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Hi. I'm 56, haven't had a period since 2000, so I'm definitely post menapausal.

I've never been on the WP, thank goodness, otherwise I would feel worse than I

do now. I am now off all hormones for a little over a month.

My journey in BHRT began about 2 1/2 years ago. Last summer, I started feeling

jittery/nervous I was under a lot of stress at the time and attributed it to

that, not the hormones. We are taught by the drs. that BHRT is supposed to make

you feel good. The nervousness was so bad by Sept. my dr. prescribed Ativan,

which ultimately gave me full blown anxiety. I've been off the Ativan since

March this year. That is some nasty stuff!

To continue, I switched hormone drs. and had saliva done by ZRT in Sept. It

showed my progesterone was 22888! So they had me repeat the test. In Oct. it

was 3676, still way too high! The new hormone dr. cut back my dose of topical

progesterone by half (I was on 100 ml a day). I started feeling better after 2

weeks, but didn't stop the Ativan. Don't ask my why, I think I was just really

messed up at that point. Well, I started feeling worse again, so my

progesterone level was raised to 75 ml a day. It has been a roller coaster ride

ever since. After going to 2 more hormone drs. I was switched to oral

progesterone. The last one, a nurse practioner, kept playing with the doses

with me (50 mg a day, 75 mg a day, 100 mg a day, 150 mg a day-oral progesterone)

I'd get better, then worse. Didn't matter what dose I was on, I still felt

jittery. No one said, it must be the progesterone making you jittery.

It took going to an endocronologist who told me to get off all hormones, before

I started feeling better. I didn't quit cold turkey, but weaned off over a

period of several weeks. The testosterone and estrogen weren't a problem. The

progesterone has been a problem. It took 2 weeks before I felt a bit better off

the progesterone. For 2 more weeks I felt like I had hit a plateau with several

bad days mixed in. For the past several days, I've started feeling better again.

I've found the longer I'm off, the better I feel

Through doing a lot of research recently, I found progesterone isn't necessarily

the " feel good hormone " everyone says it is. There are a lot of women out there

who have had really bad results with it, even at low doses.

Some odd things I've noticed recently is my spelling has gotten really bad (I'm

normally good), I had a foot infection caused by a rare bacteria the dr. had

never seen before. I had a cold that turned into an upper respiratory, and I'm

very sensitive to medications now. Even magnesium makes me jittery and I've

taken that in conjunction with my calcium for years! Consequently, I'm only

taking a low dose aspirin for heart health every day. That's it. Also sensitive

to smells now too.

I'm just wondering how long it takes to get this the progesterone out of my

system so I can feel " normal " again? Anything I can do to help get it out of my

system? The only thing I've found that helps relieve the jitteriness (besides

time) is weight bearing exercise.

Also, I'm in the DFW area. Anyone else from this area who has a dr. who " gets

it " that has helped them?

Sorry this post is so long, but I'm sure you guys are used to us newbies having

really long posts!

Helen