Menopause with no hormone treatment?

I made it past menopause with only estroven reg strength and progesterone like cream (wild yam) by the age of 47!!

Reta,

Wow. I am just so fascinated with this. Both your information about cholesterol and your experience with your cholesterol levels and your corresponding health isssues. I will do some research on this now and see if I can find out more.

Yes, all the pieces we have are interlocked in important ways. I recall when cholesterol first became the big bad guy and everyone started dropping fat completely out of their diet. Suddenly there was an explosion of fat-free products on the market -- that actually had the same or similar number of calories. As I recall, fat-free Fig Newtons even had more calories than the regular Fig Newtons! Anyway, now we know that you do need some fat in your diet, and that there are good fats for our bodies, especially the monounsaturated oils.

It seems that no matter what the health issue is, we can take it to extremes. And at some point we learn that the extreme is harmful, and we have to back off. So very interesting. Thank you, Reta.

Dianne,
I would recommend that everyone have the genetic testing done for Factor V Leiden before HRT, it is a simple blood test. I am heterozygeous, which means I inherited one gene and the lower risk. My risk for a clot is twice the normal population. Also only 10% of this population clots, which is in my favor. I am doing things to prevent a clot like exercise. staying hydrated and awareness. What is working against me is the fact that my maternal grandmother, mother and maternal aunt have all clotted. Both my children have inherited this.

I took the soy and cohosh for about a year and stopped in early 2007. I have recently had 2 incidents of post menopausal bleeding (May/July). I had that evaluated and they could not find a cause, at least it wasn't hyperpasia or neopasia. I finally got my doctor to state this: "post menopausal bleeding from an unknown hormonal imbalance." My theory is that it is related to my cholesterol. This summer my doctor got to aggressive in lowering my cholesterol and it dropped my total cholesterol to 105. The next week I went hormonal, stopped sleeping and was depressed. Three days after stopping the Vytorin, I was a normal person again. My hormone levels also dropped from postmenopausal levels to perimenopausal levels. I had my levels tested 2 months later and there are back to post menopausal levels. I have had a series of health issues all arise this summer and are all related to cholesterol in one way or another.

Now you may be asking how is cholesterol related to menopause? Chloesterol is the basic building block for all your hormones.It is also necessary for proper functioning of your brain. When my cholesterol, which I suspect had dropped into the double digits, dropped so low it upset the natural production of my bodily hormones. Cholesterol is a very interesting topic and very essential part of our proper health, not the evil thing the pharmacutical companies would have you think.

Reta

Dianne,
I am another one that has gone through menopause without HRT. I did not have a choice, I have an inherited clotting condition called Factor V Leiden and my chance of a clot is increased 39 fold with BCPs or HRT. That roughly translates to 1 in 250 chance of a clot, I did not like those numbers. Besides that gene passed down from my grandmother, the fact that my maternal grandmother, mother and maternal aunt have clotted creates more risk for a clot than the one little gene.

When my hot flashes/mood swings/insomnia got to be very bad, my primary prescribed Paxil for 3 months and it helped me very much. After that, I used a soy based menopause support and Black Cohosh. My GYN suggested them since HRT was out of the question. It was very helpful and life developed a new normal that was ok.

Yes, I did it , with estroblend from walmart and some lubrication for vaginal dryness. can't remember the name of the stuff, but it sloughed off dead skin cells that caused the itching. ewwwwwwwwww

It's vitamins and herbs. Why can't we just do that without WtoW? I take most of those vitamins already. Still one big hot flash and as grouchy as ever. Does anyone know how much it costs? I saw there quotes, but real prices are better.