Hi all
I started on HRT last February so it's been a year and I wouldn't have got through this without you guys! It was my doctor who advised checking out this forum and it's been such a wonderful source of information, advice and support. I'm 53 and looking back, I realise I've been peri-menopausal for a long time.
I got off great with Evorel Sequi at first, full of energy, working out, lost 1.5 stones, clear head, no fuzziness, but then as the year went on, it started to lose impact and along with supply issues, it had meant that I started playing around with my prescription. Tried, gel then back to patches. I finally started to feel better again around about November last year when I was taking Evorel 50 + 1 pump of gel (leftover gel, the doctor hadn't prescribed any more to me) + Utrogestan orally on days 15 to 26. But then my long awaited appointment at the menopause clinic came up. After telling the specialist what I was taking, and that I felt happy with that, she suggested I just go on to the Evorel 100 patch and ditch the gel, as it would be simpler to administer. So I did this and since then (November last year) I've felt awful - tired, lethargic, aching bones and muscles, no energy to workout , fuzzy head, forgetfulness etc but decided to stick with it for the advised 3 months to let it settle. My 1.5 stone weight loss has gone back on in that time.
My reason for my comments today, is that last week I thought I'd experiment so stuck on half of a 100 patch along with the 100 I had on. So I had 150mcg worth of patches on and I immediately felt great. I felt like I had awoken out of a long daze. I got loads of work done, felt my strength come back, had the most amazing, deep sleeps, went out jogging etc. I'm a secondary school teacher and have felt myself struggling to cope with the pressures of online teaching and it's so, so important right now that I get this right for my pupils, but all of a sudden I was able to cope and get things done. Is it possible for a dosage increase to have impacted so quickly or was I just imagining it?
However, I then took fright and started googling about what happens if you have too much oestrogen etc and took it off. I've since gone back into a slump. The reason I took fright was because I felt that I could feel the blood pumping into my head, and started to worry that it was my blood pressure increasing or that I was going to have a stroke! But in actual fact, I wonder if the blood rushing into my head feeling is just my brain wakening up and receiving the blood and oxygen supply that it's been desperately lacking? Is that feeling anything to worry about? The last time I got that feeling was when I tried the gel and that was why I stopped it. I did check my blood pressure at that time and it was fine.
Sorry for the long post. I just wondered if anyone had any words of advice. Wouldn't 150 mcg of oestrogen be too much for a 53 year old or could it be that I'm just not absorbing well enough from the patches? Does anyone else take this high a dose? I had called the doctor a few weeks ago for my prescription and I suggested to him that I try the gel again, he mentioned something about not wanting to take too much oestrogen as it can increase the risk of a stroke (not sure if this is true of transdermal). I wasn't actually asking for a dosage increase, just wanted to try the gel again to see if I'd feel better, but his comment has put me off phoning again to ask about going from 100 to 150.
Thanks for any advice you can give. Much appreciated!
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Topic: Increasing Evorel 100 patch? (Read 5049 times)