I've learned on this forum that HRT works alongside your existing hormones, rather than taking right over like the birth control pill. My OB-GYN does not agree with that, however. She's conservative in that she prescribes only one pump of Estrogel. I use two, and sometimes 3, so I ran that past her, and she agreed that at my age (43) two pumps would be okay. We didn't discuss 3 pumps, but I got the sense she would be against that. She said two pumps would be okay because it's less (or line with?) than the birth control pill. This got me thinking, how much Estrogel would be needed to reach the estrogen dosage in the birth control pill (ignoring the progesterone part)? One pump delivers 0.75mg estradiol, while Marvelon for example delivers 0.030 mg ethinyl estradiol. How do those numbers compare? I get that there are factors like absorption at play. Just curious if it's established that like 6 Estrogel pumps a day (for example) and you might as well take the birth control pill.