hormones question

[anne from california]

I bit the (financial) bullet and made an appointment with Dr. Ann Hathaway to discuss bHRT, diet and supplements and whatever else comes up. First available appointment: Mid-April 2018.

So! I am seeing my conventional gynecologist next week to talk about HRT, and my guess is that when I mention bio-identicals, she’ll want to put me on one of the patches they prescribe—Biest, for example . . . something that’s not necessarily made specifically for me, but is a one-size-fits-most kind of thing. I don’t know that she’ll order up labs. She didn’t before she wrote me a vaginal estrogen cream last year (Estrace, estradiol 0.01%, plant-derived).

If in fact she wants to start me on something, any insight on whether I should go ahead and get started, even if it’s not quite the right mix, or whether I should wait till I can get in with Dr. Hathaway in six months? It’s been two years since my last period, I have hot flashes, am dried out everywhere, and feel very much like my brain power became less snappy from the point of late perimenopause. I don’t want to wait, but I don’t want to step into some kind of a hormonal disaster, either.

[slacker]

Anne -
I don't think that too much can go off the rails in 6 months with your conventional gynecologist. It's important that you get a topical form of estradiol and oral progesterone. There are standard prescriptions for both. Many of our members who post are on traditional pharma estradiol patches with good results. Bi-est is a compounded estradiol/estriol product.

If you haven't looked at the mother of all threads on hormone replacement, you can find it here.

There is also a nice summary on HRT on page 3 of Stavia's primer, which you can find here.