Connect
Higher heart rate on HRT gyn unsure of cause
Hi. I’m in my early 50’s, about 4 years into menopause. Started HRT 8 weeks ago, (excited to get some symptom relief and bone/heart/muscle protection) with lowest dose of estradiol patch and a progesterone pill. After four weeks, my GYN increased the patch dose. At the same time I got a bad cold virus. After the main symptoms of the cold virus resolved a week later, I noticed an odd feeling, a little like shaking inside, turns out my resting heart rate is higher. Also get a few occasional spikes in the 110s. My primary said it’s tachycardia, checked and my EKG is normal, echocardigram is normal, basic blood tests for electrolytes etc are normal. GYN said this isn’t a typical side effect. I find that odd because I see a lot of anecdotal evidence online that it is. Anyone else have anything similar and had it resolve without having to change HRT? It causes an overall exhausted feeling, not necessarily sleepy. I chose my GYN recently because she is MSCP, and now I’m questioning everything. Thanks!
Like
Helpful
HugInterested in more discussions like this? Go to the Menopause Support Group.
Connect
Hi Dogmom11,
That's unfortunate that you are having negative reactions to the hormone therapy! I'm 79 and went through menopause at age 48. I ended up in the emergency room after taking one hormone pill! I was very sick! So I didn't take anymore hormone treatments. I went through menopause the old fashioned way by just eating healthy foods and drinking lots of water, juice and tea. After a few weeks things started to ease up and I felt really quite good through the whole time. Prayer also helped. I'll say a prayer for you that things start to improve.
I wish you the best.
PML
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
2 ReactionsI’m not surprised that you can get rapid heart rate from HRT, although I never used it I do remember having palpitations during menopause along with getting over heated, these are normal symptoms caused by harmones so it’s highly possible that the medication can cause the same symptoms.
What is the estradiol strength?
It's hard to know for sure, unless you go off the HRT and see if it resolves. If I could take HRT again I'd go with pellet therapy because it's much more personalized (they will check all your hormone levels, including testosterone, and give you the dose that is right for you). The downside is that it is expensive and generally not covered by insurance. I'd still be on it, but had estrogen-sensitive breast cancer last year so they don't want me on HRT. (HRT does not CAUSE breast cancer but can encourage cancer cell growth). There are a lot of benefits of HRT, so I hope you can get this figured out! (I recommend ALL women use vaginal estrogen cream - it's not absorbed systemically so I can take it, it keeps your lady bits youthful and (more importantly) has been shown to reduce UTIs - which are a big problem as we age, I've seen many women with urosepsis (sepsis from untreated UTI - can be fatal). Good luck to you! If your symptoms worsen, get seen ASAP.
@nurseruby
Any form of bhrt/hrt is usually managed through responding to the results of hormone level blood tests. At least I hope that most providers do that.
Based on current research and standards, it is based much more on symptoms than blood levels (for estradiol and progesterone) because a blood level is only one point on a particular day and hormones can fluctuate a lot. Menopause society and Dr. Mary Claire Haver, MD, MCSP are great resources, they just don’t mention my specific situation. I just wanted to see if others had this symptoms/situation. Thanks for your reply though. 😊