Menopause 101 for newbie?

I used HRT for 3 months and it didn't make much difference in my experiences so I chose to stop. My menopause symptoms were very mild.

I saw a doctor yesterday who is in the practice with my surgeon. He has a totally different idea about hrt and said they should have scheduled the appointment with my surgeon because he is the one who knows how much scarring there was and if there is any leftover endometriosis. The big fear is to give me estrogen and have the endo come back. He gave me a lower dose of Ambien which I plan to try. I can deal with the hot flashes but it is the insomnia and mood swings and having times where I feel like I am totally out of it that are very hard to deal with. Everyone is so different that some people have no problems. The doctor I saw yesterday said that the practice by most doctors is to wait six months to starve my body of estrogen but he did say the surgeon I had will often give it earlier especially if symptoms are severe. He saw how bad mine were and got me in to see my surgeon in two weeks so I am ok with it. My symptoms are not improving but then again I did have major setback six weeks from surgery. This may be why it is not getting better in addition to my Crohn's which has decided to join the party. Hopefully you will be fine and your body will adjust to it without problems. Sending you best wishes for an easy surgery and easy recovery.

My doc told me that his opinion was that it was more dependent on age. I'm 34, so he thinks my body will be more sensitive to the loss of estrogen. They will give me a shot of estrogen that is supposed to last a month in recovery before I even wake up, so I should have minimal problems. Then he said after that we can figure out what works for me, patches or pills. Not likely the vaginal rings because I had a lot of pain with Nuva Ring to suppress my endometriosis.

He told me he thought I should be on HRT for 7 to 10 years, to get me to the same time frame my body would have slowed down anyway. Then he will switch me to Evista or something like it.

Good Luck!