HRT prescription

[Anonymous]

And I have a few questions.

I just got prescribed hormones, and I think I got a weekly estrogen patch, and a daily progesterone pill.

Where do I wear the patch? What should I expect? How long will it take to see the effect? The only good part of peri so far has been that my endless acne has gone away - is it going to come back?

[Anonymous]

It's probably a 3-4 day patch. A lot of people put it on the front of their hip.

[Anonymous]

You can set a custom alert in your phone for every 4th day to get the most of out them. Some people change them twice per week, but you're shorting yourself a little that way, I think.

[Anonymous]

I put one on my left front hip on Mondays. I put one on my right front hip on Thursdays. 100 mgs of progesterone every night.

I have a friend who gets a pellet installed transdermally every 6 months. But that is paid for out of pocket. Mine is covered by insurance.

[Anonymous]

I put the patch on my lower abdomen over fat not bone

[Anonymous]

I put my pants on my very lower back/ top of my butt. Do you want to put it in fat. As how you feel it, they say it takes eight or so weeks to feel the full effects, I think that’s true, but you may feel something right away.

Hopefully your doctor started you on a low-dose patch. If you are in full menopause, this is likely not enough, and you might not feel all that much from it. You may need to increase your dose a couple times. However, do it gradually. Leveling up sooner than eight weeks or so could be too shocking to your system.

You may get to a point around 4 to 8 weeks in where your breasts are very, very sore, like extremely. They feel full and heavy like when you were breast-feeding. This is temporary. Just get through it.

Also, for me, although hormones have helped a lot, they are not a magic cure. If you’re not eating right, exercising and strength training, and paying attention to sleep, you won’t get anywhere, they are not negotiable. Aside from that, I was hoping estrogen would just solve everything, but I still have issues that need to be addressed in other ways.

[Anonymous]

^patch not pants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I put my pants on my very lower back/ top of my butt. Do you want to put it in fat. As how you feel it, they say it takes eight or so weeks to feel the full effects, I think that’s true, but you may feel something right away.

Hopefully your doctor started you on a low-dose patch. If you are in full menopause, this is likely not enough, and you might not feel all that much from it. You may need to increase your dose a couple times. However, do it gradually. Leveling up sooner than eight weeks or so could be too shocking to your system.

You may get to a point around 4 to 8 weeks in where your breasts are very, very sore, like extremely. They feel full and heavy like when you were breast-feeding. This is temporary. Just get through it.

Also, for me, although hormones have helped a lot, they are not a magic cure. If you’re not eating right, exercising and strength training, and paying attention to sleep, you won’t get anywhere, they are not negotiable. Aside from that, I was hoping estrogen would just solve everything, but I still have issues that need to be addressed in other ways.

Thanks for this. I feel like I've been paying really close attention to all of these things and making almost zero progress. I got bed at the same time every day, and get up around the same time every day - and I just don't sleep well enough to feel rested ever.

I've been eating very well, and am still working on doing better on that front, but again, just always feel sluggish and bloated, and like my body is just not responding to eating well.

I strength train like 2-3x/week, plus cardio a few times, with the exception of last week because I hurt my foot and had to rest it. And again, I feel like I make no progress at all. It's so frustrating!

[Anonymous]

Read the insert that came with the package.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read the insert that came with the package.

[phone]
And if you threw it away ask the pharmacist what the instructions on the box were.
Sheesh.

[Anonymous]

I put the patch on my @$$, lol. I have been on it a couple of years, so I might not remember this perfectly, but I am pretty sure that the instructions that came with my estradiol patch said either abdomen or buttocks. I am a standardized patient (it's a weird job -- med students practice on me) so I don't want it on my abdomen where a med student could see it and get distracted while doing an ab exam, so I put it on my butt. It's worked fine for two years this way.

I do wear two patches per week -- you might check to see if you are supposed to be doing that. I put one on on Friday night, and then one on on Tuesday morning.

[Anonymous]

Ask your doctor?