HRT questions

[white_hart]

People who take/have taken HRT for menopause symptoms, can I ask how you've found it? My GP suggested that menopause might be exacerbating my existing mental health problems and contributing to the current kablooeyness, and asked me to think about whether I'd like to try HRT. My first reaction was no, because I've never wanted to go on HRT - I had a horrible time on hormonal contraception and worry it would actually just make my mental health worse, and also I was so delighted to be over the whole thing that I hate the idea of having to take medication for something I welcomed so much. (Plus some complicated gender feels about HRT making me more woman and less genderless goblin, which I should probably just try to get over because I can't change my endocrine system by willpower alone.)

But...what if the tiredness and brain fog aren't just because I've been under continual extreme stress at work for three years, and have had various non-work stresses as well? What if it is to do with menopause and HRT would help? (I was ranting the other week about medicalisation of normal life stages and capitalism not letting people just have less energy at some life stages than others, but however true that is it doesn't change the fact that capitalism is the ocean I'm swimming in.)

Anyway. What is your experience of HRT? In particular, has anyone had good experiences with HRT after bad experiences with hormonal contraception?

Comments

[aunty_marion]

I am one of the people who found the Pill an absolute godsend from a mental health point of view - until I went on it in my mid-20s I hadn't realised I was getting up to THREE WEEKS of PMT a month!!! Honestly, like coming out from under a cloud. So I stayed on the Pill, though I didn't actually need contraception most of the time, till I was in my late 40s. Then I started getting 'breakthrough depression', went and wept at my GP who passed me almost immediately to the GP in the practice who was the menopause expert, who said 'yes, almost certainly menopause' & put me on HRT patches, which I was taking till about 4 years ago, when they went into short supply (I assume Brexit). Then I had tablets and gel for about a year, which was OK-ish (except for not having sufficient places to apply the gel nor flexible-enough shoulders), but when lockdown started I considered the likelihood of DVTs etc due to inactivity AND being on HRT, and took myself off the HRT, that being something that was easier to control! I've managed OK without it since then, but it was as much of a godsend while I was on the patches as the Pill had been.

From a mental health point of view, I loved being on the Pill, and then on HRT - both much better *for me* than any ordinary 'antidepressant'. However, as I'm aware, hormones affect different people differently; it is entirely personal!

[white_hart]

Thank you!