Hi Keeleyruth,
If you do the overemotional meltdown on the phone to a GP you'll risk being refused oestrogen. If you complain too heavily about progesterone and they suspect you might become non compliant and take "oestrogen only" for your sanity, then you'll be left with only the choice between products you can't separate yourself. That's my experience.
The only alternative I know of is
tibolone. I've been searching for it on this forum and there are partial conversations with bits editted out, but no recent intact conversations that I can find.
Maybe the moderators could leave some complete threads floating about on it next time it's discussed? There were definitely more when I was browsing this forum before joining to post.
Tibolone is fully allowed to be prescribed in the UK, so there's no need to censor out the success stories. Is it because America banned it? Some of us fall into the 10% who are not doing better on conventional HRT than without it, just because we're not the other 90% doesn't make us irrelevant and there are no shortages of tibolone that I know of.
Sorry, grumpy old woman strikes again, I didn't sleep last night after vaginally inserting 100mg utrogestan at 1pm yesterday lunchtime. I want tibolone instead.
Lights out and sleeping at 11.30pm, woke at 2am hating my life, I never have insomnia when I'm not taking utrogestan!
Got back over at 4.30am, slept til 8.30am so that's ok, I can sleep late, a long term hater of other people's timetables, I'm self employed and have taken the last two months off work, unpaid of course, to try and make my life worth living again.
I've not found lasting success yet, but here's some of the things I've learnt since being diagnosed as post menopausal last year;
Post menopausal might not be the final word, I reverted back to being peri after covid likely caused my periods to stop for over a year, then I got better, in my 50s, yeah, mixed feelings on that
Evorel conti contains the same estrogen as Estradot 50, but it isn't the same as Evorel 50. The former both work better for me.
provera has to be the worst progesterone, I slept all day and night, basically I have bad flu symptoms with provera and working past it isn't possible at all, followed by utrogestan, then mirena, then northisterone which didn't make me nosedive immediately, that took time to build up because I was on conti then as "post meno".
I've experienced the same nosedive in mood and energy when I've had the pill, the mini pill, the coil, pregnancy and PMS. I'll consider the mirena coil again if I have to, it settled into a low grade depression after the first couple of months of feeling frantic with everything feeling wrong in the world. I asked for it to be removed after 2 months, they refused and gave me prozac instead.
I had it in nearly 4 years in the end, then one day I felt the strings and pulled very hard, lol, out it came with a little blood and half a day later I was crying, with relief this time to be released from that high alert tension I'd endured so long.
My GP claims to have a special interest in menopause, 15 months into this journey I seem to know a lot more than she does on this narrow topic and her claims to be knowledgeable really get in the way of actual facts getting through.
Speaking to a nurse practioner in the HRT clinic restored my faith in the health service. She actually knew what I was talking about!
At this point, for anyone not tolerating progesterone, tibolone is great, it has the vital ingredients your body needs to get well and it can make you well, but only if you manage to stop bleeding on it, if you go back to having periods then they whisk it away and tell you it's not suitable for you. It's not easy to get despite being very effective and established as a good treatment with high tolerability and low risks. It will be my number one choice for whenever they say I'm post meno again and can have it.
Online pharmacies stock it as Livial, I'm tempted to just buy some online, I'm not contraindicated for it more than any other HRT, I'm slim build, non smoker, early 50s.
For now I'm restricted to the other forms of HRT which are also only licensed for post meno, so that makes no sense.
NHS HRT clinics have waiting lists from 2 months to 18 months just from reports I've read here. I waited quite an average 8 months to be seen.
So today is day two of utrogestan and I'm trying to build myself up to do it, the heartburn hasn't eased since last night, I'm considering some artificial courage before I insert the next one, I'm not quite over the first one yet and I know even 100mg orally will make me suicidal and that's how I've felt on and off after 100mg vaginally yesterday, might get used to it?
As far as I'm concerned, the risk of developing womb cancer if I don't take progesterone is purely theoretical while the risk I'll finally justify killing myself and do it, is very much more real and to be avoided. My GP disagrees, she thinks I'm blaming progesterone because I heard other people are intolerant and jumped on the bandwagon. She
knows that it must be something else, someday she'll work it out.
Sorry Keeleyruth, I get long winded, PM me if you want more on what I've discovered about tibolone or progesterone intolerance. I really want to get on tibolone for life, but the weird rules say you must be post meno and also under 60. They nominally restrict it because of the lack of safety studies done during the decades it's been available for women to use. It comes out really well for bone protection and other benefits too. My hope is that once I get it, they'll just forget about me and let me stay on it long term.
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Topic: Progesterone intolerant/sensitive - Please help! (Read 3815 times)