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[CindyC]

Hi everyone 

First of all I want to say I am a long time lurker of this site and so thankful I found it 18mths ago!  Thanks to you all I learnt a lot, had a lot of questions answered and fears eased about HRT from reading posts.

I'll try and condense my story! Lol

Sept 2013 aged 52 periods stopped after a year of long gaps/short gaps.

July 2014 'everything' started.  I think I had every menopause symptom in the book!
Wasn't happy about just going on HRT as a friend had breast cancer back in 2000, from HRT.

Tried several different remedies from the chemist but nothing helped.
I had vaginousis twice for no real reason, felt like I had cystitis wanting to wee all the time, but without the burning, heaps of hot flushes, restless sleep, fatigue etc etc. so this was really effecting my life.

I'm single, need to work full time, so decided I had to try something.  Luckily I found this wonderful site which helped me immensely    Anyway, after discussions with doctor I started taking Femoston Conti 1/5 which was pretty much my suggestion from info. on here about it being well tolerated.  Within 2-3 weeks everything settled down beautifully and all side effects disappeared.  I have put on 3kgs, but I can live with that!

So, 15mths later I am now having a real problem with fatigue.  Yes, I do work pretty long hours.  Up at 5am..home 5pm..bed 10pm latest.  Try to get 7hours sleep, and I am sleeping well.  This tiredness all started a few months ago but now I just can't cope with it how I used to.  Its got to the point where I am feeling irritable, emotions are fragile, tearful, evenings/weekends I am just too tired to do anything. 

Went to doctors last week saying I need to find out if this is menopause, HRT, something else wrong with me, or all of the above! Lol

His advice, cut down hours at work, have full blood tests done and try an antidepressant as things were clearly too much for me.

His suggested AD was Effexor XR.  Well, after taking just one dose I will not be taking it again.  I won't go into all the side effects I had in 24hrs, but I was that close to going to ER late that night with allergic type reactions and even doctor said don't take the 2nd dose! 😊

So....I want to try and tackle this fatigue from a different angle.  I think I'm stuck in a rut with the tiredness and that's what's making me miserable, rather than depression.  My blood results should be back by the end of the week, but I have been thinking.  If it's not my thyroid or something, should I try a higher dose Femoston conti?......or should I try a completely different HRT?  I'm wary of changing as I think this one suits me pretty well, apart from this fatigue that seems to have set in!

Any ideas anyone??

Oops!!.....not so short as I had hoped!  Sorry! 

[CLKD]

   nice to have you on Board!

[Hurdity]

Hi CindyC

  from me too.

Sorry to hear about your ongoing fatigue. Good that you are having blood tests - be sure to ask for a print-out of the results so that you can see the readings especially of the thyroid TSH test. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies ( eg iron) can also cause fatigue so good to look at these too - I presume you're having a full blood tests?

I just can't believe how the docs just reach for the ADs to treat menopausal women!! I would tell them in no uncertain terms if they tried that on me - I have also been back to doc with fatigue (and muscle aches and pains) but fortunately was not offered them although was going to be referred for fibromyalgia. Instead I went to private doc who prescribed testosterone and I've had a drastic improvement. Still get more tired in the mornings, but not like I was and definitely has sorted out the muscle pains especially after exercise.

In your case it could be this but it could be that you need a higher oestrogen dose - and unfortunately Femoston does not come in a 2 mg dose for post-menopause - although the doc could maybe prescribe double - or you could take an extra one every couple of days - or perhaps the 1/5 together with the ultra low dose of 0.5/2.5? That is quite a low dose and not everyone absorbs it well.

The other thing is that continuous progestogen can cause tiredness/fatigue because progesterone is a sedative and you are taking it all the time so you could choose to go back to a cycle andhave a monthly bleed ( if you could cope with that) in which case Femoston 2/10 is available.

Finally you could also look at changing to patch or gel - and take separate progesterone such as utrogestan (again on a cycle) and then you could adjust the dose of oestrogen until you felt well (provided there is no other reason for your fatigue). Have a look at HRT preparations under the Treatments tab above and see what you think. If we can try to answer any more questions then please ask!

Hope this helps

Hurdity  x