Ps 150

[quote=watterstide]Oh no...my surgeon told me that menopause can run from 5-13 years, depending on the woman and family history. My mother died at 42 and my Gram at 54 so I never found out how long their menopause would've lasted.

Baloonatic

I felt the same way regarding the horses so my pharmacist suggested I request the man-made hormones, NOT those derived from mares. Cost a little more, but I slept better at night!
After a year on HRT I weaned myself off of them because of all those bad possible side effects

Nona

Get off Premarin if at all possible. My totally unscientific test dealth with me and 5 other women in my office who all were taking Premarin. All 6 of six came down with breast cancer (of different kinds). That was in 2002. All had surgery and various types of chemo or radiation. In 2010 I came down with a second bout of it. The only common deminator was the Premarin. None of us had a history of breast cancer in the family. It was not proven, but you would have a hard time getting our group to not believe Premarin had something to do with it. We had all been on Premarin from 5 to 10 years.

fratcat

I must be lucky in a lot of ways. I was never able to get pregnant, and suffered from horrible entrometriosis, resulting in a hysterectomy when I was 42 years old. I believe my total menopause symptoms lasted all of 3 days, and since that time, never had any. also, i do not take estrogent replacement becuase of all the bad things I hear about it. I am now 64 years old, have been happily married for 17 years and have an active life with my husband. AS I said, I was lucky, except for never being able to have children.

Mona Marie

I didn't do anything but celebrate and loved it. Had no problems!

laalaaquilter

I've just toughed it out. Night sweats started at 42. Went through the change in menstrual cycles and hot flashes and celebrated more than one year without one back in May, and not yet 50. (October, yea ;-| ) I had heard of natural stuff like St Johns Wort etc but didn't know about giving up sugar or uping the vitamin E.

Still have the occasional hot flash but not like before. My sister the advanced practice nurse tells me they continue with decreased frequency until death. That we lose the ability to cool quickly after becoming over-heated. She is better educated on this than I and at 13 years my senior, more personally experienced as well (lucky me!!). Told me it would take ten years but I started early (relatively, for someone with no medical issues) and finished quickly (8 years instead of 10).

ptquilts

I have been taking Flaxseed Oil and black Cohosh. Eating a mainly vegetarian diet. Still had "power surges" especially bothersome at night.

Added one 400IU vitamin E a day and started adding soy (milk and flour) to my diet, HOT FLASHES WENT AWAY COMPLETELY!!

Fingers are crossed, it has been a couple of months, but it is SO nice not to have the hot flashes. I am 55 and still having irregular periods.(one every 3months or so).

Sweeterthanwine

Ditto - same thing happened to me. Still have night sweats once in a while and I'm almost 70. :thumbdown:

Ps 150

There was a study on that! I read it 3 years ago when I had my surgery. It concluded that Premarin was safe to take but only for a SHORT time. Anything longer than 3-5 years could lead to cancer. Scary!

Ps 150

Same story here, though my hyst was at 26. I didn't even know I had it. The doctors first discovered it when I was a minor and having extremely painful mestruations. Instead of discussing it with me, they informed my parents about the endo and cysts and asked to do a hyst at 16 but my Dad refused to give permissiong (praise God!). However, I lived with my mother but she didn't tell me about the endo and so I found out the hard way--when I went to the ER for appendicitis, they found it and told me about the previous discovery. But, since I was so young at 26, the surgeon insisted I take HRT's and now I'm taking an ERT. Not sure what a safe age/time frame would be to get rid of these.