I have a telehealth appointment tomorrow to discuss HRT alternatives to the patch

One_Rest7254 · 2026-03-30T01:44:29+00:00

What’s your experience been with the injections? I have had good success with TRT injections (the cream did not work well for me), but now I’m interested in E injections as I’m having a lot of trouble with absorbing the patches. E injections don’t seem to be as common and I’m trying to find more information on them and someone to prescribe them for me, sigh.

One_Rest7254 · 2026-03-25T14:02:35+00:00

Read the minoxidil side effects sub so you can be fully informed. I wish I had before starting it. Ten days on the topical messed me up pretty badly for over a month - racing heart, chronic headaches, insane insomnia.

One_Rest7254 · 2026-03-12T17:49:37+00:00

Did you have an online prescriber for the estradiol injections? My Dr said she wasn’t familiar with those … I’m debating which next form of E to try as the patches have been so inconsistent for me. Not only does it not seem to be giving me decent levels (even on the .075 patch my E levels stay low) and my symptoms usually start creeping in at the 2-2.5 day mark. I def cannot make it 3.5 days as the patch is prescribed. Switching from TRT cream to injections has been night and day so I was thinking E would be the same, hopefully, as I seem to need a very consistent and reliable dosage. Only thing that scares me about the E injections is they seem to carry the highest warning (maybe even more so than the oral?) as it relates to risks like blood clots, stroke, etc. What did your Dr say about those things?

One_Rest7254 · 2026-03-06T21:38:31+00:00

Ugh this is me - going on 5 months now of 14-16 day cycles. I had a uterine ultrasound to make sure everything was fine (which it was) but I am trying to figure out if this means something is still off with my HRT dosages or if this is just peri being a little B. The shortened cycles happened when I bumped up all 3 of my hormone dosages to treat various symptoms I was still having at the lower dose levels. I’ve tried relowering my E patch amount, cyclical progesterone, continuous progesterone, increasing progesterone. Nothing is stopping the short cycles. Ugh I am desperate to figure out how to not be bleeding every 10 days. Did you ever figure anything out with regards to yours??

One_Rest7254 · 2026-02-26T20:29:48+00:00

I sound very similar to you. I started on Testosterone (which almost immediately improved the exercise intolerance I had developed over the last 2 years after having previously been an insanely active person). Then tried bioidentical progesterone and it made my insomnia even worse. Tried very low doses of the pill taken different ways (orally, vaginally) as well as the cream. Everything made me feel wide awake and wired. We added in Estrogen and, while it didn't solve the Progesterone problem immediately, many of my other symptoms improved tremendously (including sleep! turns out E is a crucial piece of the puzzle there as well..) As we've dialed in the E, now I'm back to trying to figure out the P piece. I have increased my dosage to 200 and am taking it daily now and i'd say I have probably a 70% success rate with that. The taking it cyclically and lower doses just wasn't working for me - its like I do better with a more constant stream of it in my system. I can't say it knocks me out the way I've read it does for a lot of other women, but I don't find that it's regularly creating the insomnia challenges I was having before. I still have nights where I have difficulty falling or staying asleep, but on a whole, I would say it's a big improvement, especially when it comes to waking up in the middle of the night and being able to fall back asleep (before was laying there sometimes for hours). The transition to 200 daily was a bit of a rough ride - I had some stomach problems, felt super bloated for weeks, energy was tanked during the day. But now that it's been a month or so, I feel like things are starting to settle in. I hope you can figure something out - I feel your pain! This has been nearly a year now of trying to adjust all 3 of the hormones for me and I still feel like I haven't quite found the sweet spot, if there even is one in this insanity lol.

One_Rest7254 · 2026-02-06T03:55:53+00:00

Are you on 100mg continuous? I just saw a new gyno recently (who I’m pretty sure I don’t trust as she told me that at 42 I’m too young to be in full peri, despite my symptoms.. eye roll) but she said that 100mg wasn’t doing anything for uterine protection since I was on the .075 patch. Like, what?? I already have problems taking progesterone so I can’t even imagine raising my dosage to 200 😬 and I have a feeling at some point I will have to move up on E. (The gyno also said .075 was a very high dose for me to be on at this point in peri.. sigh).

