I'm taking 200 mg 10 days every 4 weeks. The first few months were a rollercoaster, so I raised the estrogen to .5 from .375. Summertime came just after I raised the estrogen, and I stretched cycles out to 5, 6, and 8 weeks to accommodate travel, but still only 10 days. I also felt very well in the summer. I still had dips but attributed those to normal blips of menopause and carried on. I didn't connect them to the progesterone at all, as I did enjoy the good sleep and calm feeling I had on progesterone days. My last two or three cycles I have returned to a 4 week schedule, as I worried that 10 days wasn't enough on longer cycles, and I have felt progressively worse. This last round of progesterone I had an awful time starting halfway through and continuing more than a week after. I'm finally starting to feel good again. My trouble is emotional side effects. I become bitchy and irritable about 5 days in, then anxious, then depressed and weepy, and physically sluggish. This last round scared me as I felt so gloomy and was sure I was dying, not suicidal, but physically off and then worried that I was dying. I actually had to ask friends to drive my children to and from school, which I had done last year before and starting out on hrt. It felt like a huge relapse. So during all this I decided I should ask at my followup for an antidepressant, but hated to ask for more medicine only to tolerate the medicine I'm already on. Now that the cloud has lifted, I realize that the progesterone every 4 weeks is probably the problem. Almost as soon as I recover from the last round, it's time to begin again.
I never had problems with bleeds on the hrt, other than that since I've returned to every 4 weeks my bleeds are quite heavy. Also, when I did stretch to 8 weeks the one time, I had a tiny trace of blood the day before I started the progesterone. When I started the progesterone, it stopped and my period held off until the end of it. That may have been coincidence as we were vacationing and were more active than noreal in the bedroom. Everything I read says if the bleeding is heavy, to increase the dose or length of progesterone, not an option for me, or to try a different route. The bleeding was actually lighter on the longer cycles so I'm confused about what to do.