I took it for 3 months and gave up after the first few days of progestogen on the third month (got told off for that
)
I went on Femoston (dydrogesterone) afterwards and had no problem. The doctor thought that as my aches had initially improved then got worse that I actually needed more oestrogen. I moved onto the Femoston 2/10 about a year later as I realised the 1/10 was not quite doing enough and I was getting more anxiety/adrenaline problems and I was lucky as this was good for quite a while.
The thing is that when I changed from Elleste to Femoston, I had bloods done for arthritis and it came up with VitD levels just above the low level and I started on vitD. So I will never know if it was this or the hrt. There was a definite increase in the joint pain during the progestogen phase that got worse each month, but I get pains if I do not take vitamin D for a while.
The pains in my neck, before hrt, were so bad that I used to go to bed early to lie flat. Couldn't even hold my head up with my pile of pillows to read a book.