Lady stuff

[mamagotcha]

I read this article on hormone replacement therapy, and am now considering it. It seems that the breast cancer and stroke risks are decreased and the benefits increased if you start early on... if I do it, I'd better do it sooner rather than later.

I also read someone else's description of using testosterone to increase libido (which has tanked in the last year).

Anyone out there using either or both of these therapies? Any feedback?

Comments

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

If I remember right, the Menobabes (http://furpaw.com/asm/faq.htm) advise against it, but I'm not sure of the details any more. It's been a while since I hung out there.

[(Anonymous)]

Just below your post on my google reader was this one, about the same article: http://theblogthatatemanhattan.blogspot.com/2010/04/estrogen-dilemma.html

Hope that's in some way helpful!

Miss you guys!
Monica

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

There's a link late in that article (this one) to a study that concluded: "Consistent with transitioning women's perceived memory difficulties, perimenopause was associated with a decrement in cognitive performance, characterized by women not being able to learn as well as they had during premenopause. Improvement rebounded to premenopausal levels in postmenopause, suggesting that menopause transition–related cognitive difficulties may be time-limited."

This gives me a LOT of hope! Thank you very much, Monica!

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

I read that too. I'm not sure. Is the estrogen from my fat enough?

[mh75.livejournal.com]

huh. i haven't read the article yet, but i thought hrt increased cancer risk?? In general, HRT is tempting because out of whack hormones can just screw you up so much, but also scary to me for much the same reason - they affect so much, and in some ways unpredictably.

[essaying.livejournal.com]

The article indicates that the Big Scary Studies were done on women who were several decades past menopause, and were also done using the mare-urine type of HRT. There's new info indicating that if HRT is started much earlier and with bioidentical hormones, it has a protective effect on a lot of brain function and does not have nearly the negative impact on cancer and heart disease rates that the earlier study indicated.

I've been experimenting with HRT. The combination patch seems to be triggering backaches, bad ones, but I'm not 100% sure of the causation. I'm switching to the oral type as soon as I go pick them up at the drugstore, and I hope that causes less trouble.

I'm also considering asking about adding a little testosterone -- I took it for a year or so a few years back and found that it improved my muscle tone, energy levels and libido. When I entered my current relationship, which is essentially asexual, I came off the testosterone so as not to put greater stress on the difference in our libidos, but now that we're more settled as a couple I think I can deal with that (either by increasing my masturbation or by finding a fuck buddy).

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Good luck!

[mh75.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i had time to peruse the article. Interesting food for thought, at any rate.

I don't seem to do well with any added estrogen (bcp, pregnancy, whathave you) when it comes to my blood pressure, which is a dammed shame because i like the other things that happen. Makes me pretty wary of doing anything, but, perhaps it will be worth revisiting some day down the line.