Surgical Menopause without hrt

[speacock36]

Hi, I'm looking for information on getting through surgical menopause without hrt as I am having ovaries/fallopian tubes removed due to brca1. I am unable to take hrt due to having blood clot caused by Contraception injection. Any good advice will be greatly appreciated.

thanks Sarah

[Emalou71]

Hi, i have had debulking surgery and cannot use HRT. My oncologist offered the usual advice of exercise regularly, lots of calcium etc but she has advised for the night sweats trying acupuncture, I have yet to try but upon research appears to be quite popular, may be worth a look?

Xx

[speacock36 in reply to Emalou71]

Hi Emalou71

Thank you for replying and giving me the advice you have been given. I take it your managing it all very well. I will take a look. Thanks again.

xx

[Hidden]

Hi Sarah,

I totally understand where you are coming from in wanting to prepare for surgical menopause. I had ovaries (and a lot of other stuff) removed due to ovarian cancer, with the last surgery about 7 weeks ago. Oncologist said no poss of HRT. I am 50 and previously had no particular menopause symptoms (except the odd night sweat). I had expected with surgical menopause to be plunged into the whole thing dramatically and immediately. Instead - and very fortunately - it is not really causing much of an impact. I still get pretty hot at nights sometimes, and occasionally late evenings too, but that's about it, and it isn't causing any problems with sleep. I am not doing anything specifically to deal with or to prevent symptoms. What works for me: eating well, lots of dairy for calcium, trying to get active (in a mild and fun way), and generally making sure that life is easy and convenient to reduce stress which can have knock-on effects for mood swings etc.

I am not sure how helpful this will be to you, but hopefully the experience of someone who is in a similar position but not suffering any particular menopause dramas might be a nice thing to hear?

Very best of luck with your operation and the forthcoming recovery.

Warm regards,

Judith

[speacock36 in reply to Hidden]

Judith,

I am sorry to hear why you have had to have your operations and a big Thanks for sharing a how great your doing and sounds like with more ease than I have been reading about on the net. I'm beginning to understand more about menopause than I ever knew and it has taken me 2 years to come to terms with the preventative surgery I'm going to have so to hear good stories is a bonus.

Thanks again and all the best for the future.

Sarah

xx

[thesilent1]

Hi, I was thrown into surgical menopause following my surgery too. Initially I struggled with the hot flushes u until a GP friend told me to avoid caffeine. Since doing so hot flushes are no it so frequent as nd much more tolerable. Good luck. Ann

[speacock36 in reply to thesilent1]

HI Ann

thank you for replying, fortunately after my dvt last year I stopped drinking the 6-8 cups a day of black coffee and moved onto green tea, now mainly drink herbal. So from your advice I should be able to cope.

Thanks again

sarah

[Wiganw]

Hi

Very late reply. I have had acupuncture for hot flushes I have found it has reduced them especially at night.

In the summer I use a chill pillow which helps keep me cool.

I also find things are worse when I am tired so best to try and pace your days.

Sharon

[speacock36]

Hi Sharon

thank you very much for letting me know about your positive outcome with acupuncture, late replies are never too late, if you get what I mean . If things become bad i'll give it a go. thanks for the rest of the info.

keep smiling

Sarah x

[robyns1]

hi, i have been in surgical menopause without hrt since 2014 after a breast cancer recurrence that was estrogen and progesterone positive. I was told by my GP that of all the anti-depressants that Effexor was a good one to take in this situation because it greatly evens out the flushes and all the other effects of surgical menopause. I've taken effexor since then mostly for this reason, and I can say it works really well. I went from really uncomfortable overheating every hour, to hardly noticing them, so I can recommend it. Also, for quality of life reasons at one stage I decided not to take the arimidex to counteract any remaining effects of estrogen in my body, prescribed my oncologist. The joint pains and bone aches were not worth it to me. Research on medical articles showed that aromatase inhibitors like arimidex can significantly delay the return of cancer, but they can't ulitimately stop it returning, only delay the return. I also had other issues and restarted estrogen, oncologists be damned, for the same quality of life reasons. I told my onocologist that I was doing this and although she wasn't thrilled, she respected my decision because at the end of the day, it is the patient's call about what they're willing to live with. In the end I stopped the estrogen again, but it was still my decision. Good luck, hope this helps a little.