I'm fed up with medicines and tablets, before my late 40s I was a fairly organic person with my eating and I took nothing from the doctor at all, just a few vitamins and minerals from the supermarket.
Then my periods stopped, followed by severe hot flushes, all age 51, so I asked for HRT.
Couple of years on and I take three pumps of oestrogel, 150mg clonidine, 900mg gabapentin and 75mg of venlafaxine. All four are supposed to stop hot flushes and night sweats and I also take a generic vagifem for bladder urgency with not much effect either.
Last night I got up three times to pee and change my sweat soaked nightie, three times before getting back into a wet bed and pushing my husband over so I could get a dry bit to lie on and somewhere dry to put my wet hair on as well in the hope of drying out a bit. I fall asleep easily enough, unlike in my 40s when I didn't really sleep the entire decade, so I'm getting my 8 hours as I spend 10 hours in bed and I'm not awake more than 2 hours of that.
However...I've bad pains in my muscles and joints after lying in a wet bed all night, I catch a draft as they used to say and it can take days for my neck to loosen. I've baclofen from the doctor for that symptom, strong painkillers too, and cyclizine to stop me being sick from all the tablets. My mouth and lips are dry and cracking, my tongue burns all the time now from drying out too much and my arthritis is worse today from lying in a wet bed the last few nights. I'm always thirsty but I try not to drink anything in the evening before bed.
On days when I take progesterone it's worse, I sweat more on those days and a few days afterwards, it seems to cancel out the oestrogen, as well as terrible emotional side effects from day 3-5 of taking progesterone, that last until 3-5 days after I stop. I bleed very heavily from the HRT and have recently been taking prescription iron as I've a history of anaemia.
My hair is getting chopped off today, no more woolly blanket on my neck and back, that might help.
Why do none of these medicines work for me? The doctors started me off on "mild" ones then added in more and more. It'll work sometimes and I stay dry for a week or two, then it comes back and I don't know why. While I'm glad the doctors are with me on this, I feel that maybe it's pointless and are all these medicines going to harm me long term?