A Good, Estrogen-Patch-Changing Day

Who doesn’t love Saturdays, huh?? I look forward to every Saturday because it's the day I get to change my estrogen patch!

I mean, does it get any more exciting than that?

I am oddly joyful about this weekly ritual because it took me SO LONG to get to this point, to find the right form of bioidentical estrogen and progesterone that would create the perfect hormonal balance I needed to feel like my old, sassy self again.

If you've decided to try BHRT, and are having a hard time trying to find the estrogen/progesterone combination and dosage that work for you, be patient. Don't give up, because you and your doctor will figure it all out and you will start feeling better again, soon enough.

My long and winding road to BHRT bliss started out with creams that were specially formulated for me by mad scientists at a compounding pharmacy. Just like what Suzanne Somers raves about.

I rubbed them on the white underside of my arm every day. I thought they were working. I mean, at least I wasn’t having hot flashes anymore. But I was still tired and moody, and riddled with anxiety. After a whole year of feeling “just OK,” not great, my doctor determined that I had the kind of skin that doesn’t absorb cream very well.

Thick-skinned, I believe they call it. A little condition I developed during my divorce, I think.

Anyway, after another six months of trying out pills and sublingual drops, and various combinations of this and that, I finally found my panacea: the Vivelle estrogen patch that I change out twice a week, with a side order of progesterone drops on my wrist at bedtime.

Then it took ANOTHER three to four months to figure out the correct dosages of each. (JEEZ! Would I ever get this right, I thought?) I discovered that I am very sensitive to progesterone. I bloat up, get jittery and have killer headaches. So instead of dabbing the recommended eight drops on my wrist every night, my doctor and I have figured out that the most progesterone that my body can handle is just two drops a day. Two precious, white pearl drops, and I'm back to being me.

It takes a little trial and error to find the hormone replacement therapy that works best for you. But don’t give up! You have a lot of options and it’s just a matter of working with your doctor to find the combination that’s ideal for you.

What HRT solution has worked best for you?

• Bio-Promise: Are Hormones Safe Again? (abcnews.go.com)


• Should I take hormones or not? (cnn.com)


• Study: HRT Might Shrink Women's Brains (abcnews.go.com)


• Surviving the Mayhem of Menopause (menopause.suite101.com)