Finally after a 5 month wait I got to see my consultant today.
Felt quite dissatisfied with the appointment again. She is warm and welcoming, but basically talks over you and it's very hard to get your point across. She was quite sniffy about my GP prescribing me Estradot 25mg with seperate Utrogestan, said it 'wasn't what I would have suggested.' When I asked why, she just said that wearing a patch and taking separate tablets 'was quite complicated' and that Utrogestan 'was rather expensive'. She was also dismissive of Utrogestan being the best/kindest form of progesterone, too
What was VERY alarming, was that she saw the locum consultant had prescribed me Evorel Conti back in January and said 'Oh no, certainly that wouldn't have been right for you to take at all. I would never have recommended that' (I was still having regular periods you see). Yet, only a few weeks ago, I had FINALLY got a call back from the clinic and a nurse had confirmed to me that my consultant had 'okayed' the locum's script for me. Very worrying
She said she would have preferred me on Evorel Sequi. Except in our previous consultations she had suggested separate oestrogen and progesterone because of my history of PMS
I got anxious thinking she was going to insist I changed my regime, and I did blurt that my separate oestrogen/prog' seemed to be working well.
She then went on to extol the virtues of the Mirena coil to me for several minutes. I eventually managed to get a word in edgeways and tell her that I HAD tried the Mirena 10 years ago, and had not tolerated it well at all. Acne and weight gain and endless spotting. We had already had the EXACT same conversation when I last saw her.
But she said the Mirena was still something to consider in future years, especially if I wanted to stay on HRT into my 60s because it would be more convenient. So that just TRASHES all the nonsense peddled by GPs who insist you can only take HRT for a max of 5 years (I am only 44).
Lastly, she said my dose of oestrogen patch was very low and she would prefer to have me on a 50mg patch. But she said the higher dose probably wouldn't protect me better against the dip I have with my withdrawl bleed. With that said, I managed to squeeze a few more words into the conversation and mentioned I didn't want a dip just before we went on holiday in two weeks time. She just told me to stop taking the Utrogestan (been taking it for 3 days now) and just re-start taking it after we get back off holiday. She was very casual about that. She said so long as I allowed my body a bleed every 8 weeks or so, then that was fine and I could juggle my cycle to suit my lifestyle
She insisted that she hadn't seen the results of the three blood tests that she'd ordered for me to have done last year. Except she HAD. She discussed the results of them with me in our previous consultation before Xmas. They all came back normal, which was what she was expecting they would do.
Then at the end of it all, she said that her gut feeling was to leave me on my current regime and to see me again in November. And she didn't give me a script for a higher dose patch???
So, all in all I feel it was a bit of a wash out of an appointment. It was very much wham, bahm, thank you Ma'am. And that I was just a name and a number. I didn't get to say much at all and I didn't get to answer the questions I wanted answers to. I'm so grateful that I have this place and all of you. And, I'm so lucky that this first HRT I have tried seems to be doing the trick.
Author
Topic: Saw Consultant Today. Bit Disappointed. (Read 1900 times)