wow, this is unbelievable! I was looking for help finding some form of natural or herbal HRT. I am 54, done with all the horrible symptoms that come with the end of periods. I have Crohn's disease and had surgery to remove the last of my colon last September. Since my surgery I dehydrate very easily, my skin is very dry and I drink mostly water and lots of it. I thought all of this was the cause of the dryness problem with my vaginal area internally and externally. I am married and sex has become so painful and sometimes not even possible. My GYN put me on Premarin creme and I do not always remember to use it right before bed, every other night. I know you would think I would remember THAT right? The problem is 1st I am kinda scared of the whole "hormone treatment" thing because of cancer. My immune system is practically non-exsistent. 2ndly my Crohn's keeps me busy with medicating myself to prevent constant diarrhea, bloating, etc. The wrong combination of prevention meds or the wrong diet choice and I am constipated and bloated or having to run to the bathroom constently. Talk about having too much on your plate...the LAST thing I want or need is for my sex life to be screwed up! My poor Husband has enought to deal with just being married to me all these years. He is Amazing, always supportive, loving, understanding and eqivalent to a private nurse when I am "sick" AGAIN. He deserves some serious consideration, lol. Anyway, I get in this site and see the "vaginal Atrophy" comment and think...could it be? I find out it is NOT just me or my dehydration issues, I am having the same problems you are all. The Premarin creme has softened things up some and sex is sometimes possible but I am going to call my GYN tomorrow and ask about the ESTRING. I have been using moisterizing lotions and cremes on the external vaginal area just to relieve the dry, itchy, painful skin so I can walk and not cry all the time from the misery of it. Seriously. Thank God I stumbled in here, Thank you all for opening up and discussing this issue so I could find out not only What is wrong but maybe What to do about it! And Thank God for the good things the internet makes possible.

Hi nannie! I don't usually look at this site but I just had a hysterectomy in July so I was wondering around looking for information. Before I had my hysterectomy I'd had a very heavy period for about 6 weeks. I was willing to put up with anything to not have surgery. That was a mistake. I lost so much blood that my hemoglobin dropped to 6, I beleve the low end of normal is 11. I was in a great deal of pain and couldn't really do anything. Too worn out, out of breath and in so much pain I couldn't move. I ended up in the hospital and got 2 units of blood and then surgery the next day. My uterus was big too but I've had kids so that helped and they where able to do it vaginally. You know you can't go on the way you are now, beleve me I tried hard to keep going thinking it would some how take care of itself. It didn't and it would of been a whole lot better if I had planned this thing out and schedaled things instead of ending up with an emergency situation. I'm 52 so I'm a bit older then you. They gave me a hormone patch which has helped me. I hadn't had any hot flashes or problems with memopause before my surgery but I had them take everything and I sure have had some problems after. I plan to cut the amount of hormone down in the future and eventually get off of the hormones completely. But not now I need to recover first before I can deal with anything more. Well thats my 2 cents!!

Thanks for the well wishes, HU-536588320. Sorry to hear about your alternative doc. My wife had a scare years ago, while she was using Prempro (or Premarin - forgot which.) Doc said she had a non-atypical hyperplasia in one of her breasts. Scared the crap out of us both. She then discovered Dr. John Lee's books, and that's why she started using natural progesterone cream. We learned about terms like unopposed estrogen, etc. Quite a journey that launched us both onto. I think you're right about DHEA being like a building block. I think some of the books we read called it a precursor...so instead of a woman deciding that her body needs more estriol, or estrone, or estradiol, or progesterone...if she supplements with some DHEA...then the body will turn that into whatever it needs. That's why I was so eager for my wife to try it some time ago. So, I was bummed to find out that she didn't respond well to it. It's been a while, but I think it irritated her tissue. I did some research, and turned out the provider or manufacturer of this particular DHEA suppository used a base that contained glycol (maybe even ethelyne glycol - been too long ago.) Well duh - that's what's in antifreeze! So the questions I asked and reading I did seemed to suggest it wasn't the DHEA my wife had a reaction to - it was the base they used. Not long afterwards, my wife came across the bezwecken cubes. They didn't bother her. So I read up on it a bit, trying to understand why she reacted favorably to that, but not the DHEA suppositories. Well surprise, surprise - the base used by the hydration cubes was kinder or more gentle - didn't contain that crap glycol chemical, lol. I wondered if we kept looking, and just tried a different supplier or manufacturer of DHEA suppositories...that also used a kinder or more gentle base...how would she respond to it? But since the hydration cubes did the trick...I guess we never pursued it any further. Wow - thanks for passing on the tip that, the DHEA does exactly for you what my wife and I are looking for. :-) Maybe I should get that recipe from you for the DHEA after all! :-) You know, you can spend a lot of time studying and researching all this stuff...but the human body is so complex and interesting...it still surprises you. It remains to be seen what kind of approach this OB/GYN will come up with. The first step was for my wife to get an ultrasound. I think that's in like a couple of weeks.

After being on Kliogest for 3 months I had a very heavy 3 week bleed and told to immediately stop the hrt treatment and seek a Hysteroscopy to be sure there was no 'other' cause for the bleeding. After a complete all clear the Specialist has prescribed vaginal hrt cream which I commenced today. I shall keep you posted, but hope it helps with other menopausal conditions as I am particularly sad and down right now. At 53, I have just completed a teaching degree, I feel I could not enter the work force the way I feel just now, also sleepless nights loss of memory and hot flushes/night sweats:( Glad to read of your great results Garule.