Forgive me if my message is a little disjointed, I just lost my second baby and had to have another D&C and am not quite "with it" yet. I know someone who refused to do the HRT thing because of concerns over the risks of it, and I seem to recall her mentioning the cream form of progesterone. She recommended it to me to help w/ ovulation and it really worked, and she told me that she had used it too, but I think it was during menopause that she used it. (The dr had given me the pill form of artificial Progesterone to help my body ovulate and I hated the very harsh side effects. The natural form cream had none of those side effects, was very easy to use, and the container was still not empty after the few months I used it. My first D&C seemed to jump-start regulating my ovulation,making the cream unnecessary.) (I am unsure of what one needs to replace during menopause so I apologize in advance if I misunderstood what she was telling me and progesterone is not needed then.) I paid a hefty price at a health store for the cream but recently saw it at a WalMart in the vitamin section. I didn't look at it closely so I don't know if the quality was the same as what I had used or not. The same woman recommended the book "What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause" by Dr. John Lee. (Yes, I wrote that down; you never know when info like that may come in handy for someone. Case in point--this message!) Hope this is of some help.

I've been doing a LOT of research about this - I've been having some awful symptoms for the past 2 years (since turning 40) -- some of which are typical menopause related stuff and some are not, but I suspect all are related to hormonal decline. I've been getting bloodwork and basically, my estrogen and thyroid are both circling the drain --- my last bloodwork showed the estrogen level of a 60 year old (I'm 42! WTH!) I am pursuing bioidentical hormone replacement via cream. I don't have it all figured out yet (I get the feeling that there's a lot of experimenting on yourself til you find the right combo) but from the reading I did, I am pretty confident that this is what I need. Those of you saying you can't take HRT because of pre-existing tendency to blood clots or migraines or whatever might want to investigate the bioidentical stuff via transdermal cream. Blood clots are only an issue when estrogen is taken orally and passes through the liver -- if you are delivering it via skin or patch, there is no increased risk of blood clots (and in fact, your risk of other heart issues goes way down). Migraines are also one of the things that estrogen can help. And even the connection between estrogen and breast cancer is not as cut and dried as I thought -- I feel safe taking the bioidentical estrogen. I have read probably 20 books on the subject of menopause and HRT and the one I found most clear ad helpful is called Screaming to Be Heard by Elizabeth Vliet. I would recommend reading it - it pretty much debunks a lot of the things that I had heard about HRT including the results of that women's health study that caused everyone to abandon HRT -- did you know that whole study was done with synthetic hormones, not bioidentical? And that none of the horrible side effects found in that study have been found in studies that use bioidentical hormones? They are all related to the synthetic stuff like norethidrone and premarin. Because the pharmaceutical companies can't patent a naturally occuring substance and therefore can't make big bucks of bioidentical, there have been few efforts to educate doctors or do controlled studies on bioidentical hormones, but the studies that have been done show amazing benefits without the scary side effects. (Of course, the pharma companies don't want you to know that, because they want you to keep taking your premarin....)

I searched this forum and I found a lot on hot flashes..here is a link to a natural remedy that I would like to try. here it is for those of you who missed it Ree Here is a link that might be useful: cured hot flashes

i'm being weaned off my meds, been on them for 10 years, this is the last 3 months i'll get, I'm freaking out as I was LITERALLY homicidal, trying to take 1/2 dose for 1 mo, not working, haven't slept for 1 mo. i'm irritable like crazy, can't even stand myself anymore. So i went back to taking full dose which there's maybe 2 months left. I'm searching for HELP. I have all the symptoms STRONG. Hot flashes like crazy, no sleep, exhausted when home from work, just want to be alone.