my jeans rub against the patches and leave little fuzzies. I just learned of medical adhesive remover and plan to pick some up after work today.
2. My dreams are so much more vivid.

That's it. The doctor said give it two months. I'm still a bitch on wheels to my husband at work, because being told what to do pisses me off these days. And my hot flashes, which were not bad to begin with, haven't changed at all. I'll keep checking in but it feels like most people are still over on reddit where I don't go any more and I don't want to turn the lemmy menopause forum into the knitapeace show.

It took a little tussle with the insurance company, but today my Rx for the combipatch was FINALLY filled. I put it on in the office bathroom lol. I know I need to give it a couple of months but at least I got the ball rolling. What a relief!

I'm kind of happy to say I don't have much to share. It went well. As I mentioned in one of the comments on my previous thread, I knew the gyno would be willing to prescribe HRT because she told me so at our appointment in September. She just wanted me to try Remifemin first. But she mentioned in our appointment yesterday that Remifemin is really only for hot flashes and that was the mildest of my symptoms. So that was a waste of 10 months.

But basically I walked in with a list of all my symptoms and then started making apologies about how I didn't know if they were really all that bad after all and maybe I'm making something out of nothing and maybe I just need to see a shrink instead, but she calmed me down and let me know everything on my list was pretty common. And she praised the results she's gotten with HRT for her patients, and she told me to give it a month, maybe 2, and see if I don't feel a whole lot better after that. In short, she validated me and supported me and made me laugh, and most of all she gave me hope that I can feel better. I did tell her I made the mistake of googling the side effects of HRT and found that list kind of matched up with the symptoms I was already having! And she assured me that in most cases the side effects, if you get them at all, tend to fade after the first couple of months. Like, I'm going on this shit to help me stop flying off the handle at little things and crying that the world is ending, not to make it worse.

She prescribed me the dual estrogen/progesterone patch which we aren't sure if my insurance will cover. I called CVS this morning and the robot told me that it would be ready by midday Friday. I don't know if that's because they have to order it in, or because they're arguing with my insurance. I may end up with some other delivery system. I just hope they sort it out quickly so I can get this show on the road. Having a light at the end of the tunnel has already improved my outlook dramatically.

Anyway that's the story, thanks for listening!

Today is the day I ask my GYN to get me started on HRT. These are the symptoms I'm going to tell her about:

Anxiety, irritability, hot flashes, joint and tendon aches, tinnitus, brain fog, exhaustion, migraines, increased belly fat

As I've said in other posts, I don't expect HRT to make all those things disappear. I'm hoping that it will give me the increased energy and mood to be able to handle them better. I'm also hoping it will have some protective effect against Alzheimers which my father has (I know this effect is still being studied) and bone loss which my mother has.

Please wish me luck and no side effects.

Good morning friends. I'm not under the care of any kind of mental health practitioner but I recognize I probably should be. My ability to cope is a roller coaster even though the situational stressors in my life have been pretty much all the same for many years now (money issues, relationship issues). From time to time I'll go to my insurance website and look for a therapist then chicken out. Yesterday was a VERY low point and I almost made a therapist appointment but remembered that I have an appointment to get HRT on August 1.

So I'd really appreciate if anyone could speak to how HRT helped your ability to be resilient with life's challenges, and how long you were on HRT before the benefits (if any) started to be evident. I truly believe my hormones have been whackadoodle since my mid twenties when I started taking Depo Provera and have never stabilized since. I don't want to get my hopes up for a miracle but I sure would love an improvement. I'm not ruling out therapy but I'd like to see what HRT does first.

Thank you!

I got a new GYN in September and told her some of the symptoms I was having. She suggested I try Remifemin (black cohosh mainly) for a little while then see if I wanted to get on HRT after giving that a shot. The hot flashes are ramping up and my bra is getting too small and my belly is starting to flop over, and those are just the new symptoms. I'm 54 and officially in menopause for just under a year and have been having mainly mood symptoms with mild hot flashes. What is the typical "starter" HRT and what kind of side effects should I look out for?

I found this book on a recommended list and added it to my 2023 TBR list. I started it a couple of months ago, couldn't get into it, and because it was a Libby loan it got automatically returned. I decided a couple of days ago to give it another try and UUUUUGH. I cannot.

For a book that is seemingly set in present day, the protagonist sure doesn't seem to be as phone-attached as the rest of us. How she gets caught without her phone or conveniently forgets to use it as a flashlight is a huge point of contention for me. Additionally, it feels like the first half of the book (where I eventually gave up) is just going from one unexplained jump scare to the next, with nothing actually happening. That MIGHT have been a ghost on the porch. Or in the hallway. Or in the tunnels under the vineyard. Or in the shed. Just one to the next to the next with NOTHING HAPPENING. Goodreads reviews say it's a slow burn with not much payoff so I did something I rarely do, which is log a DNF.

I understand that this is a good author and I'd appreciate a recommendation from her back catalog that will help me wash this disappointment out of my brain.