Hormone replacement

Hi, everyone. I want to say thank you to everyone that will help me and listen to me. I am 34yrs. I had a complete Hyst. in 1999. Ever since than my life has been hell. If it is not one thing it's another. It took me a year to say I feel a bit better. My main concern still is hormone replacement. After the surgery I was placed on a patch, but that didn't work at all. I was than placed on ESTRATES it help a little but I had bad night sweats and was not able to sleep. SO the doc gave me ESTRATES & CENESTINE. It was alot better but than I notice I was all ways moody. I would cry with out reason mad all the time. I had no control of myself. I started to gain a lot of weight. I went back to the doc and he adds SYNTHROID to my meds. After a year my weight was worse my hot flashes were so bad I would pass out. All the weight I gain was in my belly. My belly is so big I look 6 months pregnant. So I decide to go see a nutritionist. She took me off all the meds and gave me DEH .25mg. I was doing well for a while. But for the past year I have been feeling weak, tired, more weight gain, can't sleep and hot flashes, night sweat and mood swings are bad. I had to change doc because of my insurance. The doc I have now put me on Premiering. We started at a low does now I am up to 1.25mg. He tells me that this is ESTROGEN and that I should not have weight gain from it. He also told me that he doesn't want to give me PROGESTERONE cause it puts me at highs risk of breast cancer. But I have spoke to other people and My mom talked to her doc and he said ESTROGEN puts me at high risk not PROGESTERONE. Can anyone please help me? I am going crazy. What about the weight gain around the belly were does it come from if not from the med or surgery. Please Help.

Welcome to the jungle!

I was just asking myself that how does one understand what does what mean when the research is so limited.

Some of what I have been reading about Estrogen vs progesterone.
"Natural progesterone cream" by C. Norman Shealy MD
"What your doctor may not tell you about menopause" by John Lee Md
"Screaming to be heard & women, weight and hormones" by Elizabeth Vliet MD
"The testosterone syndrome" by Eugene Shippen MD.

Dr. Vliet helps with an article on her site: Herplace.com called "Making sense of the Hormone Hysteria."

When dotors say Estrogen is the cause of this or that its the same as saying Men cause babys! Its a true statement but has many hidden factors that don't make it true. Like estrogen there are many types and each have a different affect on our bodies.

Doctor Lee in his book is anti-estrogen of all kinds and pro-progesterone but progesterone is a dominate hormone of pregnancies. I don't want to feel pregnant all the time. He also uses the estrogen reserach done on premarin and prempro ( pregnent horse mare urine) which are limited studies on grouped estrogens.

Dr. Vliet focuses her results on 17-bata estradiol, one of many estrogens in the body in fact its the weakest link of estrogens. Its the last estrogen to be converted from the list of higher level hormones directly from testosterone.

I'm on the climara patch which is 17- bata estradiol and I look at it this way. A team is only as strong as its weaks player so by adding 17- bata estradiol to the body it is like giving the weakest player a helping handing.

Any Hormone treatment is or should be based on the whole team of hormones and gland production in the body. By saying this is the problem or that hormone is the problem is and unblanced statment. It could be else where in the body causing the problem or a life style.
I hope I didn't add to your confusion.