You're right. I am sure 2 mg used to be classed as high on here!
Speaking from experience, I know that a 50 mcg patch did nothing for me so my doc, who's very clued up on ladies' issues, said let's try something stronger - and moved me to 2 mg pill (Qlaira) which has helped massively. She said you can't directly compare patch and pills, but now I am on roughly double what the patch was.
I've been hanging around MM on and off for about 3-4 years now, and 2mg oestradiol has always been considered a "medium" dose, along with the 50 patch. I also always refer to the Australian Menopause Society (which has an excellant site
http://www.menopause.org.au/for-women/information-sheets/426-ams-guide-to-equivalent-hrt-doses) and they also regard both of them as a medium dose.
Of course these are guidelines only, and everyone has to make adjustments to suit them depending on the delivery method of the hormone/s, but I would suggest that the part of MM that states it is a high dose could be an error, because it also shows the same dose as medium, and that just doesn't make sense. Perhaps it should be reported to Emma/Dr Currie for clarification because everyone gets confused enough about HRT, without there being added confusion over doses. The bottom line is that HRT always comes down to trial and error, and if what you're using doesn't suit then you either increase the dose or you try something else.
Something else that needs to be taken into consideration is that some women simply do not absorb transdermal hormones that well. I suspect I'm one of them because I can be on a 50 patch for months and then suddenly it loses its effectiveness and I need to go back to the tablets. After a while I try the patches again and they will be okay for a while, but then they lose effectiveness again, but it never seems to happen with the tablets. Of course I could increase the patch dose, but I'm not sure that my doctor would agree, and the problem seems to be intermittant, and I'm not prepared to increase the overall dose for an intermittant problem.
This could be Anjia's problem as well. I have now probably come to the conclusion that I'm tired of the phaffing around and I will probably stick with the tablets, and just very slowly cut out one tablet a week for a while to see if I can decrease my dose a little.