HRT

[Pen1966]

Hi I started Evorel conti patchers last week and feel awful have been getting shakes and legs and arms weakness is this normal and also sweating more at night and very tired and off food xx

[Buddy195 Administrator]

I’ve found Dr Louise Newsom’s Balance App very good for up to date reviews of HRT and symptom checks. Although I’ve not experienced adverse symptoms with HRT myself, others have reported this on the Balance App and asked their GP to be changed to alternative products.

[Pen1966 in reply to Buddy195]

Thank you

[Pen1966 in reply to Buddy195]

Had a look cant afford it as you have to pay

[Buddy195 Administrator]

balance-menopause.com/balan...

It’s free

[annabianca]

If you are taking levothyroxine, you will probably need a dose increase because of the estrogen in the HRT.

You should have blood tests after a few weeks. See, for example,

thyroiduk.org/food-and-drug...

or

btf-thyroid.org/thyroid-and...

[Pen1966 in reply to annabianca]

My levels being checked tomorrow but come off patches felt so rough

[Yeswithasmile]

Hi Pen1966.

I was the same. I stopped taking them about a month in. Had symptoms from week one and it took about a month to feel better.

I did a thyroid test and my levels hadn’t changed. I thought they would have.

Haven’t gone back to it either. I also tried progesterone cream but that gave me other symptoms.

A few weeks later I reassessed my position on my thyroid and raised levo. I have to say this worked better that hrt.

I sympathise because I felt dreadful on the patches.

[Pen1966 in reply to Yeswithasmile]

Thank you 😊

[Pen1966 in reply to Yeswithasmile]

What symptons did you have

[Yeswithasmile in reply to Pen1966]

Chronic muscle and joint pain but this my main hypo symptoms. I basically felt like I wasn’t medicating my thyroid. Tired and zero stamina, serious night sweats. I expected my bloods to have dropped but they hadn’t. I know I’m low on oestrogen from a blood test I had so I thought I would benefit.

[Yeswithasmile in reply to Yeswithasmile]

Having read Aligoth’s reply I felt I should add for clarity that I wasn’t taking any progesterone whilst on the patches. The progesterone cream was months before the patches and then the doctor from the clinic mentioned here, told me not to take progesterone for 2 months. To use the patches first.

[Pen1966 in reply to Yeswithasmile]

Thats sounds like me too as my levels are off too

[Yeswithasmile in reply to Pen1966]

It’s a tricky one as correcting sex hormones is said to improve everything but honestly that was not my experience. Others have told me that the symptoms from failing oestrogen are unlikely to be as bad once properly medicated for the thyroid and I can say that although I’m not finish experimenting yet, I feel much better with a higher ft4. Just my experience.

[Pen1966 in reply to Yeswithasmile]

My T4 is 22.9 at mo and tsh 3.93 t3 5

[Yeswithasmile in reply to Pen1966]

I just saw that on a previous post. I also read Seasusies reply. You tsh does seem high for someone with such a high ft4 result. Have you questioned the lab about it? Without the high tsh I could be forgiven for saying you needed to drop for levo slightly and then add it some t3. I wonder if the data entry operator put the decimal point in the wrong place when adding your results! You could see 0.393 as being more realistic with your over range ft4 results. 🤷‍♀️ You could email them and ask the question as it’s very difficult to know what you should do now.

I can only give you my experience and I know that levo over 50% of the range is better for me. However, I have increased my dose to try and raise it further. Currently I feel rough but I don’t know if this is my ft4 climbing or that it’s probably reduced my already low ft3 because my tsh (implicated in conversion) is even lower because of the dose change 🤷‍♀️ I will take bloods in a few weeks and know then.

Hope this makes some sense?

[Pen1966 in reply to Yeswithasmile]

I am having more bloods done at gps tomorrow at 8.30 before I eat drink or take levo xx

[Yeswithasmile in reply to Pen1966]

You can have some water 😊. Be interesting to see what your results are.

[Pen1966 in reply to Yeswithasmile]

Will let you knowx

[Aligoth]

Estrogen lenghtens the half life of thyroid binding globulin so you might have to increase thyroid medication dosage. Progesterone on the other hand does the opposite, that's why to test ovulation a lot of people used to measure basal temperature, because progesterone would affect thyroid function raising the body temperature by 0.2 c average.

[Pen1966 in reply to Aligoth]

Thank you I have come off patches cant cooe with acy legs and arms almost seizing up could be mixture of that and thyroid levels