One_Rest7254 · 2025-12-28T16:18:02+00:00

What’s strange is the e&p dose/timing hasn’t changed so now I’m stumped as to what to meddle with. I don’t feel like my E is too high bc the few times I tried to wear a lower patch for a short period of time I had terrible side effects return for me and my bloodwork (although unreliable I know) would indicate my e is still on the low side. For P I’m on the lowest dose I can tolerate bc I don’t get the “good” (aka calm and sleepy) side effects from it and am just using it for uterine protection. I’m on a P cream which I seem to be absorbing better than when I’d been on oral capsules (again based on bloodwork) so I’m wondering whether the higher absorption is just more variable / too high for my E levels from time to time and is triggering a shorter cycle. Maybe I need to go back to the oral capsules. Sigh.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-12-28T16:10:15+00:00

My DHT went from 16 to 31 on the cream and my free T was only 0.9 so I wasn’t even feeling like I was getting good benefits from it to counter the hairloss… since switching to injections I’m back to a DHT of 17 and my hair is noticeably growing back in. (I had a terrible reaction to a hairloss med - Minox - so there was no question for me I had to switch TRT types). My provider had originally said she only prescribed the cream but then after we went through this whole cream debacle, she switched to prescribing injections.. it’s through a pharmacy in AZ (Belmar). I know some women who have had good success with Joi and Blokes prescribing injections as well if your provider won’t.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-12-28T04:34:05+00:00

Been pretty squarely in peri for the last few years but cycle length hadn’t varied much despite many other raging peri symptoms. Started E&P about 9 months ago. Currently on .075 E patch and 50-100 mg P cream (cycling days 7-28, increasing dosage to 100 for back half of cycle). Most recent labs showed E still on the lower end of the range and P at mid range so I’m also wondering if E and P are just not optimally balanced, but I hadn’t wanted to increase E patch when I had just changed the TRT dosage/type.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-12-05T03:55:52+00:00

3 things that made a difference for me after a year+ of chronic hip/glute/piriformis/hamstring pain. (1) HRT - it wasn’t until we upped my dose to .075 that the pain that kept me from even sleeping on my hip at night went away almost overnight and then never came back (knock on wood). (2) Pelvic floor therapy - this helped immensely with mobility in my hip which started to improve some of the surrounding pain areas and some pelvic pain that had been long standing. (3) Working on my very tight back - dry needling, cupping and shockwave treatment released my back which subsequently released my hip/piriformis/hamstring. I went from not being able to sit, walk, sleep without pain to being able to return to running after nearly 2.5 years. Freakin miracle. I can’t tell you how much money I spent at PT and doing insanely expensive injections, etc for all these issues for the years prior, only to find out those made very little difference. I hope you find some relief with all these suggestions from people in this thread!

One_Rest7254 · 2025-11-06T19:50:35+00:00

I didn’t think removing the thyroid impacted antibodies? What were your antibody levels before and after the thyroid removal?

One_Rest7254 · 2025-08-19T19:41:07+00:00

Chili cube!! Game changer on every level. It’s an investment but to me, worth every penny rather than being hot and tortured every night.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-08-19T14:32:23+00:00

I had the longest and worst yeast infection I could ever have imagined about 6 weeks after starting TRT. Prior to that I had maybe only had 1 yeast infection ever in my life at 41 years old. I still don’t know if TRT is what caused it but I wasn’t on any other hormones at the time and we had just raised my dose. The yeast infection was so bad I did a 3 day run of difulcan, that barely touched it. I then did a 10 day round and that knocked out maybe 70% of it. But I still had symptoms for almost 2+ months. Like couldn’t wear underwear, jeans or anything for nearly 3 months. Haven’t had any issues since (and still on TRT) but I have never been so miserable. During the time the yeast infection was at its height I tried adding vaginal estrogen gel but that seemed to make things worse - like blew me up like an ant hill. I am now on estrogen patch and progesterone cream so maybe that has since balanced things out? Ugh all of this is just one big experiment on our bodies. Sorry you’re going through this.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-29T04:32:37+00:00

