Hi Scampidoodle,
I haven't got much useful advice, I'm afraid, but hoping very much that someone might come on who has as I'm in a similar situation. Only through trying HRT via the Newson clinic that I've discovered that many of the symptoms I've been dealing with that I'd put down to ongoing post-viral issues over the last 18m might well be due to histamine intolerance. I initially felt great on one pump of Oestrogel, but going up to two I developed a really itchy face, and my other ongoing symptoms seemed to get worse too.
It was when I mentioned the itchy face that my menopause consultant suggested HI, and told me about how estrogen increases histamine levels. Like you I'd noticed that my symptoms seemed to increase in severity at the points in my cycle when estrogen is highest. I had thought it was beacuse of changes in estrogen levels, but looks like its due to high histamine levels concurrent with high estrogen. I've been trying to follow a low-histamine diet for the last 6 weeks, but even then there have been times when I would react to almost anything I ate. It was only when I dropped back down to one pump that things started to settle down. The low-histamine diet now really helps, so I'd definitely recommend giving it a go.
Unfortunely it seems that whilst I could (sort of) tolerate the Utrogestan when I was on two pumps of Oestrogel, going down to one has made the progesterone part almost unbearable, so it looks like I'll be having to throw in the HRT towel.
(In the course of trying to figure out what's been going on, I also discovered that there's a potential link between estrogen and asthma, which I hadn't been aware of. At the same time I'd increased the Oestrogel dose, my previously extremely mild and infrequent asthma also became bad enough for my GP to prescribe a preventative inhaler. I thought it was just an unfortunate consquence of a virus I had last March, but since i've been on the low-histamine diet and dropped to one pump, the constant tight chest and coughing has all but disappeared, only comes back when I've overdone things or pushed the high-histamine foods too far.)