Purely anecdotal, I stopped HRT after 9 months (went cold turkey on doctor's advice as it had blown up my blood pressure - monitored closely for quite a while beforehand with no issues prior to HRT). Literally, none of the problems that had sent me to request HRT ever came back - e.g. severe muscle aches, mad hot sweats, extreme fatigue, sandpaper dry vagina. However, I did go down the herbalism / therapeutic massage route.