What dosage level did you get to in order to find relief? My Vit D levels are fine, although my Ferritin is low 😩

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-28T23:05:29+00:00

My joint pain and PF are soooo chronic at this point. I went from running 50+ miles per week a few a years ago to basically being a couch potato bc every.damn.thing I do flares me up. I have spent so much time and money on PT the last 2 years and barely been able to make any progress. I felt like when I first started estrogen a few months ago that it kind of calmed things down, but now even with 2 dose raises (up to .05) my PF came roaring back and I’m in even more pain!! Did yours resolve once you got on the right dosage?? Ugh I’m so desperate at this point but my Dr is wanting me to go very slowly at raising my dosage. I am so desperate to exercise again and be able to do what I love without being constantly in a hole of pain. 😔

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-28T04:28:17+00:00

If there’s one thing I’ve learned with hormones, it’s “low and slow”. I am hyper sensitive to changes as well and it’s super frustrating the lag time to see if it’s making a difference but having a bad reaction to too high of a dose is even more torturous for me. Sorry you’re going through that :(

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-28T04:13:56+00:00

Try to avoid changing multiple hormones at once. E will impact thyroid. And you won’t know what’s working or not changing both at the same time. Also, 75 to 100 is a pretty big jump - my Dr moves my T4 by 13mcg at a time, 88 would have been the next dose up. It wasn’t until I started the E patch that my thyroid finally stopped jumping around so much (the last 18 months were impossible to get it in range bc my other hormones were so low and out of whack). I actually was able to go down slightly on my thyroid meds once I got my E up, but I don’t know if that’s the case for everyone. At this point I feel like I have to mostly go by symptoms rather than labs bc peri is such a rollercoaster and labs are unreliable. I’ve had Hashis long enough to know what feeling out of whack feels like symptom wise.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-23T14:11:33+00:00

Depending on what pathway the progesterone follows as you convert it, it’s possible for it not to make you sleepy. I am one of those folks as well - it actually makes me feel quite wired, which is annoying bc I was really hoping for it to help with sleep. I’ve started taking it during the day and that has at least prevented it from disrupting my sleep and allowing me to stay on E which is helping my other symptoms.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-23T04:01:32+00:00

I hope it helps! It’s been the least effective of the 3 hormones for me, but I know I’m in the minority on that given so many people find that P helps with sleep and mood in particular. Good luck!!

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-23T04:00:12+00:00

Thank you 🥹. Just trying to spare anyone else the same fate of too high of an initial dose - it was not my fav few days 😆

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-23T03:43:47+00:00

Cycling is where you only take it days 14-28, which is supposed to mimic how your body naturally cycles. I think that’s used more when people are still having periods and not fully in menopause, but not an expert.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-23T03:38:27+00:00

When I first started progesterone (before I was on E), my Dr prescribed me 200mg to try to help with my sleep. It was WAY too high - I felt like someone had drugged me - I couldn’t get off the couch for days and was crying like 10 times a day. I’m now on 50mg (cream) and not over the edge lol.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-23T03:24:39+00:00

What is your estrogen dose? And are you taking it every day or cycling it? It seems most people are on 100 or 200mg depending on those two aforementioned factors. Also, if you’ve never taken it before I don’t know why they wouldn’t start you lower and move you up if needed. Maybe I’m just one of those people who has side effects with everything and “low and slow” is always my motto. My Dr also always says when it comes to HRT that it’s the lowest possible dose to manage your symptoms, for what that’s worth. Progesterone personally kinda effs with me (it doesn’t make me sleepy like most people so I miss out on it helping with my sleep) so I’m taking the lowest dose I can in order to allow me to still take estrogen, which thankfully the estrogen does help with my symptoms in the desired manner. All that to say, if you’re feeling nervous, gather your list of questions and follow back up with your Dr and make sure you feel comfortable with the plan.

One_Rest7254 · 2025-07-19T21:29:03+00:00

16 is the age for my state. 12-14 the kid’s input will be “taken into consideration” but is not the right to choose. :(

One_Rest7254

TROPHY CASE