Hi! I was diagnosed with ovarian failure 3 years ago at age 32. We went through IVF (which required donor eggs due to my dead ovaries) and I was finally able to start HRT in April of this year. It's been a really rocky road with lots of side effects and I'm wondering if this is normal? I expected it to be pretty seamless but instead each regimen I've tried has its side effects. At this point I'm basically giving up and it's been devastating. Is it realistic to expect to feel normal and without any side effects?
So far I have tried vivelle (worked great but I didn't tolerate progesterone), progesterone 100mg pills (horrible mood swings), progesterone suppositories (gross grey discharge), combipatch (very frequent hot flashes all the time), and estrogen gel with the combipatch (still daily frequent hot flashes). My doctor's next suggestion is the birth control pill but that has killed my libido in the past, or Duavee. We're planning to try IVF again in January and honestly I just want to give up on HRT until after that. Since the vivelle worked fine my hope (?!) is to have a hysterectomy when we're done having kids so I don't have to worry about progesterone, but that seems awful too.
My doctor also does not think estrogen level monitoring is useful, which I can't understand. I'm in the US if it makes a difference.
I also wonder if it's normal to have a few months of hot flashes before symptoms get better on HRT? Is there a benefit to sticking it out? I hadn't really had any hot flashes ever before starting the combipatch.
I guess I'm just trying to learn where to set my expectations....