Hi Ladies
Not posted for a while (you can find my varying degrees of demented previous posts here!)
After a hellish time of it, I FINALLY settled on sequential HRT, and went from dreading utrogestan bit to counting the minutes til I could take it, as I felt so much better at last in second half of cycle (symptoms used to be other way around, feeling cruddy once on utro, but lately it's the utro free days that are just the hardest). I've been on some form of sequential since I was 46 /47 post polypectomy and D&C and I've now just turned 50. I was suffering very heavy bleeds and terrible problems with histamine and anaemia, it truly was hellish. I'm under Dr Tina Peers, she's lovely.
So I fixed the iron, decided against a coil (was thinking Jaydess, but decided against), had histamine under control, was tolerating alternating 200mg utro orally one day, and 100mg vaginally the next for 14 days, and was on four pumps of oestrogel and feeling like my old self. Medicinal herbs (not for everyone, but worked for me) added on top around my bleed alongside all the rest, and I had a scant bleed, was virtually symptom free. Lost weight, exercising, back to working at full capacity, all good. Felt utterly and totally FINE.
Then in May I got Covid ....
Dr Peers says Covid (and some say the V also) affects the ovaries. This would seem to be my experience, I had hellish uterine and ovary pain, dreadful period during infection, and I've never been the same since.
Regardless of how shitty things have been, I've always been 28 days on the nose (unless I've been experimenting with some new HRT, and my cycle always resets afterwards).
For the last four months I've had a 23 day cycle and the heavy bleeding is back (I just can't have this, iron is a massive life wrecking issue for me). I've had several private scans and they literally cannot find anything at all, totally normal (I use those baby scan places, really nice people, and not expensive, about £70)
My question is how do you know if you are ready for continuous? Having gone from hating utrogestan, I'm now literally counting the days until I can take it and finding it stops dead the jittery feelings, the histamine symptoms that are now peaking at day 5 - 7 ish and the horrible scraping, tight, painful uterine pain, I sleep like a log, I no longer bloat or gain weight through utro days, I just feel so much better on it than not on it, I'm wondering if I'd be better trying continuous and stopping the bleeding all together? I'm wondering whether my dominant issue is now a lack of P??
According to Louise Newsom any woman who has been on sequential for at least a year, regardless of age, can switch to continuous
https://www.nhmenopausesociety.org/resources/ten-tips-for-prescribing-hrt-remotely/ I've also read elsewhere on her site that you'd tell quite quickly if the endometrium wasn't stable enough for continuous (due to the whacky FSH stimulating the lining erratically) and switch back to sequential, but having searched MM, I see that some women have worse heavy bleeding on continuous, which is what I'm trying to avoid.
I also read here that there's a kind of adapted continuous regime where you could come off utro for a short time every so often, and have a withdrawal bleed to ensure the lining has fully come away?
So frustrating, as I worked so bloody hard to get myself sorted out, and was finally, finally feeling teh benefits of a steady HRT regime and now it's all gone to pot post Covid. I'm on my sixth cycle post infection, and still having the same issues, and wondering whether to tough it out another one to see if I get back in synch on a 28 day cycle, or whether to just chuck in the towel and try continuous.
Also, Dr Peers told me that if a bleed comes early on sequential, to stick to the calendar not the bleed, but I've had to readjust my day 1, as no matter what I do, the bleed turns up on day 23 or 24 if I count from first day of bleeding. These short cycles don't seem to be a blip, I don't think, unless it's covid still and might settle?
Thoughts?
Thanks