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[Beaker]

Hi all.  I am 53 years old and have been on HRT for 7 years.  I have started weaning myself off for various reasons which I won't bore you with on here.

I am coping well with gradual reduction of the oestrogen tablets, supported by the GP but she is not very confident of what I should do about the Utrogestan and suggested that I could continue it until I stop the oestrogen tablets altogether.  I currently take 100mg every night, with no break.  This regime was recommended by a Consultant because of breakthrough bleeding on a shorter course.  I haven't had any bleed in 12 months.

My question is - how on earth do you come off Utrogestan?  Is it necessary to gradually reduce it, like the oestrogen? 

[HeatherCornwell]

Hello I'm new here so not sure if I'm posting in the right place! I've just started on Estrogel and Utrogestan. No improvements yet on my bladder condition but my nipples are very sore and hard - I suppose this is normal at the beginning?

[Beaker]

Hi Heather,

Welcome 

If you click on the "New Topic" button on the right of the All thing menopause chat forum, you can put in your own subject heading (e.g. staring HRT) and you will get more replies that way.

However, you need to give your HRT up to 3 months before you know how you will feel on it in the long-term.  So I would hope that your sore nipples might just be a temporary symptom until you get used to HRT and that they will settle down after a while. 

[Hurdity]

Hi Beaker

In answer to your question - no you don't need to taper off utrogestan ( nor oestrogen for that matter although it eases the decrease if you do). Depending on what dose of oestrogen you are taking now, if it is quite low then you might consider reducing the frequency of the Utrogestan but otherwise if you are feeling OK then just carry on. The only issue could be if you took a very low dose of oestrogen for a long time and maintained the utrogestan at 100 mg per day this could actually cause over-thinning of the endometrium - but I can't put any figures on that.

When you stop the utrogestan expect to experience a few days "withdrawal" until it clears your system.

Let us know how you get on

Hurdity x

PS Welcome Heather Cornwell - as Beaker says - do start your own topic and you will get replies .

[Beaker]

Hurdity, thank you.  I found I developed constant headaches (paracetamol and ibuprofen resistant) throughout 24h once I dropped down to 1mg of Oestrogen.  So it might be some kind of effect from having a higher ration of Utrogestan to Oestrogen (for me anyway). 

I read through some of the old Utrogestan threads and read (I think in one of your own posts ) about inserting it vaginally.  I tried this last night.  Lo and behold, my first sleep in weeks without any headache.  Historically I have always been extremely sensitive to Utrogestan so I tend to get weird side effects that others don't experience.

When I drop down to 0.5mg in a few weeks, I will reduce the frequency as you suggest.

I am pleasantly surprised to find that I have not yet suffered any dire side effects from reducing the HRT.  I was mostly worried about the return of hot flushes.  I find that I get a few flushes when I drop down a step on the HRT dose for the first week or two but by the 3rd week it's as though my body gets used to the new lower dose and settles down and the hot flushes resolve.

I'll have to think about my bones in the future.  That's my next biggest concern.  But I'm just going to focus on gradually coming off HRT for now.  My advice to anybody on HRT would be stay on it as long as you possibly can unless you have issues with it.  It takes quite some time, thought and forward planning (and the GP might not help you with this) to work on a reduction regime that suits you and causes least side effects.