HRT Problems – Lisa’s Story

Hi, My name is Lisa and in July last year I had to have a full hysterectomy via keyhole surgery at 43 years old due to heavy painful periods. I had the option to keep my ovaries but after careful consideration I decided to also have them removed.

I chose this route because a) if I had problems in the future with my ovaries I didn’t want to end up having further surgery and b) my theory was as I already had 3 children and at my age planned no more I thought I didn’t need them?

With HRT available I guessed life would carry on as normal afterwards?

The op itself went really well and I was amazed that after the initial pain in recovery which was controlled by morphine, the next day I had little or no pain. Hence to say 2 days later I was allowed home and didn’t even need to take any painkillers.

The recovery continued well over the next few weeks and I had no problems whatsoever, until it came to sorting out my HRT? Initially my doctor put me on 1g of tablet form for a few months but the hot flushes continued so I had a blood test and my oestrogen levels came back as 50 which is very low? So he increased the HRT to 2g.

Over the next couple of months I still didn’t feel right with feeling hot, a foggy brain, poor memory and tiredness. The lack of memory worried me the most and I felt like I had turned into mother over night? So I persevered but went back to my docs a couple of months back for another blood test which this time came back as 180 which is still on the low side?

Therefore he put me on the highest dose (100mg) HRT patches. This still made no difference and some days I struggle to get out of bed and I feel so tired, so I went back to my doctor this week for a blood test to measure my oestrogen levels. It has come back at a reading of 50!

He has now admitted he doesn’t know what to do next so I have to visit another doctor at my practice next week? Obviously my body is not absorbing the HRT and I am placing them in the correct areas so I wondered if anyone else had experienced this and what the solution was? Thank you xx

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