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Hormone Replacement starting at 75yrs old
Women's Health | Last Active: May 31 5:54am | Replies (215)Comment receiving replies
I just started bioidentical HRT. I’m 65 years old and 15 years post menopause.
I found a gynecologist that specializes in HRT and was willing to prescribe to me. I’m hoping this will help stabilize bone loss.
I’m wondering about the side effects from the progesterone.
I have an estradiol patch that I change weekly. It’s .0375/day, also take 200 mg micronized progesterone, and vagifem vaginal insert.
Besides breast tenderness that the doctor said would go away with continued use, I’m experiencing a very heavy discharge. No cramping, no bloating, no constipation.
Is it your experience that I may have other side effects as I continue on the therapy? Is having a discharge normal on HRT?
I read that sometimes there can be an intolerance to the progesterone and that lowering the dose might help.
After much research I decided not to use pellets or compounded hormones, as I am sensitive to most medications, and it was my understanding that once the pellets were inserted I could not have them removed if I had a reaction.
Appreciate any insight you can provide.
Replies to "I just started bioidentical HRT. I’m 65 years old and 15 years post menopause. I found..."
This sounds like a good on the low side combo. Of the 200 mg micro prog, only 20 mg gets absorbed. The rest converts to metabolites which help with sleep so it is not a very high dose. The breast tenderness is probably due to the estrogen, like when we used to get our periods. The very heavy discharge is concerning. Do you mean bleeding? If so, I would call your doctor immediately. Something is def off. Keep us posted.
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I didn’t stay on the hormones very long but I would think that any side effects you experience will probably be at the start of HRT. If you are experiencing bleeding (if that’s what you meant by discharge) I would think that is not normal (you definitely need to let your doctor know) however I have read that some women start having periods again. (Not a pleasant thought) I would not have chosen the pellets either, because I am super sensitive to drugs and if I have a bad reaction, I want to stop. The transdermal compounded cream I was using was easily stopped. If your progesterone is oral, you can definitely lower the dose because initially I took the oral progesterone 100 mg but it affected my sleep negatively although I was really hoping for better sleep as I read it sometimes helps. I ended up using the transdermal progesterone but not for more than a couple weeks or so because I didn’t want to have cramps every day that felt like I was going to start my period! From everything I have read, HRT will stabilize bone loss which was one of the reasons I was thinking about seeing a new doc and trying it again. I only have osteoporosis in two spinal vertebrae and I do not want to take the meds. Maybe someone else on this forum can let us know if they experienced side effects after being on the HRT for awhile.