An uneventful year on HRT and why Menopause Hormone Therapy aren't miracle drugs

It’s been almost a year since I started on my HRT journey and I can say it’s been fully uneventful. 

A lot of noise coming out of the meno-sphere makes these hormones sound like miracle drugs, but that's simply not true. I can’t say it was like a giant light switch and suddenly everything in my life got better. There was no big change in my daily experience.  But looking back on where I was a year ago versus where I am now I can see there’s been a definite shift. 

Over the past year I’ve noticed:

The ability to self-regulate before I melt down. 

Better sleep.

Feeling comfortable in my skin. 

Not getting worked up at every little thing. 

Things that seemed to subsided over time - fading into the background like someone turning down the volume. 

But isn’t 41 too young to be in perimenopause?  

Short answer is no. Female hormones peak at age 30 and start declining slowly over the next decade or so. Perimenopause is pretty much anything and everything that happens before menstruation stops and can last anywhere from 3-10+ years. If the average age of menopause is between 45-55 then I’m right on track. 

What’s more probable is that I happened to catch it early. Where many women might wait until several years into the journey to seek out help or Menopause Hormone Therapy (MHT), I was lucky to have care within the first year of noticing any changes.  

Then how did you know you were perimenopausal?

I didn’t. Not right away. The periods were getting less predictable, but I could often attribute it to stress or illness or life happenings. When I tore both my ACLs it made me wonder if there was something more happening. 

I started birth control again just to see if that helped anything, but it wasn’t until 3-4 months in when I reached the placebo week of my birth control that I experienced a hot flush and I realized “My body REALLY wants estrogen!”

Fortunately I got an appointment with a menopause specialist and after a quick chat she confirmed what I was experiencing and we were on our way. 

Feeling trapped by life?

If that hadn’t happened I probably wouldn’t have started MHT, honestly. I thought I was fine.  There were no big night sweats, no big mood swings, no overwhelming hot flashes to point to. But looking back on it now I can see how easy it was to explain things away. 

I was navigating one of the most challenging moments of my life - two torn ACLs, my mother’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s, my husband’s job disappearing and the subsequent flurry of doctors appointments, treatments and PT. 

So many of the things that had been deteriorating for months I chalked up to stress: sleep, periods, anxiety, mood, focus, resiliency. 

I kept telling myself that once I got through this phase things would settle down and it would probably go away… 🫠

But life doesn’t really work like that, does it?

What do you wish other women knew about HRT/MHT?

Today, in spite of everything I was going through over the past 18 months, I find I actually have more capacity in my system today than I did a year ago. And while MHT doesn’t feel like some miraculous cure-all, it has been life-restoring for me in helping me to stay grounded and connected to myself. 

Not only is there capacity in me to navigate all the things, but I’m getting better and better at singing.  I’m delighting in the little moments with my family. I’m able to find stillness in the eye of the storm and take it all one day at a time. 

I’m grateful to have found something that helps me feel more fully myself as I navigate all the transitions life has been bringing me this year. 

I share this because I think there are a lot of women who don’t know what to think about Hormone Therapy. "It raises breast cancer risk", "it prevents breast cancer", "it will ruin your voice", "it can save your voice", "it will give you uterine cancer", "your bones will disintegrate without it"

… there’s so much noise to take in around perimenopause and the worst part is that most of it is sensationalized and inaccurate. 

The truth is Menopause Hormone Therapy aren't miracle drugs. They aren’t going to help you lose weight or build muscle or make you feel like a twenty year old again. And it's unfair to promise those kinds of results to women when the data shows otherwise. These drugs can help alleviate symptoms of perimenopause and they can help you feel a little less crazy, a little more normal in a world that feels like it’s constantly saying “hold my beer”. 

And sometimes all you need to feel and function better is just to feel a little less crazy.