How to know when to stop hormone replacement therapy
I Stopped Taking HRT (Hormone Replacement)... Here's What Happened!
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[Music]
hey everybody its Angie and welcome to
hot and flashy so today's video is
another menopause update I've done about
five or six menopause videos in the past
my favorite one was the one called
menopause sucks because that is really
how I feel about it so I've been going
through my menopause journey for
probably over ten years now my symptoms
started when I was 45 but you know very
very minor only night sweats maybe once
a year or no big deal and fast-forward
to now where I am 56 almost 57
I am postmenopausal so I've been through
the whole menopause thing I have tried
HRT and I was on that for a couple of
years and I recently decided to do an
experiment where I would wean off of HRT
because I wasn't sure that it was doing
that much for me I had been on HRT for a
year already at a certain dosage my
doctor and I decided to lower my dosage
because I had had some bleeding and so
that can be a symptom of uterine cancer
so she had to do a uterine screening on
me
it can also be which in my case it was
an effect of having your dosage be too
high and so we had to lower my dosage of
estrogen and which we did so he put me
on a lower dose patch once I was on that
lower dose patch I was still not having
hot flashes which was great but my sleep
wasn't as good as it had been when I was
on the higher dosage and so after like
being two years into it I kind of
forgotten what hot flashes were like I
guess and what the symptoms were really
like the brain fog and everything else
and I was only noticing that I wasn't
getting that great sleep that I was on
the higher dosage and so when I went
back to see my doctor the next year this
past winter I said you know and I'm not
sure this HRT is really doing that much
for me so I'm thinking of doing an
experiment where I wean off of it and
then I'll know for sure and she was like
yeah okay that sounds good and I said
well if you were me what would you do
and she goes I wouldn't be on it at all
and I was like what why and I was I was
so confused because she had agreed to
put me on it in the first place and so
that really scared
because you know most of us what our
knee-jerk reaction to HRT is is that we
heard about the WHI study that was done
you know a long time ago but where there
was a huge amount of breast cancer from
it and a huge amount of blood clots and
HRT was not good for you and nobody
should be on it or you should only be on
it for the smallest amount of time
possible and so I kind of was like oh oh
god she really doesn't think it's safe
and so I said all right let me go ahead
with this experiment and I'll wean off
of it and so we weaned off over the last
six months so I have been completely off
of HRT for about a month now and I gotta
say the first two weeks weren't bad and
I was like yeah this seems fine and then
it crashed and burned and two weeks ago
I started having hot flashes like you
cannot believe
and now that I'm having like 10 or 15
hot flashes a day and I'm having even
more at night that it's keeping me up
all night and I cannot sleep I'm
generally most days going on about four
and a half five and a half hours of
sleep this is not a good thing when I
first went on HRT I want to say I was
getting around eight eight and a half
hours of sleep at night I was sleeping
like a baby it was great then when I
went down to the next dosage which was
the 0.037 five I think then I was
sleeping about seven and a half to eight
hours a night and that was about what I
got my Fitbit so this has been tracking
my sleep so now I actually know how much
sleep I was getting then when I started
on the weaning off dosage then I started
getting about six and a half or under
and so now I've seen we lose like two
hours of sleep a night which you know
what it's a lot it's a lot for a person
who like needs to be on on-camera and
speaking and saying things that makes
sense and then editing videos and then
talking to you on Instagram and talking
to you on Facebook and not being Moody
and not being overly sensitive and just
feeling normal and like feeling like I'm
a functioning human being that can get
stuff done and so over the last two
weeks it really became clear to me that
this was a failed experiment that I
really needed to be back on the HRT in
order to really function well in my life
so I called my doctor to say okay failed
experiment let's put me back on because
I did make her promise that she would
put me back on cuz originally she did
say she would want to keep me on it for
five years and I've only been like two
maybe three years and what do you think
happened she was on vacation so I said
to the nurse well there's got to be
another doctor at the practice that can
just call my prescription in and she's
like okay I'll get in touch with her and
see what she says what she called back
the next day and I thought it was gonna
be your golden know it was like she's
not comfortable with this she wants to
wait for your doctor to get back from
vacation I'm thinking she's not gonna
put me back on it and so I was kind of
in a panic fortunately she came back
from vacation she did put me back on it
and so now I'm back on it so I've had my
hormones in my system at now for two
whole days so in that couple of days
when I was panicked about whether she
was going to put me back on or not I was
really looking for some information I
was looking for solid information so
that I could make the decision and so in
order to do that I felt like I needed
more information I didn't need just this
fear response from the WHI thing or from
my doctor saying well I wouldn't be on
it at all because I know people are who
are on it I mean my mother was on HRT
for 20 years anyway so in order to get
that information the first place I went
you know is YouTube because I live here
on YouTube and so I started watching a
couple of people that I watched before
one was menopause Taylor who used to be
menopause Barbie I had watched a number
of her videos previously when I was
trying to make a decision about this and
she is amazing so last week I started re
kind of binge watching her videos and
I've missed quite a few over the last
year or so and she has a series about
what happens to your body to each of
your individual organs when your body
isn't producing estrogen anymore I've
learned that it's so much more than just
masking the symptoms or putting off the
symptoms because estrogen does so much
more inside your body to help you
function and so I think that you know
just kind of pulling away from the fear
in it and getting the real information
is so important and so you know
obviously I'm not saying that
everybody should be on it there are
segments of the population that should
definitely not be on it but you have to
be armed with all the information so
that you can make a real informed
judgment and a real informed decision
about what you want to do and I feel
like now I'm actually able to make that
informed decision
so I'm now back on the estrogen and the
progesterone I do take a bioidentical
one of each my estrogen is a patch my
progesterone is something that I take
orally my plan is to stay on it for as
long as I possibly can because I'm
thinking like if I'm gonna have to go
through this hot flash no sleep thing
I'll do it later
I'll do it when I'm 70 I'm doing 175
I'll make me do it when I'm 80 anyway
wish me luck with that if you enjoyed
the video found it helpful and
informative go ahead and give it a
thumbs up don't forget to subscribe to
my channel hit the notification bell and
as always I appreciate your time thank
you so much for watching and I'll see
you in the next video take care
everybody bye bye
[Music]
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