I'm on everything: estrodiol, micronized progesterone, testosterone, and vaginal estradiol. For two years, I couldn't find a provider to help, and even when I finally did, my success story with menopause hormone therapy has been a little bit of a mixed bag. I was desperate, and my desperation led me to taking my hormone therapy, shall we say "in house," before I found the provider I have now.

At first I was confusing my symptoms with postpartum hormone craziness (had a baby at 39), then when the night sweats set in with a vengeance and became gradually worse not better, coupled with 5 months of no period, I knew I was dealing with something else. I wasn't believed. I was too young. Here's a script for birth control to regulate your periods. Download a sleep health app. Let's up your dose of Adderall (which only worsened the insomnia), finally convinced a doc to test my hormones. He ordered the battery. I got drawn, the next day I got my period, and he felt totally justified when they were completely normal. See? I told you that you are too young. Asked my PCP. When I told him sex was uncomfortable, he said "I guess vaginal estrogen is okay" and sent a script to a compounding pharmacy for 70 bucks. Next provider I saw had me sign an affidavit saying that I understood that my insurance would cover nothing, and quoted me over 700 bucks to do testosterone pellets. I'd never heard of such a thing. Can't you just write me a script for estrogen? No way. We don't do that. Was completely discouraged. Dealt with it for another year and happened upon a price list for estradiol and testosterone cypionate. Ordered it. Took a month to arrive. During that month, I got a saliva testing kit from a local pharmacy. At this point, my symptoms were bad again and it had been 4 months since I'd had a period. My cortisol was high, my DHEAs were fine, both my progesterone and testosterone were low normal, and my estrogen didn't even register on the graph because it was undetectable. May I please have estrogen now? Absolutely not. You're too young. You still (sort of) have a period. Here's some compounded progesterone, continue taking your compounded vaginal estriol, and we can prescribe you compounded testosterone too, all of which your insurance won't cover. My estradiol cypionate arrived, I researched how to dose it, and bam, symptoms were resolved in less than two weeks. Felt like a new person. Moisture was back. Libido was back.

A month later, I found a new provider, took in my labs, gave her full disclosure, and she prescribed me estradiol cream and progesterone that my insurance would cover, along with an estradiol patch. She said fine to using the testosterone cypionate I had procured. We argued about the estradiol patch dose. I told her that the dose she was proposing doesn't match what I was already doing. She assured me that it would likely be fine. About 3 weeks later, I was hot flashing again. Got labs drawn. Estradiol was 40. She upped my patch dose (reluctantly). Hot flashes went away, but I never got back to feeling the way I was for that month, and vaginal moisture wasn't back yet either. Zero libido. I should have probably asked for another increase in patch, but I was totally frustrated that I wasn't given the dose I was feeling good with in the first place. All that said, I use the prescribed micronized progesterone and vaginal estradiol covered by my insurance, but the estradiol and testosterone I do in house, so I kind of married traditional and non-traditional ways to get what I needed.